Linking knowledge management to tourism business of SMEs in aftermath of disaster: Implications for open innovation

Abstract

Business recovery in the aftermath of natural disasters has become a crucial issue, particularly for tourism small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study aimed to examine and analyze knowledge management (KM) as an effort to improve business adaptability, mitigation, and business loss in supporting business recovery in the tourism SME sector after the Lombok earthquake. Data collection was carried out using an offline survey involving 272 owners and managers of tourism SMEs that were affected by the Lombok earthquake in the West Lombok and North Lombok regencies, which are tourism destinations in West Nusa Tenggara Province. The collected data were analyzed using SmartPLS. The results show that KM has a significant effect on improving business adaptability, mitigation, and business loss . Moreover, mitigation has a significant effect on improving business adaptability, business loss, and business recovery. Further, business adaptability and business loss have a significant effect on business recovery. However, KM has no significant effect on business recovery. The novelty of this study relates to examining and analyzing the relationship between KM, mitigation, business loss, and business recovery, which has not been widely studied in the SME sector.

Keywords

• Knowledge management
• Small and medium tourism enterprise
• Disaster management
• Business recovery