Open research questions in Knowledge Management and Sharing

What the literature leaves open

• In the medium term, the measurement structure should be validated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) or structural equation modelling (SEM) on a new sample, while exploring the feasibility of a two-tier model: a more condensed cognitive tier and a more detailed operational index tier.

  Qa-Kpi System: An Instrument for Measuring the Impact and Dissemination of Knowledge in Culture and Arts Training · 2026 · DOI

• introduce ST E FIR NLIN The study has its limitations and raises unanswered questions for further exploration. To begin with, the study depends on the personal evaluations of the participants, and the obtained results are based on their viewpoints, which could be influenced by bias and inaccuracies in measurement. Another limitation is that the survey included only ten manufacturing and service companies in the Republic of Serbia. The dataset is heavily skewed toward large and medium manufacturing firms, with a predominance of male respondents, primarily those who have completed high school or university education, which could impact the results. The fact that the sample consisted mainly of respondents employed in large companies that invest much more in knowledge management may be the reason for obtaining positive results. Further these research should limitations and minimizing their potential impact on the results. Future research could extend this study by adopting cross-country designs to enable comparative analyses of KM practices under different institutional and cultural conditions. Longitudinal research designs would further allow examination of causal relationships between KM, HC, OL, and OP over time. In addition, qualitative or mixed-methods approaches, such as in-depth interviews or case studies, could enrich the conceptual framework by providing deeper insights into KM processes and by exploring additional mediating mechanisms, including to organizational learning. Further research could also include objective indicators, especially for OP assessment, which will reduce subjectivity and potential errors regarding the obtained results. focus on addressing the dynamic commitment employees’ and insights develop a culture within the organization that values knowledge. Notably, all organizational elements, both hard and soft, equally affect KM; overlooking any aspect can yield negative results. Implications for policymakers. This study offers valuable for policymakers. Policymakers in Serbia should encourage the transition toward a knowledge-driven economy by improving national KM strategies that integrate innovation, digitalization, and HC development.

  Determinants of knowledge management and organizational performance: Mediation of human capital and organizational learning · 2026 · DOI

• A major contribution of this research lies in demonstrating statistically significant age‑based perceptual differences regarding the sustainability impact of knowledge sharing, offering a nuanced understanding of how generational learning attitudes shape organisational sustainability—an aspect rarely examined in previous studies.

  Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer as a Driver for SMEs Sustainability: A Multigenerational Workforce Perspective · 2026 · DOI

• While trust dynamics, knowledge sharing process, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are extensively recognized as essential facilitators of collaboration, their interconnections in distributed agile teams remain underexplored.

  Trust, Knowledge Sharing, and ICT Effects on Distributed Agile Performance in Pakistan · 2026 · DOI

• This paper addresses a critical research gap by examining how the implementation of IT affects performance through organized learning mechanisms, absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer effectiveness, two under researched components from prior healthcare IT literature.

  Leveraging IT use in healthcare records management: impact on customer satisfaction and financial performance through knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity · 2025 · DOI

• This study is novel to explore the concept of competing variables, considering knowledge hiding (KH), occupational stress (OS) and employee performance (EP) from the lens of gender, which has not been previously studied.

  Gender dynamics in knowledge hiding and occupational stress on employee performance · 2024 · DOI

• Results showed that knowledge creation and knowledge loss during pandemic have not been adequately studied, and the SECI model illustrated that knowledge creation can prevent and minimise knowledge loss.

  New knowledge creation and loss during COVID-19: sustainable knowledge management's perspective · 2023 · DOI

• Originality/value In this paper, the authors contribute to the dearth of literature on the boundary conditions for OI by examining the role of relational leadership and characteristics/skills of the workforce, namely multicultural skills and contribute to the scarce research on the role of employees with multicultural skills and their impact on OI and present multicultural skills/experiences and relational leadership as enablers for OI.

  Multicultural skills in open innovation: relational leadership enabling knowledge sourcing and sharing · 2021 · DOI

• This study aims to address this gap in the research by investigating the external and internal digital knowledge sharing (DKS) and creative performance (CP) of employees under these extraordinary circumstances.

  Digital knowledge sharing and creative performance: Work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic · 2021 · DOI

• There is insufficient information technology infrastructure to support knowledge sharing; there is no reward system to encourage employees to engage in knowledge sharing; and there is lack of support from the municipal management to facilitate knowledge sharing among employees and across the municipalities.

  Knowledge sharing in selected municipalities of Limpopo Province · 2019 · DOI

• The effects of Knowledge-Sharing Behaviour (KSB), Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and Course-Design Characteristics (CDC) to facilitate developing IIB among undergraduate technology university students is not well understood.

  Modelling Course-Design Characteristics, Self-Regulated Learning and the Mediating Effect of Knowledge-Sharing Behavior as Drivers of Individual Innovative Behavior · 2018 · DOI

• • The concept of organizational learning as learning on individual and collective levels as well as at their interface, which creates organizational knowledge for empowering the construction, implementation and development of study programmes, is insufficientfor encouraging indepth changes of study related performance that respond to the challenges of the contemporary universit y.

  Study related knowledge management process at the university department: theoretical approach · 2014 · DOI

• Purpose
\nWhile it is well known that leadership can play an important role in engendering effective knowledge management activity, relatively little is known about which styles of leadership are most appropriate for this task.

  Leadership and knowledge management in UK ICT organisations · 2012 · DOI

• One challenging issue that has not been extensively investigated by prior KMS studies is the factors that drive employees’ usage of KMS and their willingness to contribute knowledge.

