Why SMEs Don’t Use Academic Research: The Knowledge-to-Action Gap

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often express baseline trust in academic research, yet report limited ability to translate research outputs into actionable decisions and routines. To address this phenomenon, this study examines a) the mechanisms that create a gap between trust in academic research and practical use, b) how SMEs move from accessing research to making sense of it and applying it in practice—and where this “research to action” process most commonly breaks down—and c) how differences in absorptive capacity and related routines explain variation in research utilization. Empirically, we draw on semi-structured interview data collected by the NOKKA project in southeastern Finland, comprising 23 SME representatives. The empirical analysis is grounded in three complementary perspectives. First, absorptive capacity explains firm-level differences in recognizing, assimilating, and exploiting external knowledge, offering a capability-based indicator of why some SMEs can convert research insights into practice more readily than others. Second, knowledge transfer stickiness provides a barrier-focused perspective on why knowledge—even when valued—tends to “stick” and fail to transfer into routines, highlighting frictions such as ambiguity and recipient-side constraints. Third, research utilization clarifies what “using research” can mean in practice (e.g., instrumental vs. conceptual use), while evidence-based management explains why and how research insights should be translated into actionable managerial practices to narrow the research–practice gap. Interview evidence indicates that SMEs typically rely on fast, familiar information channels, experience uncertainty and opportunity costs when assessing relevance and comprehensibility, and most frequently struggle at the point of converting insights into implementable actions. We further observe meaningful variation in “research literacy” and routines, suggesting different absorptive-capacity profiles across firms. This paper derives actionable guidance for designing low-barrier support that helps SMEs (i) find relevant research efficiently, (ii) reduce sensemaking costs, and (iii) operationalize evidence through case-based and action-oriented translation artefacts and facilitation.