Abstract
This paper analyses the topic of Knowledge Management in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which operate as suppliers in the high-tech industry. Nowadays, SMEs need to grow quickly in the local and global market. In order to achieve this aim it emerges the necessity to adopt information tools and technologies supporting the processes of knowledge acquisition and diffusion to improve business and collaboration opportunities among the supply network actors. The main aim of this paper is to define the functional requirements of a collaborative platform for knowledge management by analysing the business cooperation environment. This platform will be implemented in a sample of SMEs belonging to the “Polo High Tech di Napoli Est”. The paper is divided into two sections: the first section deals with the economic industries in which selected SMEs operate, their products/services, their competences; the second section analyses the common requirements for SMEs in order to define the basic functions of the platform for knowledge management within the supply chain. The survey has been carried out on the base of semi-structured interviews that have involved a heterogeneous sample of firms operating in the aerospace industry and providing different products or services: components, systems, ICT, specialist training and consulting services. The heterogeneity of the sample firms is one of the key factors for the development of complementary functions, that make the supply chain flexible and responsive to the factors that come from the market and allow individual firms to manage complex projects in the supply network. Three main categories of factors have been analysed to define the platform’s functional requirements: the benefits that may arise from any use of a knowledge management platform, the factors that may hinder the adoption of a collaborative IT tool, the type of information that firms in the context of investigation are more inclined to share.
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