Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
This study aims at establishing the state-of-the-art link between knowledge management (KM) and innovation. For this purpose, the study critically reviewed research published in KM and innovation domain over the last ten years. A systematic search strategy was employed to retrieve relevant empirical studies from the Web of Science. Thereafter, the authors applied a critical review strategy to analyse and synthesise the findings of the selected studies. The study’s findings disclose that research in the recent past increased exponentially in KM-innovation domain. In terms of impact, KM contributes to different types of innovation associated with organisational processes, products and services. However, it was noted that there are several factors that interplay significantly between KM and innovation. This study has found that KM plays a vital role in bring innovation in business organizations. In contrast, a few studies explored how KM can play role to offer innovative services in academic libraries that require further investigation. From a methodological perspective, the scholars used mainly quantitative approaches compared to qualitative or mixed methods. This is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed by the KM research community since qualitative and pragmatic studies tend to provide better explanatory and descriptive findings. Besides, identifying gaps in theoretical and methodological approaches, this study has found that KM plays a vital role to bring different types of innovation in all sectors of the economy.