  Contributing Knowledge to Knowledge Repositories · 2009 · DOI

• If organizational knowing is limited by the knowing that is perceived by organization as important, so, the organization’s knowing embraces the whole knowing of all individuals, who make an organization, all groups in organization and all knowing of organizational level (which is implied but not articulated), - explicit, implicit and tacit (Jucevičienė, 2007).

  THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANIZATION’S KNOWING AND ORGANIZATION’S KNOWLEDGE: THE BOUNDARIES OF RECOGNITION AND FORMALIZATION · 2009 · DOI

• Workshop groups highlighted the need for additional research on multimodal interactions, adaptive user interfaces, artificial intelligence-supported interactions and other related methods of interacting with information technologies, including interactions that leverage speech, eye-tracking and electrophysiological data.

  Defining an agenda for human‐centered computing · 2008 · DOI

• Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box.

  Communicating Knowing Through Communities of Practice: Exploring Internal Communicative Processes and Differences Among CoPs · 2008 · DOI

• The original reference of “tacit knowledge” is to the work of the late scientist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi (Polanyi, 1969), but there is substantial evidence that the KM discourse has poorly understood Polanyi's term.

  Clearing up “implicit knowledge”: Implications for Knowledge Management, information science, psychology, and social epistemology · 2005 · DOI

• However, the mechanism through which humble leadership influences innovation work behavior remains insufficiently explored, particularly the mediating role of knowledge sharing.

  The Mediating Role of knowledge Sharing in the Relationship between Humble Leadership and Innovation Work Behavior among Staff Nurses · 2026 · DOI

• The study contributes to the literature by integrating mediating and moderating mechanisms into the diversity–performance link within an under-researched context.

  Linking Workforce Diversity to Team Performance: A Mediated–Moderation Model of Knowledge Sharing and Inclusive Leadership · 2026 · DOI

• While prior research has established mixed findings regarding the diversity–performance relationship, limited empirical evidence exists within team and developing country contexts, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

  Linking Workforce Diversity to Team Performance: A Mediated–Moderation Model of Knowledge Sharing and Inclusive Leadership · 2026 · DOI

• Although these systems are intended to improve performance management, their implications for employees’ knowledge-related behaviors remain underexplored.

  Algorithmic performance control and knowledge hiding in public organizations: the roles of evaluation anxiety and public service motivation · 2026 · DOI

• Although transformational leadership and organizational culture have been recognized as important determinants of innovation, the mechanisms through which these organizational factors promote nursing innovation remain insufficiently understood.

  The Mediating Role of Knowledge Sharing in the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture, and Nursing Innovation in the Makkah Health Cluster · 2026 · DOI

• It has been shown that in public administration, where activities are highly formalised and hierarchy prevails, formal solutions are insufficient for effective knowledge sharing between employees and superiors.

  Determinants of willingness to share knowledge in local government administration · 2026 · DOI

• Yet, eventhough the acknowledgment of intercultural management was predominant in research these last thirty years, few studies have addressed the connection between the impact of knowledge sharing and socio-cultural integration in mergers & acquisitions.

  SOCIOCULTURAL INTEGRATION AND SUCCESS MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS · 2024 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Knowledge Management and Sharing

• Breaking the Myths of Rewards · Information Resources Management Journal · 2002 · 853 citations
• Nurturing Collaborative Relations · The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science · 2003 · 525 citations
• Learning and Knowledge Transfer in Strategic Alliances: A Social Exchange View · Organization Studies · 2005 · 412 citations
• Knowledge Sharing Ambidexterity in Long-Term Interorganizational Relationships · Management Science · 2008 · 369 citations
• Understanding knowledge hiding in organizations · Journal of Organizational Behavior · 2019 · 341 citations
• Extending the resource and knowledge based view: A critical analysis into its theoretical evolution and future research directions · Journal of Business Research · 2021 · 319 citations
• Knowledge Sourcing Effectiveness · Management Science · 2004 · 286 citations
• Assessing Causality in the Cognitive Mediation Model · Communication Research · 2003 · 222 citations
• Motivating Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge Management Systems · Journal of Management · 2011 · 208 citations
• The Central Role of Communication in Developing Trust and Its Effect On Employee Involvement · Journal of Business Communication · 2009 · 204 citations

Most recent work

• Breaking the cycle of harm: how learning orientation mitigates the impact of abusive supervision on knowledge sharing in SMEs? · Journal of Knowledge Management · 2026
• Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning in Public Administration: Toward a Knowledge-Driven Governance Model for the Twenty-First Century State · International Journal of Administration and Management Research Studies (IJAMRS) · 2026
• Employee cynicism and knowledge hiding behavior: an investigation from the conservation of resources (COR) theory · Management Decision · 2026
• Knowledge management strategies and models in health context: a systematic review · BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making · 2026
• The synergy of organizational justice, knowledge sharing and innovative work behavior among university lecturers · Acta Psychologica · 2026
• Trust, Knowledge Sharing, and ICT Effects on Distributed Agile Performance in Pakistan · Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management · 2026
• Do organizational factors predict knowledge sharing and research productivity of university faculty members?: A mediation model · Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication · 2026
• How Does Knowledge Management Affect Employee Performance? · Jurnal Manajemen Motivasi · 2026
• Benevolent leadership as a driver of teacher knowledge sharing: mediating mechanisms from a conservation of resources perspective · VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems · 2026
• From communication to support: a sequential mediation model of awareness of and trust in social enterprises · Frontiers in Human Dynamics · 2026

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