Bakgrund och problemdiskussion: Till följd av ökade handelsvolymer har användandet av pallar kommit att öka. Hantering av pallar har därför blivit en viktig del i verksamheter, där digitala pallhanteringssystem lyfts som ett hjälpmedel för effektivitet. Digitaliserade pallhanteringssystem kan även ses som ett hjälpmedel för att främja ekonomisk och ekologisk hållbarhet vad gäller företags pallhantering. Trots många fördelar finns även ett antal utmaningar förknippade med implementering av digitala pallhanteringssystem.   Syftet: Studiens syfte är att identifiera hur interna digitaliserade pallhanteringssystem kan bidra till ekonomisk eller ekologisk hållbarhet. Studien syftar även till att se vilka utmaningar som kan ligga till grund hos företag vid implementering med ett internt digitaliserat pallhanteringssystem.  Metod: Studien är kvalitativ och utgår från ett deduktivt synsätt. Den teoretiska referensramen har hämtats genom en litteraturgenomgång. En komparativ design ligger till grund för studiens design, där empiridelen består av fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem olika företag. Analysen utgår från en tematisk analys där teorin och empirin ställs emot varandra för att hitta centrala teman. Resultat: Utifrån studien dras slutsatsen att ett internt digitaliserat pallhanteringssystem inte bidrar till ekologisk hållbarhet i större utsträckning än vad manuell pallhantering gör. Gällande ekonomisk hållbarhet kan ett internt digitaliserat pallhanteringssystem leda till kostnadsbesparingar genom ökad informationstillgänglighet samt att företag kan utnyttja de fördelar som finns med att äga sina egna pallar Studien kan även identifiera utmaningar med implementering av ett internt digitaliserat pallhanteringssystem i form av krav på kundanpassning, misstro om ökade kostnader, samt lågt intresse i pallbranschen och bland beslutsfattare. / Background and problem discussion: As a result of increased trading volumes, the use of pallets has increased. Pallet management has therefore become an important part of operations, where digital pallet management systems are highlighted as a tool for efficiency. Digital pallet management systems can also be seen as a tool to promote economic and ecological sustainability in terms of companies' pallet management. Despite many advantages, there are also a number of challenges associated with the implementation of a digital pallet management system.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify how internal digital pallet management systems can contribute to ecological or economic sustainability. The study also aims to see what challenges that can be identified when implementing an internal digital pallet management system.  Method: The study is qualitative and it is based on a deductive approach. The theoretical frame of source has been collected through a literature review. A comparative design has been used for the study's design, where the empirical section consists of five semi-structured interviews with five different companies. The analysis is based on a thematic analysis where the theoretical and empirical sections are analyzed to find central themes.      Results: The results of the study are that it is concluded that an internal digital pallet management system does not contribute to ecological sustainability to a greater extent than what a manual pallet management does. In terms of economic sustainability, the results are that a digital pallet management system can lead to cost savings due to increased information availability and that companies can use the benefits of owning their pallets. Also, challenges are identified with the implementation of a digital pallet management system in terms of requirements for customized systems, mistrust of increased costs, and also low interest in the pallet industry and among decision makers.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are widely used in higher education to improve the learning, teaching, and administrative tasks for both students and instructors. Such systems enrich the educational experience by integrating a wide range of services, such as on-demand course material and training, thus empowering students to achieve their learning outcomes at their own pace. Courses in various sub-fields of Computer Science that seek to provide rich electronic learning (e-learning) experience depend on exercise material being offered in the forms of quizzes, programming exercises, laboratories, simulations, etc. Providing hands on experience in courses such as Internetworking could be facilitated by providing laboratory exercises based on virtual machine environments where the student studies the performance of different internet protocols under different conditions (such as different throughput bounds, error rates, and patterns of changes in these conditions). Unfortunately, the integration of such exercises and their tailored virtual environments is not yet very popular in LMSs. This thesis project investigates the generation of on-demand virtual exercise environments