본 연구는 기업가정신의 관점에서 본 중소기업의 지식경영활동을 살펴보고자 한다. 자원기반관점의 경쟁우위와 관련된 선행연구를 통해 중소기업의 기업성과에 영향을 미치는 요인으로 나타난 핵심역량과 네트워킹 활동의 관계를, 나아가 한국과 중국의 중소기업을 대상으로 살펴 본 실증적 비교분석 연구이다. 특히 인적자본과 조직역량을 핵심역량으로, 그리고 사회적 자본을 네트워킹 활동으로 연계한 지식경영활동요인이 기업성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 이론적 관점을 통계적 검증으로 밝혔다는 점과 국내 중소기업의 연구에 사용되었던 변수들을 중국의 중소기업까지 확대하여 두 나라 간 중소기업의 특성에 대한 비교연구를 시도하였다는 점을 본 연구의 의의라고 할 수 있다. 회귀분석 결과 한․중 양국 중소기업의 핵심역량은 네트워킹 활동과 기업성과에 유의한 영향을 미치는 요인으로 나타났다. 네트워킹 활동 또한 기업성과에 유의한 영향을 주는 요인으로 나타났으며, 핵심역량과 기업성과 간 네트워킹 활동의 조절효과 검증 결과 유의성이 있는 것으로 나타났다. 한편, 전통적으로 ‘꽌시(關係)’문화를 중시해 오는 것으로 여겨지는 중국 중소기업의 경우 네트워킹 영향력이 한국 중소기업보다 더 큰 것으로 나타났다.

This study examines the activities for Knowledge Management of SMEs from a view of entrepreneurship. Networking, one of the key constructs in social capital, has drawn highlight in the main stream of the most recent research. In this study, human capital including organizational competence was viewed as core competence and so was networking activity as social capital in terms of activity factors of knowledge management. The feature of this study is these theoretic views were empirically tested and proved as to how the two factors link to firm performance throughout Korea and China SMEs. An attempt was made to expand the research scope including Chinese SMEs to examine different features out of networking activities by SMEs owners between the two countries, and that would enable to observe how networking activity work differently, from the perspective of a typical attribute in Chinese traditional behavior for human relationship build-up, 'Kwanxi'. Major findings of this study were in line with our expectations; 1) Core competence has a significant effects on both networking and firm performance, 2) Networking has also an effects on firm performance. Networking effects of Chinese SMEs appeared to be much stronger in the relationship between core competence and firm performance than that of Koreans. Moderating effects was also found significantly between core competence and firm performance, as the result of hierarchical regression analysis.

This study examines the activities for Knowledge Management of SMEs from a view of entrepreneurship. Networking, one of the key constructs in social capital, has drawn highlight in the main stream of the most recent research. In this study, human capital including organizational competence was viewed as core competence and so was networking activity as social capital in terms of activity factors of knowledge management. The feature of this study is these theoretic views were empirically tested and proved as to how the two factors link to firm performance throughout Korea and China SMEs. An attempt was made to expand the research scope including Chinese SMEs to examine different features out of networking activities by SMEs owners between the two countries, and that would enable to observe how networking activity work differently, from the perspective of a typical attribute in Chinese traditional behavior for human relationship build-up, 'Kwanxi'. Major findings of this study were in line with our expectations; 1) Core competence has a significant effects on both networking and firm performance, 2) Networking has also an effects on firm performance. Networking effects of Chinese SMEs appeared to be much stronger in the relationship between core competence and firm performance than that of Koreans. Moderating effects was also found significantly between core competence and firm performance, as the result of hierarchical regression analysis.

Activity Factors of Knowledge Management, Perceived Firm Performance, Korean SME Owner, Chinese SME Owner