Knowledge Management, Innovations Systems, and Firm Performance

Small and medium sized-enterprise managers are unable to effectively manage employees’ knowledgeability and innovation systems successfully, which results in negative firm performance. Managers who do not consider employee knowledge management and the benefits related to innovation systems experience financial hardships within the organization. Grounded in the unified model of dynamic organizational knowledge creation theory, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between knowledge management, innovation systems, and firm performance. Data were collected using SurveyMonkey to gather online survey responses from 80 small and medium-sized enterprise managers in California. The results of the standard multiple linear regression analysis showed the full model was statistically significant in distinguishing the relationship between knowledge management, innovation systems, and firm performance, F (2, 80) = 51.98, p = \u3c .001, R2 = .574. A key recommendation is for managers to understand how to create, develop, transfer, share, and deploy employee knowledge sources when using innovation systems within the organization. The implications for positive social change include the potential to provide managers with an understanding of how to increase innovation success, organizational performance, and the social wellbeing of workers and their families within communities