using cloud infrastructures and integration with an LMS to provide a rich e-learning in an Internetworking course. The software deliverable of this project enables instructors to dynamically instantiate virtual laboratories without incurring the overhead of running and maintaining their own physical infrastructure. This sets the foundations for a virtual classroom that can scale in response to higher system utilization during specific periods of the academic calendar. / Lärplattformar (eng. Learning Management Systems (LMS)) används i stor utsträckning för högre utbildning för att förbättra lärande, undervisning och administrativa uppgifter för både studenter och instruktörer. Sådana system berikar den pedagogiska erfarenheten genom att integrera ett brett utbud av tjänster, såsom on-demand kursmaterial och träning, vilket ger studenterna möjlighet att uppnå sina lärandemål i egen takt. Kurser inom olika delområden av datavetenskap som syftar till att ge en bred erfarenhet av elektroniskt lärande (e-learning) har träningsmaterial i form av frågesporter, programmeringsövningar, laboratorier, simuleringar etc. Praktiskt erfarenhet i kurser som Internetworking kan underlättas genom att tillhandahålla laboratorieövningar baserade på virtuella maskinmiljöer där studenten studerar prestanda för olika internetprotokoll under olika förhållanden (t.ex. olika gränsvärden, felfrekvenser och förändringsmönster under dessa förhållanden). Tyvärr är integrationen av sådana övningar och deras skräddarsydda virtuella miljöer ännu inte populär i LMSs. Detta examensarbete undersöker generering av virtuella träningsmiljöer på begäran med hjälp av molninfrastruktur och integration med en LMS för att ge ett rikt e-lärande i en Internetworking-kurs. Programvaran som levereras av detta projekt gör det möjligt för instruktörer att dynamiskt instansera virtuella laboratorier utan att behöva hantera sin egen fysiska infrastruktur. Detta sätter grunden för ett virtuellt klassrum som kan skala med högre systemutnyttjande under specifika perioder av den akademiska kalendern.

Time series data refers to data recorded over time, often periodically, and can rapidly accumulate into vast quantities. To effectively present, analyse, or conduct research on such data it must be stored in an accessible manner. For convenient storage, database management systems (DBMSs) are employed. There are numerous types of such systems, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, making different trade-offs between desired qualities. In this study we conduct a performance comparison between two contrasting DBMSs for time series data. The first system evaluated is PostgreSQL, a popular relational DBMS, equipped with the time series-specific extension TimescaleDB. The second comparand is MongoDB, one of the most well-known and widely used NoSQL systems, with out-of-the-box time series tailoring. We address the question of which out of these DBMSs is better suited for time series data by comparing their query execution times. This involves setting up two databases populated with sample time series data — in our case, publicly available weather data from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Subsequently, a set of trial queries designed to mimic real-world use cases are executed against each database, while measuring their runtimes. The benchmark results are compared and analysed query-by-query, to identify relative performance differences. Our study finds considerable variation in the relative performance of the two systems, with PostgreSQL outperforming MongoDB in some queries (by up to more than two orders of magnitude) and MongoDB resulting in faster execution in others (by a factor of over 30 in one case). Based on these findings, we conclude that certain queries, and their corresponding real-world use cases, may be better suited for one of the two DBMSs due to the alignment between query structure and the strengths of that system. We further explore other possible explanations for our results, elaborating on factors impacting the efficiency with which each DBMS can execute the provided queries, and consider potential improvements. / I takt med att mängden data världen över växer exponentiellt, ökar också behovet av effektiva lagringsmetoder. En ofta förekommande typ av data är tidsseriedata, där varje värde är associerat med en tidpunkt. Det kan till exempel vara något som mäts en gång om dagen, en gång i timmen, eller med någon annan periodicitet. Ett exempel på sådan data är klimat- och väderdata. Sveriges meteorologiska och hydrologiska institut samlar varje minut in mätvärden från tusentals mätstationer runt om i landet, så som lufttemperatur, vindhastighet och nederbördsmängd. Det leder snabbt till oerhört stora datamängder, som måste lagras för att effektivt kunna analyseras, förmedlas vidare, och bevaras för eftervärlden. Sådan lagring sker i databaser. Det finns många olika typer av databaser, där de vanligaste är relationella databaser och så kallande NoSQL-databaser. I den här uppsatsen undersöker vi två