research trends in knowledge management: analyzing the past and predicting the future

Information Systems Management, 28:43–56, 2011Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1058-0530 print / 1934-8703 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10580530.2011.536112

Research Trends in Knowledge Management: Analyzing the Pastand Predicting the Future

Yogesh K. Dwivedi1, Krishna Venkitachalam2, Amir M. Sharif3, Wafi Al-Karaghouli3,and Vishanth Weerakkody3

1School of Business and Economics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom2Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom3Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, United Kingdom

Through a meta-data analysis of the literature over a 34-yearperiod, this article aims to provide a review and investiga-tion into the knowledge management field in terms of how thedomain is represented along a number of dimensions includingunit of analysis, research paradigm employed, and the researchtopics/issues investigated. Information on a series of variableswas extracted after conducting a review of 1,043 articles on KM,published in various peer-reviewed journals between 1974–2008.The findings suggest that a combination of positivist, empirical,conceptual/descriptive, and multi-method approaches have beenpredominantly used in the area. Organizational as well as sys-tems and environmental context-based KM research were foundto be the most widely published topics within the KM domain.Further, the authors identified literature gaps that require moreexploration and conceptual refinement in the context of knowledgemanagement research.

Keywords knowledge management; meta-analysis; bibliometricanalysis; research trends

Twenty first century organisations are faced with havingto cope with a plethora of data, information, and knowledge,within an ever increasing complex and diverse global environ-ment. Given the opportunity as well as risk that this implies,many studies have suggested that knowledge is considered acritical resource that organisations need to harness and managein order to generate and sustain business value (Alavi & Leidner,2001; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Polanyi, 1967, 1969). Themanagement of organisational knowledge has hence becomean increasingly vital requirement of business operations in thecontemporary business environment. As a consequence, thefield of Knowledge Management (KM) has gained recognitionwithin the business as well as research fields as an importantdomain of discourse in relation to the above points. Holsapple

Address correspondence to Yogesh K. Dwivedi, School of Businessand Economics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA28PP, Wales, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

and Wu (2008) have indicated that KM is a field in its ownright, provides an integrative context for explaining a myr-iad of interactions between individuals, teams, organisations,systems and their surrounding environment across disciplinesas varied as accounting, marketing, human resources, strategicmanagement, operations management and information systems.As such, Nonaka and Peltokorpi (2006) have suggested thatthere is an ongoing debate in terms of establishing KM as aseparate discipline of study altogether. In this regard, there aremany challenges facing the domain of KM research in termsof distinguishing the concept of KM as having its own distinctset of conceptual pluralities. Despite these challenges, muchpractitioner as well as academic research continues to be con-ducted relating to managing knowledge and there appears tobe an ever-expanding interest in the exploration of KM- relatedresearch.

To chart the growth of this ostensibly late twentieth cen-tury phenomenon, there have been a number of reviews, andmeta-analytical articles published in the area to date (Gu,2004; Holsapple & Wu, 2008; Nonaka & Peltokorpi, 2006;Serenko & Bontis, 2004). However, perhaps due to the cus-tomary inclination of researchers to analyze either researchmethods and approaches or subtopics, almost all existing stud-ies have focused primarily upon reviewing the literature relatingto research approaches and topic area, rather than providing amore comprehensive review on the broader area of KnowledgeManagement (and which are alluded to further in Section 2of this article). In this vein, conducting a review of the exist-ing literature on a particular topic or publishing outlet is likelyto be of use to researchers in assisting them to identify cur-rently under-explored themes, and select theories and methodsappropriate to their investigation (Dwivedi & Kuljis, 2008;Dwivedi, Kiang, Williams, & Lal, 2008; Dwivedi, Lal, Mustafi,& Williams 2009; Venkatesh, Davis, & Morris, 2007; Williams,Dwivedi, Lal & Schwarz, 2009). Such reviews also help toidentify existing strengths and weaknesses of pertinent researchstreams, promote discussion regarding critical issues in the area,

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44 Y. K. DWIVEDI ET AL.

and assist in the identification of alternative theoretical andmethodological perspectives (Venkatesh et al., 2007; Williamset al., 2009). These arguments and recommendations furtherstrengthen our basis to undertake a deeper analysis on this par-ticular topic than has been conducted in the extant literature, andis thus the basis for the remainder of this article.

Therefore, the aim of this article is to provide a meta-data analysis of the literature pertaining to KM research alonga number of dimensions, which have previously not beendefined or presented in other meta-analyses within the area.As such, the authors of this article aim to realise this by iden-tifying those journals that have published the most articlesin the area of KM, and hence presenting general trends onKM research according to the year of publication. The result-ing meta-data analysis is comprised of 1,043 articles, whichhave appeared in a total of 385 different peer-reviewed jour-nals over a period of 34 years (i.e., the period 1974–2008).This classification also seeks to identify and clarify demo-graphic detail relating to researchers’ specific countries, andhence areas of greatest activity within the field. Of particu-lar interest, as part of this meta-analysis, is the identificationof the various units of analysis commonly utilised in KMresearch noting thenceforth the typology and variety of researchparadigms used in the area. The article therefore also seeksto classify KM publications based on the research methodsemployed and the use of primary research data (empirical,non-empirical, quantitative, and/or qualitative) and the asso-ciated range of research topics/issues examined within theKM domain.

The remainder of this article is structured as follows. InSection 2, we present a brief discussion of the existing lit-erature reviewing KM research specifically. In Section 3, weprovide a discussion of the method employed in our anal-ysis of the trends of KM research. Findings are presentedand discussed in Section 4 and finally, Section 5 presentsconclusions drawn from this work and the limitations of theapproach taken.

