Developing the core principles of responsible knowledge management (rKM): Section 2.4 – Some recent areas of interest in knowledge management

This article is Section 2.4 of Chapter 2 of a series featuring my Master’s thesis The Emerging Concept of Responsible Knowledge Management (rKM): Identifying and Formulating the Core Principles of rKM.

As noted earlier, the fragmentation of the KM field is well documented. In addition to the memory reset and the continued parallel advancement of relative disciplines, it seems that in engaging with knowledge as both a resource and a process, KM opens itself to a vast array of niche investigations. While this granularity is necessary for capturing local realities, it also disperses the field’s intellectual efforts and makes synthesis difficult. The result is a field rich in isolated insights but poor in cumulative knowledge, one that struggles to answer the broader question of what KM is ultimately for.

Agostini, Nosella, Sarala, Spender and Wegner¹ provide an interesting bibliometric snapshot of one such prominent subdomain within KM research: inter-organisational knowledge management. Their analysis, covering the period between 1998 and 2019, can be read as an extension of the extranet developmental trajectory originally discerned by Koenig and Neveroski².

Agostini and colleagues trace how KM in inter-organisational settings has unfolded over three distinct periods, each revealing new emphases and complexities. In the first phase (1998–2009), KM was primarily linked to innovation and strategic alliances, with absorptive capacity playing a central conceptual role. The second period (2010–2014) brought a shift toward performance-oriented research, increased attention to KM capabilities and practices, and explorations of supply chains as network structures. The third and most recent period (2015–2019) highlights growing interest in the human and relational dimensions of KM, international and multicultural settings, and KM in entrepreneurial contexts, suggesting an increasing social interconnectedness of KM.

While not a comprehensive account of KM’s evolution as a whole, Agostini and colleagues’ study offers a well-structured illustration of how KM continues to fragment and specialise, and how the field is now preoccupied with issues of complexity, context, and connectedness beyond organisational borders.

Likewise, as referred to by Agostini and colleagues’ research, Durst and Edvardsson³ provide a systematic literature review on KM in SMEs for the period of 2001 to 2011. Their review finds that while KM implementation, perception, and transfer in SMEs have been relatively well studied, knowledge identification, retention, and utilisation remain poorly understood. They also critically discuss the tendency to apply large-firm KM models to SMEs, calling for more SME-specific approaches.

Massaro, Handley, Bagnoli and Dumay⁴, add a few years and expand the sample in comparison with Durst and Edvardsson’s review. Their review includes theoretical articles and applies more elaborate coding and bibliometric techniques but does not add to the findings. They confirm what Durst and Edvardsson also noted that there is paucity of cross-country and comparative studies of KM in SMEs, and definitional inconsistency regarding SMEs.

While these are just a few studies into specific areas of interest within the field of KM during the past decade, they highlight the central issue of the fragmentation of research. The field continues to produce a growing body of work focused on narrowly defined topics, be it interorganisational knowledge sharing, or KM in SMEs, yet these investigations often remain disconnected from one another. As a result, the accumulating insights each illuminate a piece of the puzzle but rarely articulate the contours of the whole. If the field continues to generate narrow insights without cumulative purpose, how can we meaningfully answer the larger question of what KM is ultimately for?

Having explored the history of KM and gained a clearer understanding of its functions and scope thus far, it is now time to delve into the object of its interest – knowledge. In order to critically assess the strengths and limitations of KM, as well as to imagine alternative or more responsible approaches, it is essential to pause and consider what is actually meant by ‘knowledge’ in this context. What kind of object is knowledge? How has it been conceptualised, and with what consequences? These questions are not merely philosophical; they directly influence the ways in which knowledge is operationalised within organisations. Therefore, a closer examination of knowledge as the central concern of KM is necessary.

Next part: Section 2.5 – Knowledge as an asset: problems & inconsistencies.

Article source: Koskinen, H. M. (2025). The Emerging Concept of Responsible Knowledge Management (rKM): Identifying and Formulating the Core Principles of rKM. (Master’s Thesis, LUT University).

Header image source: Created by Hanna M. Koskinen using ChatGPT.

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