olika databashanteringssystem, och deras lämplighet för lagring av tidsseriedata. Specifikt jämför vi prestandan för det relationella databashanteringssystemet PostgreSQL, utökat med tillägget TimescaleDB som optimerar systemet för användande med tidsseriedata, och NoSQL-systemet MongoDB som har inbyggd tidsserieanpassning. Vi utför jämförelsen genom att implementera två databasinstanser, en per komparand, fyllda med SMHI:s väderdata och därefter mäta exekveringstiderna för ett antal utvalda uppgifter som relaterar till behandling av tidsseriedata. Studien konstaterar att inget av systemen genomgående överträffar det andra, utan det varierar beroende på uppgift. Resultaten indikerar att TimescaleDB är bättre på komplexa uppgifter och uppgifter som involverar att plocka ut all data inom ett visst tidsintervall, emedan MongoDB presterar bättre när endast data från en delmängd av mätstationerna efterfrågas.

Swedish tech startups are at the forefront of innovation and growth. Startups however often face challenges in knowledge management, due to their fast paced growth. The purpose of this study is to explore how Swedish tech startups work with knowledge management in order to utilize inbound open innovation across a company. The study takes on an abductive approach. Furthermore, the study is qualitative including data gathered through semi-structured interviews with eleven Swedish tech startups. The findings show that the investigated tech startups work with knowledge management systems to transfer explicit knowledge, but tacit knowledge is communicated verbally, as the systems do not successfully facilitate the transfer of tacit knowledge, nor fully support the conversion from information to knowledge. Furthermore, employees have a high level of operative freedom and initiate collaboration and networking when needed. The investigated companies selectively hire like-minded people to create a culture that facilitates information sharing and collaboration through internal commitment across the organization. Top management is important to the overall structures and in communicating the company vision, while lower-level managers support and ease the daily operations. These activities strengthen a company's knowledge management and in turn its ability to utilize inbound open innovation. Overall, it is also evident that the startups are challenged by their fast paced growth, affecting all four researched dimensions of knowledge management.

Inom organisationer och företag har IT-stöd blivit allt viktigare för organisationens konkurrenskraftighet och för att upprätthålla effektiva processer. En viktig aspekt i utvecklingen av IT-system är användbarhet. Denna studie utgick från frågeställningen “Hur väl fungerar managementsystem på nöjesparker utifrån säsongsanställdas perspektiv?”. Tidigare studier utförda på nöjesparker har inte analyserat managementsystem utan istället fokuserat på hur arbetsgivare kan motivera de anställda att arbeta vidare inom nöjesparken och vilka aspekter som är viktiga för att uppnå detta. Denna studie belyser användbarheten och förbättringsåtgärderna av de managementsystem som används av de säsongsanställda inom Parks and Resorts Scandinavia, som driver nöjesparkerna Furuvik, Gröna Lund, Kolmårdens Djurpark och Skara Sommarland. Koncernen använder sig idag av två olika managementsystem som är inköpta av två olika företag. I denna studie analyserades de olika systemen separat utifrån användbarhet och förbättringsåtgärder för respektive system. Till denna studie valdes en kvantitativ metod och en enkät skickades ut till personer som varit säsongsanställda under 2022 inom koncernen. Enkäten skickades ut till 5173 personer som varit säsongsanställda inom koncernen 2022 och för att mäta användbarheten användes System Usability Scale (SUS) av Brook (1996). Resultatet av studien visade att systemen fick ett SUS betyg på 73,34 respektive 72,77, vilket ansågs som ett relativt bra resultat för användbarheten. Resultatet visade även en trend att de yngre säsongsanställda jämfört med de äldre säsongsanställda, gav systemen ett högre betyg för användbarheten och att de båda systemen hade högre användbarhet på mobiltelefoner med operativsystemet iOS än andra plattformar. Beträffande förbättringsåtgärderna av systemen fanns det förslag från de säsongsanställda att schemat ska vara mer lättåtkomligt, att systemen ska vara lättare att navigera i och att informationen ska vara mer relevant för säsongsanställda. Resultatet av denna studie ger ny kunskap kring användbarhet av managementsystem som används inom nöjesparker och hur de kan anpassas utifrån de säsongsanställdas behov. / Within organizations and companies, IT support has become increasingly important for the organization's competitiveness and for maintaining efficient processes. An important aspect in the development of IT systems is usability. This study was based on the question "How well do management systems work at amusement parks from the perspective of seasonal employees?". Previous studies carried out on amusement parks