LITERATURE REVIEWResearch within the field of knowledge management has

received increased prominence and attention in the academiccommunity, especially within the last decade. In line with this,a number of literature review-based studies covering varioustopics relating to the management of organisational knowledge(such as knowledge strategy, knowledge creation, codification,sharing, application, systems, tacit and explicit knowledge)have been published (Hahn & Subramani, 2000), where coreconcepts, definitions, meaning and significance of knowledgehave been discussed (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). The latter studyreviews and interprets the KM literature across a number of dif-ferent areas with a commentary on the important topics thatrequire deeper research in the field. They have also discussedkey research issues related to knowledge processes and the

supporting role of IT. A previous literature review study byAlavi and Leidner (1999) also provided an analysis of the thenexisting practices and outcomes of KM systems and their rolewithin organisations.

Besides these studies, there are other studies associated withtopics related to communities of practice, organisational learn-ing, intellectual capital, social capital, sense making and orga-nizational memory (Prusak, 2001; Davenport & Prusak, 1998;Wenger, 2000; Huber, 1991; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Wiig,1997; Weick, 1988). Similarly, studies on the need, importanceand implementation of knowledge strategies and supportingIT infrastructure in organisations have also been published inlarge numbers (Earl, 2001; Hansen, Nohria & Tierney, 1999;Dunford, 2000; Schulz & Jobe, 1998; Kautz, 2002; Scheepers,Venkitachalam, & Gibbs, 2004; Venkitachalam & Scheepers,2004). As noted previously, Nonaka and Peltokorpi (2006) iden-tified and reviewed twenty top and widely cited articles in KMthat were published in main-stream and/or well recognisedmanagement journals. Their study classified articles based onthe strengths and weaknesses of the publications drawing onperspectives such as positivism and interpretivism. Similarly,Guo and Sheffield (2007) explored KM research in influen-tial journals for the period 2000–2004. They analyzed 160articles in ten top ranked information systems and manage-ment journals, where the study looked at the aspect of researchparadigms used in KM research. They found that KM researchin IS journals is different from management journals dueto a lack of proper balance of positivist and non-positiviststudies.

Considering the literature outlined above, and noting thework by Holsapple and Wu (2008), it can be argued that thereis limited evidence of studies that provide a broad review andanalysis of the KM literature in general—and for which thereneeds to be a deeper understanding of critical issues withinthe domain of KM. Thus, this article contributes to the widerdiscussion on KM challenges and areas of research interestby profiling a large set of existing KM publications in termsof author, publication year, research approach and paradigmused, data collection method, research design, research themeand constructs. In doing so, we highlight current trends inKM research.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYThe research presented in this article employed a com-

bination of bibliometric analysis, historical analysis (Chao,Yang, & Jen, 2007) and meta-analysis (Avison, Dwivedi,Fitzgerald, & Powell, 2008; Dwivedi & Kuljis, 2008; Dwivediet al., 2009; Palvia, Pinjani, & Sibley, 2007; Williams et al.,2009) as a means of categorizing accumulated knowledge onKM research. Chao et al. (2007) employed both bibliometricanalysis and historical analysis in examining technology trendsand forecasts in the area of Radio Frequency Identification(RFID), while a meta-analysis approach was adapted by

RESEARCH TRENDS IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 45

two recently published studies profiling the theoretical andmethodological underpinnings of articles published in theInformation Systems Journal (Avison et al., 2008), Journalof Electronic Commerce Research (Dwivedi et al., 2008) andInformation and Management (Palvia et al., 2007). Given theoverall aim of this article, our approach employs a combina-tion of these techniques to define the landscape of trends inknowledge management.

For the purpose of conducting this research, we made use ofthe academic journals database provided by Thomson Scientific(previously known as the Institute for Scientific Information(ISI)). Thomson Scientific publishes the Science Citation Index(SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) as two ofthree elements of its Web of Science® product. The reasonfor selecting this database is that the majority of IS journalsare included either within the Science Citation Index (SCI) orwithin the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Therefore, itis possible to search for and locate a significant proportion ofthe published material (Chao et al., 2007) on KM across variousdisciplines using the Web of Science® search facility. Moreover,restricting the search activities to a single publication databaseremoved many of the potential problems of duplication inherentin the use of multiple data sources. The Web of Science prod-uct provides two main search-techniques i.e., ‘General Search’and ‘Advanced Search.’ The search-technique used within thisresearch exercise was the ‘General Search’. The main reasonfor employing a ‘General Search’ approach was to ensure con-sistent search characteristics using the same search criteria. Thisapproach was thus the same as that utilised by the RFID studyof Chao et al. (2007).

Hence, in order to identify publications specific to the top-ical area in question, single search-terms or keywords wereemployed. The search criteria included the keyword: “KM” OR“Knowledge Management.” The search was restricted to occur-rences of the “KM” OR “Knowledge Management” keywordappearing in the article title in order to avoid locating publi-cations where keywords might have appeared generally withinthe main text. However, if the keyword appeared in the arti-cle title, it suggested that the focus of the article was on someaspects of KM. Search utilising the single search term resultedin the extraction of 1,043 records providing details on publi-cations relating to “KM.” All 1,043 items were then examinedmanually in order to crosscheck and confirm the relevance ofthe search results.

A number of analyses were then conducted on the searchoutput employing the various analysis tools available in theWeb of Science®. Count and percentage data were gener-ated for the assorted variables utilised to categorise the searchoutput. Variables analyzed included subject category, jour-nal in which an article appeared, year of publication, author,author’s institution, and the country in which the research wasconducted.

