Knowledge Management as an Integral Component of the SMEs’ Organizational Development in the Republic of Macedonia

Abstract

The strong progress and development of the information technology, especially the availability and massive use of the Internet, has led to that the 90-ies of the last century to be remembered as a period of quiet and spontaneous transition towards the new postindustrial age in which the soft values of the organizations defined in the terms organizational learning, knowledge management, intellectual capital, organizational intelligence etc., transformed the knowledge into a key resource for sustainable growth and innovative development of each company.Therefore, it is rightly pointed out that the central task of the modern managers is to learn how to manage the business knowledge, i.e., to understand the principles of knowledge networking and its effective use through the technological, human and business networks. This directs towards creation of appropriate strategies, including the strategy for development of the organizational knowledge as a planned and deliberated managing process in the new technology – productive and economic context.Although the inertia makes many organizations in the country to still act traditionally, the reality shows them the dysfunction and unsustainability of such way of operating. Emphasis on the so called “sharers of knowledge communities” which increasingly pose themselves as a real business context, should lead also in our country to a shift of the focus of interest towards the knowledge, the communities and relationships. This should be preceded by a period of change and development of awareness for the importance of the interpersonal dependence as an aspect of the appropriate organizational culture, which in many researches emerges as a central variable of the change.In this context, the processes of re-cultivation is necessary to lead toward values such as: free flow of knowledge, readiness for initiating, accepting, creating, sharing, etc., as a basis of the new culture of organizational learning and knowledge management.The basic assumption of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the knowledge for the SMEs i.e. their awareness of its place and role as a fundamental resource in the circumstances of modern business. Therefore, a simple methodological procedure is used - a survey conducted on a sample of 201 organizations from the SME sector in the cities of Skopje, Bitola, Ohrid, Prilep, Kumanovo, Kavadarci, Resen, Krushevo and Demir Hisar. Indicative results have been obtained that point to valid conclusions.

Keywords: knowledge management, change, organizational development