Knowledge management: A global examination based on bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) is a field of research that has gained wide acceptance in the scientific community and management literature. This article presents a bibliometric overview of the academic research on KM in the business and management areas. Various bibliometric methods are used to perform this overview, including performance analysis and science mapping of the KM field. The performance analysis uses a series of bibliometric indicators, such as the h-index, productivity and citations. In addition, the VOSviewer software is used to map the bibliographic material. Science mapping uses co-citations and the concurrency of keywords. References were obtained from the Web of Science database. We identified and classified the most relevant research in the field according to journals, articles, authors, institutions and countries. The results show that research in this field has increased significantly in the last ten years and that the USA is the most influential country in all aspects in this field. It is important to consider, however, that science continues to advance in this and in all fields and that data rapidly change over time. Therefore, this paper fulfills an informational role that shows that most of the fundamental research of KM is in business and management areas.