A further detailed manual analysis was then conducted inorder to extract various items of information, which could not

be obtained directly from the Web of Science® database. Inorder to do so, the researchers examined each of the abstractsof the articles contained in the search results. These abstractswere then individually scrutinised in order to obtain and recordinformation such as the unit or level of analysis, the researchparadigm, issues pertaining to primary data, and so on. It isimportant to note that due to time constraints and the amountof effort required to conduct the analysis, the results presentedin this article arise from the analysis of a subset of most recentlypublished 250 of the total 1,043 articles.

Data obtained from this analysis relating to the variablesunder examination were first coded in SPSS v.14. The resultsof count and percentage values generated are presented inTables 10–11 and Figures 2–4. For the methodological vari-ables, we adopted categories from the previous studies (Avisonet al., 2008; Dwivedi & Kuljis, 2008; Dwivedi et al., 2008 &2009; Palvia et al., 2007; Williams et al., 2009). For captur-ing the data on research topics specifically, the authors adaptedthe classification scheme of Barki, Rivard, & Talbot (1993) thatconsists of nine major research themes. However, by observingthe nature of published KM research, we compressed the ninecategories into six categories namely ‘KM Environment’, ‘KMProcesses’, ‘KM Systems’, ‘KM: Planning, Policy, Evaluation,Strategy’, ‘KM Research and Education’, and ‘KM Others’.The reasons for compressing the number of categories relatedto KM research from nine to six were to improve clarity inthe classification scheme and also allow for better comparabil-ity with other research. This is consistent with Avison et al.(2008), who recently employed this classification scheme forprofiling seventeen years of ISJ publication, and Dwivedi et al.(2008), who classified eight years of research published inJournal of Electronic Commerce Research. All papers wereclassified into aforementioned six major mutually exclusive cat-egories. Although a particular paper may address more than onesubtopic, the main focus of the paper is one problem area.

FINDINGS

KM Studies According to Subject CategoryA total of 89 Web of Science® Subject Categories have

published research on KM. Table 1 illustrates the top 26 Webof Science® Subject Categories each with 10 or more arti-cles, with the largest number of articles (222) appearing withinthe ‘Computer Science, Information Systems’ category. Thisis followed by the ‘Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence’category (221), the ‘Management’ category (200), and then‘Information Science and Library Science’ (172). The lowestcount (10) presented in Table 1 is for two subject categories‘Economics’ and ‘Telecommunications’. For the remaining63 categories, the article count varies between 9 to 1 arti-cles. The lowest number of articles in our study (1) appearedin the 26 different categories; while 2 articles each appearedin 11 different categories; preceded by 6 categories with only


TABLE 1Knowledge management studies according to subject category

Subject area [N = 89] Record count % of 1043

1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS 222 21.28%2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 221 21.19%3 MANAGEMENT 200 19.18%4 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE 172 16.49%5 COMPUTER SCIENCE, THEORY & METHODS 129 12.37%6 OPERATIONS RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT SCIENCE 124 11.89%7 COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING 70 6.71%8 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS 69 6.62%9 BUSINESS 63 6.04%

10 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL 59 5.66%11 ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC 52 4.99%12 ENGINEERING, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 38 3.64%13 ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING 32 3.07%14 COMPUTER SCIENCE, CYBERNETICS 27 2.59%15 MEDICAL INFORMATICS 22 2.11%16 SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY 16 1.53%17 COMPUTER SCIENCE, HARDWARE & ARCHITECTURE 15 1.44%18 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 14 1.34%19 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL 14 1.34%20 ENGINEERING, CIVIL 14 1.34%21 PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT 14 1.34%22 ERGONOMICS 12 1.15%23 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES 12 1.15%24 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 11 1.05%25 ECONOMICS 10 0.96%26 TELECOMMUNICATIONS 10 0.96%27 HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES 9 0.86%28 AUTOMATION & CONTROL SYSTEMS 8 0.77%29 COMMUNICATION 8 0.77%30 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 8 0.77%31 MATHEMATICAL & COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY 7 0.67%32 METALLURGY & METALLURGICAL ENGINEERING 7 0.67%33 PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY 7 0.67%34 PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH 7 0.67%35 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 6 0.58%36 CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY 5 0.48%37 ENGINEERING, PETROLEUM 5 0.48%38 MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL 5 0.48%39 PSYCHOLOGY, APPLIED 5 0.48%40 BIOLOGY 4 0.38%41 ENERGY & FUELS 4 0.38%42 ENGINEERING, BIOMEDICAL 4 0.38%43 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 4 0.38%44 INSTRUMENTS & INSTRUMENTATION 4 0.38%45 MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 4 0.38%46 NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 4 0.38%47 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY 3 0.29%48 BIOTECHNOLOGY & APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY 3 0.29%

(Continued)


TABLE 1(Continued)

Subject area [N = 89] Record count % of 1043

49 CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL 3 0.29%50 HEALTH POLICY & SERVICES 3 0.29%51 MATHEMATICS, APPLIED 3 0.29%52 WATER RESOURCES 3 0.29%53 AGRICULTURE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 2 0.19%54 EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES 2 0.19%55 ENGINEERING, AEROSPACE 2 0.19%56 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL 2 0.19%57 ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL 2 0.19%58 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2 0.19%59 FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2 0.19%60 GEOGRAPHY 2 0.19%61 MINING & MINERAL PROCESSING 2 0.19%62 NEUROSCIENCES 2 0.19%63 SOCIOLOGY 2 0.19%64 ANTHROPOLOGY 1 0.10%65 ARCHAEOLOGY 1 0.10%66 ART 1 0.10%67 BUSINESS, FINANCE 1 0.10%68 CLINICAL NEUROLOGY 1 0.10%69 ECOLOGY 1 0.10%70 FORESTRY 1 0.10%71 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1 0.10%72 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS 1 0.10%73 LITERATURE 1 0.10%74 LITERATURE, GERMAN, DUTCH, SCANDINAVIAN 1 0.10%75 MATERIALS SCIENCE, CERAMICS 1 0.10%76 MATERIALS SCIENCE, COMPOSITES 1 0.10%77 MATERIALS SCIENCE, PAPER & WOOD 1 0.10%78 MEDICAL LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY 1 0.10%79 OCEANOGRAPHY 1 0.10%80 PATHOLOGY 1 0.10%81 PSYCHIATRY 1 0.10%82 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL 1 0.10%83 REHABILITATION 1 0.10%84 ROBOTICS 1 0.10%85 SOCIAL SCIENCES, BIOMEDICAL 1 0.10%86 SPORT SCIENCES 1 0.10%87 SURGERY 1 0.10%88 TOXICOLOGY 1 0.10%89 URBAN STUDIES 1 0.10%