have not analyzed management systems but instead focused on how employers can motivate employees to continue working within the theme park and which aspects are important to achieve this. This study highlights the usability and improvement measures of the management systems used by the seasonal employees within Parks and Resorts Scandinavia, which operates the amusement parks Furuvik, Gröna Lund, Kolmårdens Djurpark and Skara Sommarland. The group currently uses two different management systems that are purchased from two different companies. In this study, the different systems were analyzed separately based on usability and improvement measures for each system. A quantitative method was chosen for this study and a questionnaire was sent out to people who were seasonally employed during 2022 within the group. The questionnaire was sent out to 5173 people who had been seasonally employed within the group in 2022 and to measure usability the System Usability Scale (SUS) by Brook (1996) was used. The results of the study showed that the systems received a SUS rating of 73.34 and 72.77, respectively, which was considered a relatively good result for usability. The result also showed a trend that the younger seasonal employees, compared to the older seasonal employees, gave the systems a higher rating for usability and that both systems had higher usability on mobile phones with the iOS operating system than other platforms. Regarding the measures to improve the systems, there were suggestions from the seasonal employees that the schedule should be more easily accessible, that the systems should be easier to navigate, and that the information should be more relevant for seasonal employees. The results of this study provide new knowledge about the usability of management systems used in amusement parks and how they can be adapted based on the needs of the seasonal employees.

Det är nödvändigt för stora företag att förstå och kunna anpassa sig till den industriella omvandling mot ett ökat fokus på energieffektivitet som sker idag. Energieffektiviseringsdirektivet som Europeiska Unionen har utfärdat har ökat fokus på att arbeta med energieffektivitet i stora företag. Vidare har den svenska regeringen infört lagen om energikartläggning i stora företag som är baserad på Energieffektiviseringsdirektivet. Dessa lagstadgade krav uppmuntrar företag att utveckla ett ledningssystem som ställer krav på genomförande av energikartläggningar samt föreslå kostnadseffektiva åtgärder. Energieffektivitet är redan en riktigdel i många företags miljöarbete dock krävs ett mer Utvecklat och systematiskt arbetssätt än det många företag redan har för att uppnå kraven i Energieffektiviseringsdirektivet och den svenska lagen. Företaget som har undersökts i denna studie är ett världsledande teknikföretag med mer än 9000 anställda i Sverige. För närvarande har de energi som en signifikant aspekt i sitt miljöarbete i enlighet med den internationella standarden för miljöledningssystem ISO14001dag utvecklar de även sitt energiarbete genom att utföra energikartläggningar för att uppfylla den nya lagstiftningen. Detta ger en mer detaljerad insikt över energianvändningen och möjliga förbättringar som kan göras, men för att säkerställa ständiga förbättringar över en längre tidsperiod krävs ytterligare åtgärder.  I den här studien har det undersökts vilka åtgärder som ett stort företag måste införa för att öka energiprestandan och följa lagstiftningen. Genom en litteraturstudie som fokuserade på ledningssystem i kombination med intervjuer på det undersöka företaget, en kompletterande studie av två företag som omfattas av direktivet samt tre expertintervjuer identifierades fem nyckelfaktorer. Dessa faktorer är högsta ledningens engagemang, medvetenhet, mål, mätningar och utvärdering. En modell för att strukturera faktorerna utvecklades sedan. Vidare presenterades konkreta förslag på hur dessa faktorer ska implementeras. Genom att öka fokus på dessa nyckelfaktorer och implementera föreslagna åtgärder kommer företag öka sin energiprestanda och medvetenhet i organisationen om hur olika handlingar påverkar företagets energiprestanda. / It is necessary for large companies to understand and be able to adapt to the industrial Transformation towards an increasing focus on energy efficiency, which takes place today. The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)issued by the European Union has enlarged the focus on working with energy efficiency within large companies. Further, the Swedish government has introduced the law about energy auditing in large companies, which is based on the EED. These regulations encourage companies to develop a management system that includes requirements on conducting energy audits and propose cost Deffective measures. Energy efficiency is already an important aspect within many companies environmental work, however a more developed and systematic approach to energy efficiency than most companies already have is needed in order to fulfill the legal requirements. The Company investigated in this