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The purpose of this paper is to propose a mathematical model that can quantitatively and vividly measure the current capability of enterprises by evaluating their existing knowledge inventory.

Knowledge management starts from assessing the current position of enterprises, visioning future intention, and then specifying knowledge objectives and formulating knowledge strategies. Along with this process, a critical component that must be realized in order to assist management in determining knowledge objective and strategies is the assessment of existing knowledge inventory.

The paper finds that enterprises can better position themselves by deciding realistic objectives and formulating achievable strategies.

The force that drives human history from agricultural age to industrial age, information age, and finally to the knowledge age was innovation, and the crucial element determining the level of products and services innovation lies in people. In other words, all innovations come from human resources, and knowledge enables human beings to be creative. Especially, in this global era with stiff competition, enterprises should create, manage and preserve knowledge better than their competitors in order to maintain competitive advantage, and therefore remain ever‐lasting existence.

Previous investigations mainly employed qualitative methods, such as questionnaire survey and in‐depth interviews, to explore knowledge management performance of enterprises.

The paper shows that by categorizing the knowledge inventory in terms of knowledge depth and width, enterprises would be able to formulate suitable knowledge strategies of accumulation, widening, deepening, or strengthening and specify proper learning strategies to bridge the knowledge gap to cope with the competition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of knowledge of inventory management practices (KIMP) on operational performance (OP) and business performance (BP). This study emphasized understanding the mediational effect of OPs among KIMP and BP in manufacturing firms of Indian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study analysed the above relationship from the data collected from 351 key officials of 170 Indian SMEs. The detailed analysis, including reliability, validity and testing hypothesis, was done in advanced SmartPLS-SEM 3.3.3 software.

The findings show that KIMP directly influences OP; thus, a company's OP significantly impacts the overall BP. The KIMP has no significant effect on BP. In line with this, the study findings demonstrate a significant, high mediation effect of OPs between KIMP and BP.

The KIMP on OP has been sparsely studied earlier, and neither have they conceptualized in understanding its impact on BP. In such tumultuous times, key manufacturing executives should stress the importance of KIMP as a comprehensive perspective.

The research mainly aims at the hotspot of inventory management by knowledge mapping and provides a visualization reference in this research field.

First, inventory management journals during 1986 to 2017 were selected as the research object and text formatting in the Web of Science (WOS) database is exported. Then inventory management knowledge mapping is done and clustering keywords are extracted by using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software. Based on co-word analysis, the three special clusters are exported: inventory optimization strategy, inventory pricing and inventory technology. Besides, the clustering structure and time evolution are analysed. Finally, bibliographic item co-occurrence matrix builder (BICOMB) was used to extract the “journal” and “researchers” keywords in the inventory management research fields. Setting three parameters such as the cited half-life, centrality, frequency and keywords for data mining, it can infer the trend keywords of future research.

Results showed that inventory management research has been abundant in literature over the past 30 years and has experienced a change from focusing on inventory optimization strategy to inventory pricing and inventory technology in process. It shows that inventory management research focused on the classic topics and includes economic order quantity, dynamic pricing, design and technology, and the new topics include channel coordination, hierarchical price and simulation.

Based on knowledge mapping, this study is still relatively macro and cannot cover all areas of inventory management. This study only investigated the state of correlational research in WOS and Google Trends and not additional databases.

The current research mainly builds on knowledge mapping for the research hotspot of inventory management and provides visual references for future research in this field.

Effective inventory management is crucial for SMEs due to limited resources and higher risks like cash flow, storage space, and stockouts. Hence, the aim is to explore how technology and know-how can be integrated with inventory practices and impact operational performance.

The basis of the analysis was collecting papers from a wide range of databases, which included Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. In the first phase of the process, a search string with as many as nine related keywords was used to obtain 175 papers. It further filtered them based on their titles and abstracts to retain 95 papers that were included for thorough analysis.

The study introduced innovative methods of measuring inventory practices by exploring the impact of know-how. It is the first of its kind to identify and demonstrate how technical, technological, and behavioral know-how can influence inventory management practices and ultimately impact the performance of emerging SMEs. This study stands out for its comprehensive approach, which covers traditional and modern inventory management technologies in a single study.

The study provides valuable insights into the interplay between technical, technological, and behavioral know-how in inventory management practices and their effects on the performance of emerging SMEs in Industry 5.0 in the light of RBV theory.

The RBV theory and the Industry 5.0 paradigm are used in this study to explore how developing SMEs' inventory management practices influence their performance. This study investigates the effects of traditional and modern inventory management systems on business performance. Incorporating RBV theory with the Industry 5.0 framework investigates firm-specific resources and technological advances in the current industrial revolution. This unique technique advances the literature on inventory management and has industry implications.

Over the past years, many studies have explored the role of knowledge management (KM) in companies. KM is concerned with the measurement of knowledge to manage knowledge efficiently. On the other hand, the intangible nature of knowledge makes its measurement challenging. Furthermore, there is no standardized method to measure knowledge, and it is chiefly measured based on the subjective judgment of researchers. Moreover, New Product Development (NPD) departments in many companies strive to assess their knowledge in terms of company products and knowledge workers. Hence, this study aims to propose a product-based two-phase technique that measures the company knowledge inventory.