3 articles each; 7 categories with 4 articles each; 4 categorieswith 5 articles each; 4 categories with 7 articles each; 3 cat-egories with 8 articles each and just 1 category published9 articles (see Table 1). It is important to note that these resultsare indicative only, and are intended to provide a represen-tation of the main areas of study in which research articleson KM are likely to appear. Clearly, extending the number of

keywords and altering the categories included would alter theresults, although it is argued, not to the extent that it wouldsubstantially alter the overall profile. Clearly, the results showthat the main body of work within KM still tends to residewithin the computer science and information systems fields,although as is also expected, there are a large number of stud-ies within general management and business. Of interest and


of note is the emerging trend towards multidisciplinary studies,which is evidenced in the range of studies, which include med-ical informatics, social sciences, ergonomics, economics andtelecommunications.

KM Studies According to JournalsTable 2 presents the breakdown of our search output accord-

ing to the journals in which the articles on KM appeared. Atotal of 385 publishing outlets have published 1043 articleson KM. Table 2 illustrates the top 20 source titles whichsuggest that the largest number of articles (31) on KMappeared in the journal International Journal of TechnologyManagement and the least number (1) of articles resultingfrom our search activities appeared in 230 source titles. Otherjournals that have published a significant number of articles onKM include the Journal of Universal Computer Science (28),Expert Systems with Applications (27), Journal of ComputerInformation Systems (26), Decision Support Systems (24),Professional Knowledge Management (21), and two journalsnamely, Journal of Information Science, and the Journal ofthe American Society for Information Science and Technologyboth with 19 articles each. The list suggests that nearly half of

the journals which have published KM research are from theInformation Systems discipline (IS, 45%). However, there are anumber of journals from other disciplines such as ManagementScience (MS, 20%), Knowledge Management (KM, 20%),Computer Science (CS, 10%) and Electronic Government(EGOV, 5%) that have published KM research – and are thosewhich support the topic areas as shown in Table 1. This againhighlights and upholds the cross-disciplinary nature of KMresearch. Once again, due to space limitations all the sourcetitles are not listed in Table 2.

KM Studies According to Year of PublicationTable 3, which depicts a longitudinal literature survey pub-

lished within the field of KM, reveals that the number of articlespublished on KM has substantially increased after 2000. Basedon the citation index of Thomson Scientific to date, the largestnumber of articles (141) appeared in 2002, closely followed by2005 with a total count of 136 articles and 2004 with a totalcount of 122 articles. Prior to 1995, a low number of articlesappeared in each year, with no articles at all appearing in ourselected journals during some years. While it may be argued thatthe increasing number of articles appearing post 1995 illustrates

TABLE 2Knowledge management studies according to journal title

Field: source title (Source: Web of Science® Database) [N = 385] Topic area Record count % of 1043

1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGYMANAGEMENT

IS 31 2.97%

2 JOURNAL OF UNIVERSAL COMPUTER SCIENCE CS 28 2.68%3 EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS CS 27 2.59%4 JOURNAL OF COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS IS 26 2.49%5 DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS MS 24 2.30%6 PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT KM 21 2.01%7 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SCIENCE IS 19 1.82%8 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYIS 19 1.82%

9 INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT and DATA SYSTEMS MS 18 1.73%10 PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT KM 17 1.63%11 PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT,

PROCEEDINGSKM 15 1.44%

12 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ELECTRONICGOVERNMENT

EGOV 14 1.34%

13 NFD INFORMATION-WISSENSCHAFT UND PRAXIS KM 14 1.34%14 INFORMATION and MANAGEMENT IS 11 1.05%15 INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT IS 11 1.05%16 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INFORMATION

MANAGEMENTIS 10 0.96%

17 JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS IS 10 0.96%18 KYBERNETES IS 10 0.96%19 LONG RANGE PLANNING MS 10 0.96%20 SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE MS 10 0.96%


TABLE 3Knowledge management studies published between 1974–2008

Article count Article count Article countYear (n = 1043) % of 1043 Year (n = 1043) % of 1043 Year (n = 1043) % of 1043

2002 141 13.52% 1998 28 2.68% 1986 2 0.19%2005 136 13.04% 2008 23 2.21% 1991 2 0.19%2004 122 11.70% 1997 18 1.73% 1992 2 0.19%2003 116 11.12% 1996 6 0.58% 1974 1 0.10%2001 106 10.16% 1975 4 0.38% 1976 1 0.10%2006 105 10.07% 1989 4 0.38% 1977 1 0.10%2007 95 9.11% 1993 3 0.29% 1987 1 0.10%2000 78 7.48% 1994 3 0.29% 1988 1 0.10%1999 40 3.84% 1995 3 0.29% 1990 1 0.10%

increasing levels of interest and research activity in the subjectarea, the lack of articles prior to this time may be attributed toa number of reasons, including the fact that not all journals inour search list were being published in each year. This point isparticularly applicable to the earlier years considered. Anotherimportant factor, which may underlie this, is the diffusion ofKM ideas through landmark work, such as that of Nonaka andTakeuchi in 1995 and Davenport and Prusak in 1998. The rapidacceleration of articles from the year 2000 onwards can also beattributed to the global internet boom period where a large num-ber of organisational IS-based initiatives may have included aKM strategy.

