Knowledge-based development research: a comprehensive literature review 2000–2010

Knowledge hiding and individual task performance: The role of individual creativity as mediator

This study investigates the association of knowledge hiding with individual task performance and the mediation role of individual creativity. It focuses on how employees' knowledge-hiding behavior can influence their task performance and how individual creativity can alleviate the negative consequences of knowledge-hiding. Data was collected from 256 employees working in financing companies in Indonesia. Hypothesis testing was conducted using the Structural Equation Model - Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) model. The findings showed that all indicators significantly represented the dimensions of evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding, which collectively constitutes knowledge hiding. Furthermore, the study confirmed that individual creativity served as a mediator in the relationship between knowledge hiding and individual task performance. The implications of this study underscore the importance of addressing knowledge-hiding behavior within organizations and promoting individual creativity as a means to overcome the negative consequences and enhance task performance.

A structured literature review of scientometric research of the knowledge management discipline: a 2021 update

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to conduct a structured literature review of scientometric research of the knowledge management (KM) discipline for the 2012–2019 time period.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 175 scientometric studies of the KM discipline were identified and analyzed.

Findings

Scientometric KM research has entered the maturity stage: its volume has been growing, reaching six publications per month in 2019. Scientometric KM research has become highly specialized, which explains many inconsistent findings, and the interests of scientometric KM researchers and their preferred inquiry methods have changed over time. There is a dangerous trend toward a monopoly of the scholarly publishing market which affects researchers’ behavior. To create a list of keywords for database searches, scientometric KM scholars should rely on the formal KM keyword classification schemes, and KM-centric peer-reviewed journals should continue welcoming manuscripts on scientometric topics.

Practical implications

Stakeholders should realize that the KM discipline may successfully exist as a cluster of divergent schools of thought under an overarching KM umbrella and that the notion of intradisciplinary cohesion and consistency should be abandoned. Journal of Knowledge Management is unanimously recognized as a leading KM journal, but KM researchers should not limit their focus to the body of knowledge documented in the KM-centric publication forums. The top six most productive countries are the USA, the UK, Taiwan, Canada, Australia and China. There is a need for knowledge brokers that may deliver the KM academic body of knowledge to practitioners.

Originality/value

This is the most comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of the KM discipline.

Citation classics published in Knowledge Management journals. Part II: studying research trends and discovering the Google Scholar Effect

Purpose

– The purpose of this study was to discover growing, stable and declining knowledge management (KM) research trends.

Design/methodology/approach

– Citations to 100 KM citation classics as identified by Serenko and Dumay (2015) were collected and analyzed for growing, stable and declining research trends.

Findings

– This research has two findings that were not theoretically expected. First, a majority of KM citation classics exhibit a bimodal citation distribution peak. Second, there are a growing number of citations for all research topics. These unexpected findings warranted further theoretical elaboration and empirical investigation. The analysis of erroneous citations and a five-year citation trend (2009 – 2013) reveals that the continuously growing volume of citations may result from what the authors call the Google Scholar Effect.

Research limitations/implications

– The results from this study open up two significant research opportunities. First, more research is needed to understand the impact Google Scholar is having on domains beyond KM. Second, more comprehensive research on the impact of erroneous citations is required because these have the most potential for damaging academic discourse and reputation.

Practical implications

– Researchers need to be aware of how technology is changing their profession and their citation behavior because of the pressure from the contemporary “publish or perish” environment, which prevents research from being state-of-the-art. Similarly, KM reviewers and editors need to be more aware of the pressure and prevalence of mis-citations and take action to raise awareness and to prevent mis-citations.

Originality/value

– This study is important from a scientometric research perspective as part of a growing research field using Google Scholar to measure the impact and power it has in influencing what gets cited and by whom.

Knowledge at the boundary between science and society: a review of the use of farmers’ knowledge in agricultural development

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to build a review of the various management processes of this knowledge in this domain, with the aim of identifying research topics and perspectives for knowledge management (KM) within the boundaries between science and society. At the boundary between science and society, the development of agricultural systems is grounded in various innovation processes that are currently being challenged by sustainability issues. In particular, farmers’ knowledge is emphasized today in various reports and scientific studies as a way of designing more sustainable agricultural systems.

Design/methodology/approach

– A literature analysis was performed on a database built from the Web of Science and 273 scientific article abstracts were qualitatively analyzed.

Findings

– Four KM strategies on the basis of the objectives of these papers, the arguments used to justify the study of farmers’ knowledge (FK) and the position of the authors in relation to this knowledge were built. These strategies can be broken down as follows: assessing FK to improve it; documenting FK to capitalize or legitimize it in development processes; using FK as a resource for innovation; and facilitating the sharing of various sources of knowledge to increase the efficiency of development projects.

Research limitations/implications

– Because the four KM strategies show a relative genericity, research perspectives for each of them, some of which were related to the KM community and some of which extended the focus on political, legal or sociological aspects of knowledge production processes at the boundary between science and society, were drawn.

Practical implications

– The four categories of KM strategies revealed the importance of legitimization processes of practitioners’ knowledge when dealing with innovation at science–society boundaries, whereas such processes are often neglected by classical KM methodologies.

Social implications

– This work questions the category of “practitioners’ knowledge”, stressing the need to go beyond the dichotomy between scientific and empirical knowledge and to recognize the hybrid nature of knowledge. It also shatters the myth that local knowledge is more sustainable than science-driven innovations, arguing for more KM efforts at the boundary between science and society.

Originality/value

– Even if farmers’ knowledge has been used since the 1970s to promote more endogenous innovation processes as opposed to classical science-driven innovation processes, no review has yet been done of the use of farmers’ knowledge in the development of agricultural systems.