Enara Zarrabeitia

Knowledge Management Practices in SME: Case Study in Basque Country SME

In a competitive market like the current one, knowledge and its management have become the best partner to generate competitive advantages in small and medium enterprises. It is important for country economic development that SMEs, as main source of wealth, manage their intangible resources to continue creating value, both business and social, and get to be leader in an international and competitive market, in order to gain advantages to present difficult situation due to financial crisis. Therefore, this research study analyzes what the current situation of Knowledge Management in Basque Country SMEs is. More specifically, the use of Knowledge Management practices and strategies for capture explicit and tacit knowledge have been studied in depth, in order to identify what practices and knowledge capture strategies are the most frequent and what activity sector and size of SME, by number of employees, are using them more intensely.

Innovation in Cost Management. A Comparison Between Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) and Value Stream Costing (VSC) in an Auto-Parts Factory

This paper deals with two new approaches to cost accounting: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) and Value Stream Costing (VSC). First, the paper introduces both methods, focusing on TDABC. Next, we analyse the experience of an auto parts manufacturer who shifted from ABC to TDABC. Finally, we test how both methods work in a multiproduct/multi-process manufacturing environment adapted from reality, and we compare them. Although their aims are very different, they yield similar results.

Laser Additive Manufacturing: A Patent Overview

Additive manufacturing technologies have the potential to change the paradigm of manufacturing. In this scenario, the main objective of this research work is to gain, through a patent study, an overall view of the trends of laser-based additive manufacturing technologies. The database used in order to retrieve patent information is Patseer and the data have been analyzed through the text mining and analytics package called VantagePoint. From the data obtained it can be concluded that, Laser-based additive manufacturing is an emerging technology with huge market potential. Undoubtedly, China is the prime mover of basic research in this technology development. However, Germany and the United States are the ones who are developing the market applications.

Is competitive position associated to intensity in competitive intelligence activities

The aim is to research Competitive Intelligence (CI) activities in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Spain. An attempt is made to analyze the differences existing between exporting and non-exporting firms. To this end, a questionnaire was distributed among 425 firms of the industry, selected from a list of innovative organizations. The results, highlighted significant differences exist between exporting and non-exporting firms in the intensity of CI activities depending on their competitive positioning. An evolution of Spanish SMEs is noted as far as CI activities are concerned, as there are an ever-increasing number of firms that have established formal procedures.