Analyzing the Literature on Knowledge Management Frameworks: Towards a Normative Knowledge Management Classification Schema

Knowledge Management (KM) is a young and interdisciplinary subdomain of the IS discipline and it covers a considerable number of different topics. Due to its interdisciplinary character, a common understanding of KM is still missing. Several studies have already focused their efforts on harmonizing the discipline’s topics by developing KM frameworks. The purpose of this paper is to explore and integrate these frameworks in order to contribute to a common KM understanding. The procedure is twofold: 74 studies are identified through a structured literature review and compared using a concept matrix. The studies discuss already existing KM frameworks from research and practice or present the results of reviewing the KM domain through the development of frameworks. Based on these results, a normative KM classification schema is introduced. This schema comprises seven main KM categories and offers a summary of the common grounds in the domain of KM frameworks. The study provides guidance where to focus future research efforts and helps to identify potentially relevant topics, which, despite their relevance to the KM field, have not been considered up until now. Moreover, businesses can use the schema to get an overview of existing frameworks, which can be adapted in their organization.