The Times They are (Not?) A-Changing: Recent Trends of Knowledge Management Literature

After almost 3 decades, the literature on knowledge management (KM) has gained importance. Today, many journals and international conferences are explicitly oriented to KM research, and many others propose special issues or special tracks on KM. The increasing number of studies and publications raises the question of what direction KM research is taking. This paper aims to explore the current trends in KM research by providing an analysis of the literature. It is based on two sources of data: first, some existing reviews of the KM literature, with the goal to analyse if these studies converge towards consistent conclusions; second, the proceedings of a long-running and popular international Conference on KM (the European Conference on Knowledge Management), where a quantitative analysis was carried out to understand the main streams in this field of study. The overall picture is that of a field of study with a flourishing literature and lively debate, but that it is still struggling to define its “identity”.