study is one the worlds leading technology companies with more than 9000  employees in Sweden. Currently, they have energy as a significant aspect in their environmental work according to the international management system standard ISO 14001. Today they are also developing their energy work by conducting energy audits in order to comply with the new legislation. This gives a mor detailed view of the energy use and potential improvements that can be done, but in order to ensure continual improvements over a long period of time further measures are needed. Within this study it was investigated what measures a large company needs to implement in order to increase their energy performance and comply with the legislation. By a literature review focusing on management systems as well as interviews within the Company, a complementary study with two companies covered by the EED and three expert  interviews, five key factors were identified. These factors are, top management commitment, awareness, goals, measurements and evaluation. A model was then developed aligning these factors. Further, concrete proposals for action to manage these factors were presented. By!increasing focus on these key factors and implement proposed measures companies will increase their energy performance and also make the organization aware of how actions affect a company’s energy performance

The Semantic Web is the vision of the future Web. Its aim is to enable machines to process Web documents in a way that makes it possible for the computer software to "understand" the meaning of the document contents. Each document on the Semantic Web is to be enriched with meta-data that express the semantics of its contents. Many infrastructures, technologies and standards have been developed and have proven their theoretical use for the Semantic Web, yet very few applications have been created. Most of the current Semantic Web applications were developed for research purposes. This project investigates the major factors restricting the wide spread of Semantic Web applications. We identify the two most important requirements for a successful implementation as the automatic production of the semantically annotated document, and the creation and maintenance of semantic based knowledge base. This research proposes a framework for Semantic Web implementation based on context-oriented controlled automatic Annotation; for short, we called the framework the Semantic Web Implementation Framework (SWIF) and the system that implements this framework the Semantic Web Implementation System (SWIS). The proposed architecture provides for a Semantic Web implementation of stand-alone websites that automatically annotates Web pages before being uploaded to the Intranet or Internet, and maintains persistent storage of Resource Description Framework (RDF) data for both the domain memory, denoted by Control Knowledge, and the meta-data of the Web site¿s pages. We believe that the presented implementation of the major parts of SWIS introduce a competitive system with current state of art Annotation tools and knowledge management systems; this is because it handles input documents in the ii context in which they are created in addition to the automatic learning and verification of knowledge using only the available computerized corporate databases. In this work, we introduce the concept of Control Knowledge (CK) that represents the application¿s domain memory and use it to verify the extracted knowledge. Learning is based on the number of occurrences of the same piece of information in different documents. We introduce the concept of Verifiability in the context of Annotation by comparing the extracted text¿s meaning with the information in the CK and the use of the proposed database table Verifiability_Tab. We use the linguistic concept Thematic Role in investigating and identifying the correct meaning of words in text documents, this helps correct relation extraction. The verb lexicon used contains the argument structure of each verb together with the thematic structure of the arguments. We also introduce a new method to chunk conjoined statements and identify the missing subject of the produced clauses. We use the semantic class of verbs that relates a list of verbs to a single property in the ontology, which helps in disambiguating the verb in the input text to enable better information extraction and Annotation. Consequently we propose the following definition for the annotated document or what is sometimes called the ¿Intelligent Document¿ ¿The Intelligent Document is the document that clearly expresses its syntax and semantics for human use and software automation¿. This work introduces a promising improvement to the quality of the automatically generated annotated document and the quality of the automatically extracted information in the knowledge base. Our approach in the area of using Semantic Web iii technology opens new opportunities for diverse areas of applications. E-Learning applications can be greatly improved and become more effective.