In the first phase, the value of knowledge is quantified relative to products, knowledge workers and the entire company using two concepts of knowledge width and depth. Then, a three-dimensional knowledge asset map (knowledge, products and knowledge worker dimensions) is designed to assess and audit knowledge workers. Finally, this technique recruits an integer linear programming model with a cost minimization objective function to optimize the supply of NPD knowledge requirements in the second phase.

This model enables managers to determine what type of knowledge can be supplied by existing knowledge workers, whether within the company or by other external sources.

Among existing knowledge measurement methods, only a few use a product-based measuring technique. However, they fail to offer suitable scenarios for managers' decision-making process and consider cost structures in measurement techniques. Hence, this paper attempts to overcome these drawbacks.

This paper aims to present a systematic approach for knowledge auditing which is composed of a number of stages with the focus on the establishment of an overall framework and customized tools for knowledge auditing.

The systematic approach for knowledge auditing is composed of eight phases: orientation and background study, cultural assessment, in‐depth investigation, building knowledge inventory and knowledge mapping, knowledge network analysis and social network analysis, recommendation of knowledge management strategy, deploying KM tools and building collaborative culture, and continuous knowledge re‐auditing, respectively.

A systematic approach for knowledge auditing is proposed and trial successfully implemented in a railway company. The results show that the systematic knowledge auditing approach yields a number of benefits that include the identification of the critical knowledge and the subsequent recommendations can be derived for better managing the knowledge in the railway company.

Many KM programs failed because the companies themselves lacked the knowledge on KM and their knowledge organization. The practical implementation of the systematic approach for knowledge auditing allows an organization to reveal its KM needs, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and risks. Hence, appropriate KM strategy can be derived for better managing its knowledge.

The proposed systematic approach for knowledge auditing addresses the shortcomings of some existing knowledge audit approaches which generally lack a systematic approach and have limited practical value for real‐life implementation. The capability of the proposed systematic approach is demonstrated through a successful implementation in a railway company.

The purpose of this study is twofold (1) to establish the relationship between inventory management, managerial competence and financial performance and (2) to test whether inventory management mediates the relationship between managerial competence and financial performance.

We employed cross-sectional and correlational research designs. A questionnaire survey of 304 small businesses in Uganda was utilized. Hypotheses were tested using a bootstrap analysis technique with the aid of Analysis of Moments Structures (AMOS) software.

Results indicate that inventory management and managerial competence are significantly associated with financial performance of small businesses. Further, inventory management partially mediates the relationship between managerial competence and financial performance.

Rather than focusing on only the direct effects of managerial competence and inventory management, moreover independently, the indirect effect of inventory management is tested. Further, the behavioral perspective of inventory management, as opposed to financial ratios, is utilized.

Many terms commonly used in the field of knowledge management (KM) have multiple uses and sometimes conflicting definitions because they are adapted from other research streams. Discussions of the various hierarchies of data, information, knowledge, and other related terms, although of value, are limited in providing support for KM. The purpose of this this paper is to define a new set of terminology and develop a five‐tier knowledge management hierarchy (5TKMH) that can provide guidance to managers involved in KM efforts.

The 5TKMH is developed by extending the knowledge hierarchy to include an individual and an innovation tier.

The 5TKMH includes all of the types of KM identified in the literature, provides a tool for evaluating the KM effort in a firm, identifies the relationships between knowledge sources, and provides an evolutionary path for KM efforts within the firm.

The 5TKMH has not been formally tested.

The 5TKMH supports a KM life‐cycle that provides guidance to the chief knowledge officer and can be employed to inventory knowledge assets, evaluate KM strategy, and plan and manage the evolution of knowledge assets in the firm.

In this paper, a new set of terminology is defined and a 5TKMH is developed that can provide guidance to managers involved in KM efforts and determining the future path of KM in the firm.

This study/paper aims to study the knowledge audit methodologies needed in structured business processes (SBP) and unstructured business processes (UBP) respectively. The knowledge audit methodology used for SBP aims to identify and capture procedural knowledge, while the one for UBP aims to facilitate the sharing of experiential knowledge. The designs of audit methodologies, including elements of knowledge elicitation (KE), knowledge representation (KR), and role of researcher (RR) for SBP and UBP, are proposed in this paper.

Two knowledge audit cases studies were conducted. The first case was conducted in an SBP, and the second one in an UBP. The first case provides a view of a typical knowledge audit in SBP, the limitations are identified. The second case pinpoints the development of a new knowledge audit methodology applicable for UBP.

A significant differentiation between knowledge audits in SBP and UBP is that the knowledge to be captured in the former is procedural knowledge, whereas that to be elicited in the latter is experiential knowledge. The deliverables in the former include lists of knowledge workers, knowledge assets and knowledge inventories, and in the latter include the interplay of interaction between activities, stakeholders and knowledge displayed in the form of a knowledge activity network.

This research clarifies and strengthens the position of the knowledge audit by illustrating two knowledge audit methodologies for respective use in SBP and UBP. It points out that the fundamental difference of knowledge audit approaches is attributed to the different knowledge requirements. To cater to the different knowledge requirements, the authors asserted that three basic components of the knowledge audit, namely, KE, KR and the role of the researcher, should be customized.