Hello Caroline. interesting question - much of KM work is focused on larger employee populations, where who knows what is no longer easy to track or map.

In small companies, the challenge is different - it comes down to culture, leadership, and business need. Tools are only an enabler. If the previous three are lacking, deficient, or otherwise unsupportive of k sharing, then tools will be ignored. 

So for your thesis, you might start out with a survey of the knowledge-related challenges that exist in small businesses and startups, providing some case examples to illustrate what these look like in practical terms. 

From there you could then look at what companies have done/are doing to address these challenges, including not just the tools, but also the “softer” aspects. What sort of culture is present? How much of that is a function of deliberate actions on the part of the founders/owners? What are the gaps? Given all that, which tools might be effective in bridging identified gaps, keeping in mind that tool adoption will very much be function of the culture and existing norms and behaviors? 

Collaboration/knowledge sharing platforms and tools are now low cost/no cost, with offerings from Slack, Microsoft (teams), Google Suite, Cisco WebEx, and, more recently, Dropbox (Paper). I’m sure there are many others. These offer a combination of real time IM along with document collaboration, group foldering, and more. 

Good luck with your thesis. Please do let us know how it goes. 

Tom
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Tom Short Consulting
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