The relationship between knowledge management strategic orientation and business strategic orientation among SMEs

Little is known about how Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) practise Knowledge Management (KM) from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Some research has been conducted in this field but from a western cultural perspective. Research on KM and SMEs in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia is limited. The research reported in this paper investigated KM strategic orientations and business strategic orientations in Saudi Arabian SMEs. The research involved the development of a theoretical framework relating to KM strategies and business strategies. Three KM strategies were proposed: aggressive, conservative and balanced and were linked to Miles and Snow’s typology: prospectors, defenders and analysers respectively. The empirical research involved a survey of Saudi Arabian SMEs. A total of 143 SMEs, participated in the survey. The results indicate that the proposed classifications and relationships between KM strategic dimensions were valid. It further shows that there was an association between business strategy and KM strategy exists and the proposed linkage between: prospectors and aggressive KM strategy, defenders and conservative KM strategy and analysers and balanced KM strategy were mostly confirmed but with some inconsistency regarding knowledge breadth dimensions.<br />