There has been an increasing demand for commercial organisations to foster real-time interaction with customers, because harnessing customer competencies has been shown to be a major contributor towards various benefits, such as growth, innovation and competition. This may drive organisations to embrace the development of multimodal interaction and complement Electronic Customer Knowledge Management Systems (E-CKMS) with metaphors of audio-visual nature. Although the implementation of E-CKMS encounters several challenges, such as lack of trust and information overload, few empirical studies were devoted to assess the role of audio-visual metaphors, and investigate whether these technologies can be put into practice. Therefore, this thesis describes a comparative evaluation study carried out to examine the implication of incorporating multimodal metaphors into E-CKMS interfaces on not only usability of E-CKMS, but also the user¿s trust, knowledge and acceptance. An experimental E-CKMS platform was implemented with three different modes of interaction: Visual-only E-CKMS (VCKMS) with text and graphics, Multimodal E-CKMS (MCKMS) with speech, earcons and auditory icons and Avatar-enhanced multimodal E-CKMS (ACKMS). The three platforms were evaluated by three independent groups of twenty participants each (total=60) who carried out eight common tasks of increasing complexity and design based on three different styles. Another dependent group of forty-eight participants (n=48) was instructed to interact with the systems under similar usability conditions by performing six common tasks of two styles, and fill a questionnaire devised to measure the aspects of user acceptance. The results therein revealed that ACKMS was more usable and acceptable than both MCKMS and VCKMS, whereas MCKMS was more usable than VCKMS, but less acceptable. Inferential Statistics indicated that these results were statistically significant.

This thesis explores the environmental and social responsibilities being increasingly shouldered by cement manufacturing sector and outlines a new approach for these companies to accept their responsibilities and to utilise professional approaches to address the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable business. Managing these three dimensions in business translates corporate responsibility into an integrated responsibility for doing business profitably, ethically and in sustainable manner. This three-pronged approach is sometimes called the Triple Bottom Line. It helps companies to fulfil their more holistic Corporate Social Responsibility. A critical review of the literature led the thesis author to develop the theoretical framework for environmental and social reporting to proceed on TBL/CSR journey within the cement industry. Data were collected from TBL/CSR reports from cement companies on key environmental and social performances. Based upon those data, a questionnaire was developed to obtain more information from the leading worldwide cement companies. The combined results of the responses to the questionnaire and the quantitative data derived from the TBL/CSR reports were used to establish best practice benchmarks to serve as performance targets for the author¿s case study company, Oman Cement Company (OCC). The contribution to knowledge of this research is the summarisation and prioritisation of the cement industry¿s implementation of TBL/CSR management systems, which integrate the elements of TBL/CSR into their strategic plans and daily operational procedures. Guidelines were derived from the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact and the new ISO 26000 standard, which promotes a new way of working towards innovation, value creation and incremental actions for transforming businesses to become more responsible. The contributions to practice of this research are the practical and procedural insights, gained by quantitative analysis of environmental and social indicators, into how cement companies are making improvements in their processes and products in response to climate change, economic, governmental regulations and social pressures for improvement. Based upon the findings, recommendations and timetables were developed and are being implemented within the OCC as it progresses on its TBL/CSR journey.

