Context of co-opetition in SMEs- How SMEs attempt to manage knowledge sharing process?

This article is really interesting, especially different frameworks for better understanding of co-opetition forces; synergy, leverage and negative reverse impact in knowledge sharing among SMEs. Here is a part of conclusion in the article.
Enjoy it!!!

This exploratory research sought to understand the context of co-opetition in SMEs, the role of IS in managing knowledge, how the three co-opetition forces, synergy, leverage, and negative reverse impact, manifest themselves, and how SMEs may attempt to manage the knowledge sharing process. The outcomes demonstrate that co-opetition is an issue for value-added focused SMEs and may become so for others. Coopetition forces do impact on SMEs, though the context is significant. Some SMEs employ tactics to mitigate and exploit these forces through knowledge sharing management, though their efforts are largely unsuccessful. IS plays a part in these tactics.
Managing inter-organisational knowledge processes play a prominent role in sustainable competitive advantage. The game theoretic analysis provides a structure for modelling knowledge sharing under coopetition. The model investigates how SMEs will fare. SMEs need to consider how to make themselves receptive to exchanged knowledge and flexible and responsive enough to gain competitive advantage if this is ephemeral. It may be that knowledge is bundled with other physical assets and that there are pre-requisites for using the knowledge fully. SMEs are knowledge creators, but are poor at knowledge retention. Part of the resolution of this lies in the SMEs' own hands. They need to be proactive in knowledge sharing agreements, to recognise knowledge has value and the value added derived from knowledge exchange. While some SMEs here expect new technology to open up global markets, their collaborations are essentially local. SMEs will be more vulnerable as inter-organisational IS spread and the world gets more information exchange intensive. At minimum, SMEs need to recognise that these forces exist. Recognition is the first step in management, though often the SMEs cannot mitigate the forces, especially from major customers. They may however, be able to gain more value internally from the knowledge they are forced to share. As with many issues in SMEs, the owner-manager attitude is paramount. That most of the knowledge shared by SMEs is explicit, suggests that some management of the sharing process is within the hands of the SMEs.