KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN MALAYSIAN SMEs: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) SUPPORT AND STRATEGY AS PLAN

This research study demonstrates the important of the knowledge creation process. It helps to demonstrate that knowledge management enablers, including IT-support and Strategy as Plan can promote organizational creativity and thus organizational performance. Further, the findings on the new factor, Strategy as Plan, show that it is positively related to knowledge creation. Strategy as Plan can therefore be regarded as an integral part of knowledge creation. This reaffirms Glueck’s (1980, p.9) views of strategy as “a unified, comprehensive, and integrated plan…. designed to ensure that the basic objectives of the enterprise are achieved”. Therefore it can be argued that the best path for Malaysian SMEs to achieve organizational performance is through organizational creativity achieved through a knowledge creation process that involves knowledge enablers.