Knowledge management in the construction industry: state of the art and trends in research

This research systematically reviews the scientific contributions published so far in the field of knowledge management in construction and to establish the influence of knowledge management in the companies of this sector. To this end, this paper describes the results obtained from a bibliometric study that involved a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of the current state of knowledge management of companies in the construction industry. The research method was divided into the following stages: preliminary literature approach, establishment of search strategies, selection and classification of papers, quantitative analysis, and discussion of relevant papers. Three main factors were identified: generation of knowledge, knowledge transfer, and use and exploitation of knowledge; five complementary facets were also identified: culture, innovation, quality, information technology, and human factors. Results show that, overall, companies in this sector have no coordinated knowledge management strategy, and that they must still make a greater effort to improve business competitiveness, especially in the use and exploitation of knowledge generated at the worksite.