The moderating role of gamification in the relationship between knowledge management and performance

In the era of globalization, digitization, intensive competition due to the fast pace of technology development which challenged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to master their knowledge and to help them leverage their most critical resource in order to increase their levels of competitive advantage. But it is suggested that the rapid and emergent development of knowledge management (KM) concepts and practices offers the opportunity of new ways of developing competitive advantage in SMEs (du Plessis, 2008). Organizational knowledge is the most significant resource for SMEs in terms of access, availability, and depth. Successful SMEs are those who can manage their knowledge in an effective and efficient manner, to make the best use of resources, like land, labor, and capital. To have a sustainable competitive advantage, SME'S should realize how to utilize knowledge and how to attach it to organizational process. Another important issue that a manager should know what kind of knowledge they should seek to enhance organizational activity to get better performance hence sustainable competitive advantage. Employees are the most crucial resource, managers should rely on, to implement their strategy, gamification as an incentive tool will be proposed to help managers to recognize employees needs and their motivation in order to implement knowledge management activities either conversion or sharing or application. The purpose of this conceptual article is to identify the knowledge management impact on SMEs performance in Egypt. It seeks also to explore the moderating role of gamification to enhance the relationship between knowledge management on the SME'S performance. Primary findings show that gamification moderate the relationship between knowledge management and SMES performance by bringing significant improvement to the employee morale and performance, knowledge management practices. SMES managers, can benefit from developing or utilizing tools based on gamified knowledge systems in their firms.