Entrepreneurship and the Application of Knowledge Management Practices in Ghana
Knowledge plays a critical role in businesses. It is regarded as a strategic asset and a source of competitive advantage for businesses and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it creates entrepreneurial opportunities for small and medium scale businesses, which intern fuels the transformation of the economy from a managed economy to an entrepreneurial economy. The research set out to assessing knowledge management practices among entrepreneurs and how to use knowledge for competitive advantage. The qualitative research method was used to collect data from selected entrepreneurs operating on a smaller and medium scale in Ghana. The study revealed that there is a generally high level of familiarity, understanding, and application of knowledge and knowledge management by the entrepreneurs. Aside the tacit and explicit knowledge, there exist other types which include common knowledge, general knowledge, natural knowledge, and spiritual (divine) knowledge. They apply this knowledge in their day-to-day activities. Also, knowledge management practices such as knowledge creation, processing, storage, sharing, and knowledge experts were established to be highly present among the entrepreneurs. Despite these, the study revealed the absence of a knowledge management policy to guide and regulate knowledge management practices among the entrepreneur. It was again establish that the absence of trust, openness, motivation, government support among others as the key factors that prohibited effective knowledge management practices among the entrepreneurs.
