SMEs managing organisational knowledge in the 4IR era: A case study of developing countries

At the current moment, the whole world is talking about the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution and the impact it will have on everyone including businesses, the government, academic fraternity and the general population at large. Academics and businesses are working on finding a road map for implementing this new phenomenon. However, it is of paramount importance to understand that organizational knowledge needs to remain in the organisation. Therefore, the question is how can SMEs manage the organizational knowledge in the 4th Industrial era? This question is posed because many things will change because of the 4IR. This is a qualitative approach where numerous articles were reviewed and a framework was proposed. It was discovered that despite a number of challenges that SMEs are encountering in developing countries such as lack of finance, lack of skilled employees and key employees leaving the organisation, they will have to be participants in the 4IR era. This study is original because there is limited research in the adoption of the 4IR in SMEs and managing knowledge during the 4IR era. Further research must be done on the technological techniques that can be used by SMEs to managing knowledge.