KM Studies According to CountryOur findings show that KM research in the field across the

1043 publications identified covered a total of 55 countries, asshown in Table 4. By far, the largest number of published arti-cles is attributable to the USA. A number of others countries(including the UK, Germany, Taiwan, Canada, China, Australia,Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, France, South Korea, Japanand Singapore) are also source countries for a substantialnumber of research publications.

A number of countries (including Finland, Ireland, Portugal,Hungry and Malaysia) have been the location of research, whichhas resulted in a low number of publications. Given the over-all level of research activity in such countries, and indeed thesupposed high profile of ICT, this is perhaps a surprising resultand indicates that there is opportunity for additional researchbased in such counties to further expand the existing knowl-edge base. Analysing the continent-wide representation (andhence possibly the East-West and North-South relationship asa result), it can also be seen via Figure 1 that while the major-ity of publications might be arising from the USA, the vastmajority of research is actually being carried out by Europeans,closely followed by those in Asia-Pacific, then the Middle East.This could be due to the qualitative and socially-constructivist

stances adopted in those countries and the focus that is givento the understanding of the human component of knowledge (asalso identified by Sharif, 2006).

Authors Actively Involved in Publishing KM ResearchA total of 2079 authors contributed to the 1043 articles on

KM. Table 5 lists the top nine authors (with five or more arti-cles each) most actively involved in conducting and publishingKM related research. It appears that the most productive authorin KM research (in terms of journal publications across thejournals in our search) is Davenport with eight articles, fol-lowed by three authors (Chen, Gottschalk, and Liebowitz) eachwith seven articles. Thereafter three authors (Chen, Edwards,and Wang) contributed six articles each, two authors (Chen andMcAdam) contributed five articles each.

From the 2079 authors, 26 authors contributed four arti-cles each, 39 authors contributed three articles each, and 283authors contributed two articles each, while a vast majority ofauthors (1796 authors) contributed to just one article in the setof journals comprising our search data. Due to space limitations,these authors are not listed here, but interested readers mayrequest them and other information relating to the developmentof this article from the authors. These results show that the KMfield is quite narrow in terms of those researchers that activelyand regularly publish in the area—and moreover, this also high-lights that while there may be a large amount of research beingdone in the topical area, there are many individual and sporadicnon-collaborative efforts which are in evidence.

KM Studies According to InstitutionA total of 938 institutions have affiliated authors who were

represented in the 1043 articles on KM analyzed in this study.Table 6 identifies the institutions, which appear to be mostactive in the area of KM research. The overall number ofcontributions from each university varies from 1 to 16. Clearly,National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan (with 16 publications)


TABLE 4Knowledge management studies by country

AC ACCountry Continent (n = 1043) Country Continent (n = 1043)

USA North America 321 CHILE Latin America 3UK Europe 162 CZECH REPUBLIC Europe 3GERMANY Europe 104 FINLAND Europe 3TAIWAN Asia-Pacific 64 HUNGARY Europe 3CANADA North America 51 LATVIA Europe 3PEOPLES R CHINA Asia-Pacific 44 MEXICO Latin America 3AUSTRALIA Australasia 39 SLOVAKIA Europe 3ITALY Europe 30 SLOVENIA Europe 3NETHERLANDS Europe 30 IRAN Middle East 2AUSTRIA Europe 29 TURKEY Europe 2SPAIN Europe 27 BELGIUM Europe 1FRANCE Europe 23 BOTSWANA Africa 1SOUTH KOREA Asia-Pacific 21 COLOMBIA Latin America 1JAPAN Asia-Pacific 19 CYPRUS Europe 1SINGAPORE Asia-Pacific 16 EGYPT Middle East 1GREECE Europe 15 ISRAEL Middle East 1SOUTH AFRICA Africa 15 JORDAN Middle East 1INDIA Asia-Pacific 14 LEBANON Middle East 1NORWAY Europe 14 NAMIBIA Africa 1BRAZIL Latin America 12 ROMANIA Europe 1SWEDEN Europe 12 RUSSIA Europe 1SWITZERLAND Europe 12 SAUDI ARABIA Middle East 1DENMARK Europe 10 SERBIA MONTENEG Europe 1NEW ZEALAND Australasia 9 SRI LANKA Asia-Pacific 1POLAND Europe 9 THAILAND Asia-Pacific 1IRELAND Europe 8 U ARAB EMIRATES Middle East 1MALAYSIA Asia-Pacific 4 VIETNAM Asia-Pacific 1PORTUGAL Europe 4

FIG. 1. KM Research Publications by Continent (n = 1043 between 1974–2008). (Figure is provided in color online.)

