Readiness for Knowledge Management, Methods and Environments for Innovation

Nowadays many European small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are not ready for significant required international social and economic changes. Some of them have focused on approaches of knowledge management (KM) as an enabler for their innovation capability, but these have failed. One of the most critical but important aspect to be considered when developing Knowledge Management Strategies in companies to support Process, Organizational and/or Marketing Innovation is an evaluation of KM readiness. The next step after conducting KM readiness assessment is to use the results of the KM readiness for the development of KM approaches supporting the innovation. In this chapter we put forward a method of determining the readiness of SMEs for KM, discuss how to improve links between KM practices and innovation and give examples of methods like the Innovation Biographies (IB). Finally we present knowledge intensive Communities of Practice (CoPs) supported through Web 2.0 as suitable environments to foster innovation within SMEs.