Abstract

Purpose: Trade in small and medium businesses must improve innovation performance before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The requirement for rapid innovation is being able to compete and survive post-pandemic. This research attempts to investigate the influence of organizational forgetting, knowledge management, and business agility in distributing innovation performance improvementsto SMEs in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia. Research design, data and methodology: In this research, a structural equation modeling approach with SmartPLS was applied. This research used 221 Tasikmalaya SMEs as samples. The findings of this study show that SMEs are still underrepresented in technological advancement. Results: Organizational forgetfulness does not have a significant impact on innovation performance, nor does it have an indirect impact through knowledge management. Business agility, on the other hand, has a significant indirect effect on innovation performance. Knowledge management does not have a significant and direct impact on innovation performance, but business agility has a significant impact. Conclusions: Efforts to enhance SMEs' trade must be willing to challenge the status quo or abandon knowledge that is no longer relevant to current developments to improve business agility and innovation. Technology-oriented SMEs can quickly become agile by implementing organizational forgetting. SME owners must be willing to adapt to technological advances to adopt organizational forgetfulness.