TABLE 5Authors actively involved in publishing knowledge

management research

Number ofAuthor articles published %

DAVENPORT, T 8 0.77%CHEN, YM 7 0.67%GOTTSCHALK, P 7 0.67%LIEBOWITZ, J 7 0.67%CHEN, YJ 6 0.58%EDWARDS, JS 6 0.58%WANG, CB 6 0.58%CHEN, MY 5 0.48%MCADAM, R 5 0.48%


TABLE 6Universities involved in disseminating knowledge management research in journals

Field: institution name Country Continent Record count % of 1043

NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY China Asia-Pacific 16 1.53%NAPIER UNIVERSITY UK Europe 12 1.15%UNIVERSITY OF KARLSRUHE Germany Europe 12 1.15%RUTGERS STATE UNIVERSITY USA North America 10 0.96%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS USA North America 10 0.96%SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY UK Europe 9 0.86%WARWICK UNIVERSITY UK Europe 9 0.86%NATIONAL CHIAO TUNG UNIVERSITY China Asia-Pacific 8 0.77%NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY Taiwan Asia-Pacific 8 0.77%MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY UK Europe 8 0.77%

has contributed the largest number and can therefore be seenas a leading centre of KM related research in this respect. This isclosely followed by two universities namely, Napier University,UK and University of Karlsruhe, Germany (with 12 outputseach). A number of other institutions have also been the sourceof a noteworthy number of publications over the years, includ-ing Rutgers State University and the University of Texas, bothwith 10 publications each. Two UK based universities, namely,Sheffield University and Warwick University, contributed ninepublications each. Table 6 also illustrates that two universities(National Chiao Tung University, China and National TaiwanUniversity, Taiwan) contributed 8 articles each. An additional120 universities (not listed) contributed two articles each, while675 universities were the source of just one article. Again, dueto space limitations, institutions producing less than eight arti-cles over the period under study are not listed. This table furtherhighlights and supports the findings in Tables 3 and 4 andFigure 1 in that the majority of the output work, while beingevident as being based and originating from North America, isactually dominated in institutional terms by European and Asia-Pacific universities. However, it still needs to be borne in mindthat a significant number of articles and research beyond thescope of this study and presented data may provide additionalsupport for the US-centric publication volume output.

Language of PublicationsOur findings (illustrated in Table 7) disclose that the

research, presented in the 1043 publications we identifiedon KM, was communicated not only in the dominant lan-guage of English, but in seven other languages also. The nextclosest language of publication was German with 32 arti-cles, followed by a very few number of articles published inJapanese (3), Spanish (2), Danish (1), Romanian (1), Slovak (1),and Swedish (1). This is again borne out and relates well to thecountry/region demographic nature of KM research thus far,supporting the evidence that there is a healthy disseminationculture in German and Asia-Pacific-speaking countries in this

TABLE 7Language of knowledge management research resulting in

journal publications

Language Article count % of 1043

ENGLISH 1002 96.07%GERMAN 32 3.07%JAPANESE 3 0.29%SPANISH 2 0.19%DANISH 1 0.10%RUMANIAN 1 0.10%SLOVAK 1 0.10%SWEDISH 1 0.10%

area. Again, this also provides a basis for attempting to under-stand the cultural perspectives of each of these sets of results,noting the potential socially constructivist nature of identifyingthe human aspects of KM.

Document TypeOur findings (illustrated in Table 8) suggest that the research

product, presented in the 1043 publications we identified onKM, was largely research articles (993), followed by 49 reviewarticles and one bibliography. A number of articles were also

TABLE 8Document type of knowledge management research resulting

in journal publications

Document type Article count % of 1043

ARTICLE 993 95.21%REVIEW 49 4.70%BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 0.10%


TABLE 9Unit of analysis and knowledge management research (categories adapted from Dwivedi et al., 2008)

Count Unit of CountUnit of analysis (n = 250) % analysis (n = 250) %

Organization/firm 88 35.2 SMEs 5 2.0Systems 63 25.2 Group/team 4 1.6Industry 34 13.6 Society 4 1.6Subject/theory/tool 25 10.0 Stakeholders 1 .4Users 15 6.0 Others 3 1.2Country 8 3.2

classified as editorial, book review, meeting abstract, news item,letter and note. These were excluded from our analysis.

KM Studies According to Unit/Level of AnalysisThe results of our exploration into the most common

forms of unit of analyses employed within KM are pre-sented in Table 9. It can be seen that the majority ofarticles (88) appearing in our search results examined KMrelated issues at the organisational level, closely followedby studies focusing upon System level (63). Far fewer arti-cles were found to examine KM in the context of SMEs(5), Groups/Teams (4), and Society (4). This highlights thefact that the majority of KM researchers still tend to viewthe subject area as being an organisationally-bounded area ofresearch endeavour. This is additionally supported by attempt-ing to understand the implementation (the Systems unit ofanalysis) as well as context (the Industry unit of analysis).Curiously however, people (the Users, Group/Team, Societyand Stakeholders unit of analyses) are seen as somewhat lessimportant in relative terms – which contradicts the basis ofthe subject area in terms of the requirement to be alignedto the human codification, externalisation and sharing ofknowledge.

KM Studies According to Research Paradigm and ResearchDesign

The data presented in Table 10 and Figures 2–4 showthe complete range of research stances, methodologies andapproaches that have been used in our sample of the Thomson

TABLE 10Research methodology—empirical vs. non-empirical

(categories adapted from Avison et al., 2008)

Research methodology Count (n = 250) %

Empirical 115 46.0Non-empirical 92 36.8Not Known 43 17.2

FIG. 2. Research Paradigm (as adapted from Avison et al., 2008). (Figure isprovided in color online.)

FIG. 3. Research Methodology—Quantitative vs. Qualitative Approaches(adapted from Avison et al., 2008). (Figure is provided in color online.)

database. Firstly, the data in Figure 2 clearly indicates thatpositivism (used in 102 articles) is the dominant or most pop-ular research paradigm amongst KM researchers, followed bythe ‘Descriptive/Conceptual/Theoretical’ (being employed in76 articles), which includes papers that do not neatly fit intoeither positivist or interpretive categories, primarily compris-ing articles based on literature reviews, personal view points,or studies that are highly conceptual in nature. The third largest


FIG. 4. Research Methods (categories adapted from Avison et al., 2008). (Figure is provided in color online.)

category was ‘interpretive’ with a total of 10 articles. For 60articles, the paradigm was unclear and hence was not apparentif they should be placed in either positivist or interpretive cate-gory. The potential reason for such a research paradigm profilecould be due to the largely practical nature of the discipline,with the need identified as relating to whether or not the par-ticular approaches to implementing KM produce any people,process or system effects.

