Knowledge and enterprises in developing countries: evidences from Chile

ABSTRACT: Knowledge management is a fundamental tool in order to obtain competitive advantages in organizations. In this paper, we present an interesting study about how enterprises in a developing country like Chile manage their knowledge by using variables linked with three interesting concepts related to knowledge: innovation, learning, and knowledge sharing. From this information, six clusters of enterprises and two special cases with different behaviors in knowledge management and different results are identified. From this information, some conclusions are extracted: (1) clusters 4 and 5 are the best in knowledge management (best results) and, thus, other enterprises should replicate their behaviors; (2) the Government of Chile should promote more knowledge management in order to improve the country’s performance; (3) chemical industry is highlighted like one of the most important one related to knowledge; and finally, (4) enterprises with a high investment in knowledge are also enterprises with high results. These results are very interesting in order to understand the knowledge activity in a developing country like Chile.The authors thank to Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project ECO2010-15455) for partial support of this work