Ph. D. (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector has been receiving increased global attention from governments, researchers and management practitioners in both developed and developing nations as a vehicle for economic growth. The Zimbabwean SME sector has been on record as minimising the impact of the economic challenges on the economy thus proving the strategic role played by the SME sector in improving economic growth. Therefore, the Zimbabwean government has high hopes of resuscitating the economy through empowering the SME sector. However, the sector is inundated by challenges that have retarded its effectiveness in achieving the government’s expectations. Some key limitations and challenges include short life span of the SMEs, entrenchment of archaic business practices, lack of financial capitalisation and the failure to adopt a supply chain perspective of business. Although several solutions to the problem have been proposed and implemented, one solution that has not been fully tested relates to how people-centred knowledge management systems (KMSs) can be harnessed to improve the performance of SME supply chains in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between people-centred KMSs, knowledge sharing and supply chain performance (SCP) in the Zimbabwean SME sector. The study adopted a quantitative research method in which a survey design was implemented in collecting the data that were used to test the relationships on people-centred KMSs (i.e. communities of practice (CoPs), innovation management, organisational culture and social capital); knowledge sharing and SCP (i.e. time-related performance (TRP), cost-related performance (CRP), responsiveness-related performance (RRP) and operation quality-related performance (OQRP). A structured survey questionnaire was designed using measurement scales adapted from extant literature and it was administered to a sample of 580 SME owners, managers and employees who had some prior understanding of knowledge management, information technology and supply chain management. The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 25.0 and the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) Version 25.0 statistical software. The data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The statistical techniques used included measures of central tendency, cross-tabulations, factor analysis, multiple linear regression analysis, path analysis and structural equation modelling. The results of the study showed that SME employer qualifications (Kendall-tau = 0.88; p=.000), work experience (Kendall-tau = 0.86; p=.001) and nationality (Kendall-tau = 0.79; p=.010) as well as SME business sector (Kendall-tau = 0.89; p=.000) can be used to predict SME life span in the Zimbabwe SME sector. The results also showed significant relationships between three people-centred KMSs, namely, CoP (β=0.639, t=9.656, p=0.000), innovation management (β =-0.337, t=-8.578, p=0.000) and organisational culture (β=-0.261, t=-4.083, p=0.000) and knowledge sharing. The relationship between social capital and knowledge sharing was insignificant (β=-0.076, t=0.177, p=0.859). Significant relationships were also realised on knowledge sharing and three process-based SCP sub- factors, namely, TRP (β=0.231, t=4.717, p=0.000), CRP (β=-0.082, t=-2.015, p=0.044) and RRP (β=-0.177, t=-3.621, p=0.000). No relationship was found between knowledge sharing and OQRP (β=-0.076, t=0.049, p=0.254). Moreover, knowledge sharing was found to have a full mediation effect on people-centred KMSs and process-based SCP while no mediation effect was found with network-based SCP. The study makes substantial contributions to the existing body of knowledge. Theoretically, it provides in-depth insights of people-centred KMSs in SME SCP for developing countries such as Zimbabwe, which is an under researched area, thus expanding extant literature on the subject. From a knowledge management perspective, the study proposes the utilisation of SMEs’ socio-demographic factors to predict SMEs’ continued existence, thereby enabling financial institutions to offer financial assistance to such businesses with confidence. For governments in developing countries, the study suggests that specific attention should be directed to knowledge-based supply chains that adopt people-centred KMSs and process-based SCP to consider them as a possible alternative in addressing performance challenges in SME sectors.