Secondly, a very large proportion of articles within oursearch results (115) were empirical in nature in comparisonto articles that fell within the non-empirical category (92).However, for 43 articles it was not possible to determine if theywere empirical or non empirical in nature, due to the lack ofrelevant information provided (See Table 10). This further sup-ports the notion that knowledge is an elusive and multifacetedconcept, which is difficult to capture and to analyze, leadingresearchers to a combination of methods.

Thirdly, Figure 3 illustrates that a combination ofconceptual/theoretical/meta-analysis has dominated KMresearch over the last 30 years or so.

A total of 35 (14%) articles employed a quantitativeapproach (which also includes descriptive quantitative arti-cles) in comparison to the qualitative approach, which wasemployed by 31 (12.4%) articles. A substantial numberof articles (47) employed a mix of data types, while thelargest number of papers was conceptual/theoretical/meta-analytic in nature. For 49 articles, it was not possible todetermine the primary approach employed. Finally, Figure 4shows that although a total of 16 different research meth-ods were recorded from our data analysis activities, themajority of studies (67) within our results employed multi-methods. The other major category employed was the Library

research/Literature analysis/Frameworks/Conceptual Method,which was used in 59 articles.

Other approaches identified include Case study (37),Survey (22), Field experiment (15), Speculation/Commentary(8), Mathematical model (5), Content Analysis (5), andInterview (7). All remaining categories were employed by veryfew studies, with only one article employing interview andethnography. Again, this shows that a combinatorial approachto investigating knowledge management within organisational,technical or social contexts (and with reference to particularcultural or geographical variances as highlighted earlier) is thenorm rather than the exception.

Major Research Topics within the KM CannonAlthough the authors have presented the major demographic

and meta-subject specialisation categorisations of the KM liter-ature thus far, it is now time to provide insight into the specificnature of KM research and the core topics within the fieldthat have merited investigation over the years. Our findings,shown in Table 11, suggest that the largest number of arti-cles investigated research issues related to implementation andrealisation of the knowledge management concept, viz the KMSystems category (39.2% C = 98), which is followed by theKM Environment Issues category (22.8% C = 57). This cate-gory relates to those aspects environmental or contextual issuesrelating to the how KM is strategized, designed and imple-mented. The third most researched topic was KM Processes, as43 articles (17.2%) fell within this category, followed by theKM: Planning, Policy, Evaluation and Strategy (9.6% C = 24)category. Both of these categories deal primarily with the real-isation and in-context usage of KM within organisational or


TABLE 11Frequency and percentage of major research topics (categories

adapted from Avison et al., 2008; Barki et al., 1993)

KM topic areas/research issues Frequency Percent

KM Systems 98 39.2Environment 57 22.8KM Processes 43 17.2KM: Planning, Policy,

Evaluation, Strategy24 9.6

KM Research and Education 19 7.6KM Others 9 3.6Total 250 100.0

other contexts. Finally, the KM Research and Education cat-egory was represented by only nineteen articles (7.6%), andrelates to the practice of KM research and the diffusion ofresearch within curricula.

DISCUSSIONThe analysis of the KM literature performed within this arti-

cle has identified several key demographic and trend findings.From the analysis of the Thomson Web of Science citationson knowledge management, we have highlighted that there isa fragmented perspective in terms of the range of subject areas,which address this topic. Despite many studies conducted in thearea of KM, there is a lack of mutual understanding in termsof the methodological and theoretical dimensions of the disci-pline. In this regard, there is a common view that researchersin the field make strong claims in terms of the validity oftheir findings, besides not addressing the existing distorted viewtowards conceptual unification of the discipline. Even thoughthe domain of KM has been evolving over the last two decades,only limited understanding with respect to paradigms, meth-ods and theories pertaining to this area have been documented.However, around 180 KM articles have been published in highlyregarded information systems and management journals such asMISQ, Management Science, California Management Review,Strategic Management and Organization Science over the lastseven years. Despite the findings published in these journals,the research approaches (positivist and non-positivist) used inthese studies do not provide any strong indication in terms ofcommon research approach usage and balance.

Another insight is that the empirical evidence presented byauthors in knowledge management studies are often linked to‘what’ type of questions, and thereby associated methodolo-gies are followed in conducting the research. Furthermore, howKM authors convince readers of their propositions, theories andthereby validity poses some concerns. Therefore, it is criticallyimportant to establish practicality and apply greater rigor in KMresearch.

An interesting demographic was found to be that althoughthe majority of studies in KM have been conducted byresearchers and practitioners in North America (by as much asa factor of 2:1), the total number of published research arti-cles have been via researchers in Europe and other parts ofthe world—although there is a strong indication that there isa healthy variety of authors from various countries includingChina, Germany and the UK. This mix of countries and authorswas then also supported by the findings of a preponderance forKM research to be organisational/systems-based as opposed topeople-based studies of knowledge, from a positivist, empiricalperspective using a largely mixed-method research approach.

Future research in the field of KM requires studies relatedto unifying different KM models in the existing literatureand understanding the determinants of the evolution of KMin organisations. This involves how organisations evolve theirknowledge processes in the KM lifecycle (knowledge creationand capture, sharing, application and reuse) over time and howthe evolution of these processes in organisations influences thepractice of KM. Also, studies pertaining to KM effectiveness (atthe individual, team and organizational levels) and associatedorganisational support and information technology diffusionwill contribute important insights to theoretical developmentand the body of KM literature. Another theme of KM researchis the need to understand the relationships between knowledgeprocesses, social and technical aspects of an organisation and itsimpact on firm performance. Researchers and practitioners ofKM should also aim to develop a deeper understanding of howKM practice, in a certain cultural context, can be effectivelyreplicated or applied in other cultural contexts (i.e., betweeneastern and western types of organisational culture).

CONCLUSIONSOur intention in this article has been to provide an overview

of the current state of diffusion of KM research by presentingthe results of a systematic and comprehensive review of 1043articles appearing across 385 different peer-reviewed journalsduring the period 1974–2008. We have presented the resultsof our investigation along a series of dimensions including thejournals most often publishing articles on KM research, authorsmost active in the subject area (in terms of articles published),the most commonly used unit of analysis, methodologicalpractice and use of primary data, the theories and theoreticalconstructs utilised, and contexts and technologies examined.The motivation behind our investigation is to provide a com-prehensive and useful insight into the current research gaps andfuture research implications in the broad domain of KM dis-course. In keeping with previous “state of play” studies of thisnature, we posit that our findings highlight promising lines ofinquiry (Avison et al., 2008; Dwivedi & Kuljis, 2008; Dwivediet al., 2008; 2009; Palvia et al., 2007; Williams et al., 2009).KM Systems related topics followed by KM Environment Issues


were the most widely published areas. Positivist and empiricalapproaches were the most widely employed approaches and themulti-method approach was the most dominant research methodutilised by KM authors within the period we studied.

Limitations and Future Research DirectionsWe acknowledge that our study has a number of limita-

tions, and the readers should be aware of these to interpretthe material presented in this article within the context ofthese limitations. Firstly, our search activities were restrictedto occurrences of the KM keyword in the article titles only,and we fully acknowledge that there may be numerous stud-ies, which lack the keyword in the title, but still focus uponKM in the main text. A further limitation is the extraction oftheoretical and methodological data from limited search out-puts. We limited our search to the journals indexed only inWeb of Science®, but there are many well-known journals par-ticularly devoted to the KM research that are not indexed inthis product. This clearly limited the identification of all rel-evant articles. Further research is required to determine theextent of the influence of such factors. Although we believethat this article has analyzed the largest number of articlesin comparison to other existing review articles on this theme,we believe that more comprehensive research is required toreduce the impact of the limitations we have identified inorder to provide a greater understanding of the domain of KMresearch.

We anticipate this article will prove to be a useful sourceof insight for those readers who wish to learn more about thevarious facets pertaining to the existing body of published KMresearch in a multi-disciplinary context. Moreover, readers alsomay benefit by becoming aware of how the various researchapproaches/methods fit with the different theories/models andunits of analysis.

AUTHOR BIOSYogesh K. Dwivedi is a Senior Lecturer in the School of

Business and Economics at Swansea University in the UK.His research focuses on the adoption and diffusion of ICT inorganizations and in addition to authoring a book and numer-ous conference papers, has co-authored papers accepted forpublication by journals such as CACM, ISJ, ISF, IJPR, EJIS,JORS, and JIT. He is Senior Editor of the DATA BASE,Managing Editor of JECR, and a member of the editorialboard/review board of a number of other journals, and is amember of the IFIP 8 WG8.6.

Krishna Venkitachalam is a Lecturer in Strategy with CardiffBusiness School at Cardiff University, United Kingdom. Hisresearch interests cover the domain of Knowledge manage-ment, Business Strategy and Information Systems. He hasalso been carrying out research in the area of alignmentbetween knowledge strategy, corporate strategy and infor-mation technology strategy. His work has been published

in Journal of Strategic Information Systems, KnowledgeManagement Research and Practice, and conferences ininformation systems. He has a PhD in Knowledge Strategyfrom The University of Melbourne, Australia. He can becontacted at [email protected].

Amir M. Sharif is Director of MBA Programs and Professorof Operations Management within Brunel Business School,Brunel University. Amir has extensive experience in theimplementation of strategic projects across InvestmentBanking, Information Technology, Manufacturing and thePublic Sector. Amir has expertise in operations and supplychain management, and information systems strategy. He hasexperience of leading management development programsat MBA and Executive Education level and is the found-ing Director of the Operations and Supply Chain Systems(OASIS) research group. Amir is regularly invited to eval-uate proposals for a range of national research agenciesaround the world also.

Wafi Al-Karaghouli - BA Statistics (Baghdad), MPhil Statisticsand Operations Research (London), PhD IS Failures(Brunel), MBCS, MElite. Wafi gained extensive experiencewith multinational companies. 12 years industrial expe-rience of which one was a Blue-chip and 20 years inHigher Education. A qualified practitioner in TQM and inProject Management Methodology PRINCE2. His interestand research revolve around IT systems failures, knowledgemanagement, and civil aviation. Wafi has published exten-sively on the subject of IS failure. He contributed to thedevelopment of a Knowledge Management System at MerrillLynch HSBC, BAA’s fast-track check-in desks and the IrisRecognition Immigration System (iris) at Heathrow Airport.He can be contacted at [email protected].

Vishanth Weerakkody is a member of faculty in the BusinessSchool at Brunel University, UK. VW was previously afaculty member in the department of IS and Computingat Brunel University and he has held various IT posi-tions in multinational organizations, including IBM UK.VW is a Member of the British Computer Society,Chartered IT professional and a Fellow of the UK HigherEducation Academy. He is the current editor-in-chief of theInternational Journal of Electronic Government Research.He can be contacted at [email protected].

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research trends in knowledge management: analyzing the past and predicting the future

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