Development of Effective Knowledge Management Systems: Review and Open Research Issues

Research in the field of Knowledge Management Systems is still inconclusive, particularly with regards to building blocks for the development of effective Knowledge Management Systems. A significant number of ineffective KM solutions inundating the marketplace adds to the conundrum. The purpose of this research is to examine the existing studies on Knowledge Management Systems to uncover its theoretical underpinnings. We aim to present open research issues given the shortcomings plaguing the prevailing Knowledge Management Systems. To begin with, an exhaustive literature review of seminal studies of Knowledge Management Systems were conducted. Searches included articles from Elsevier, IEEE, Springer, ACM, ScienceDirect, Scopus and the Web of Science databases from 2008 to 2018. We further examined 42 mainstream Knowledge Management Systems deployed globally across various domains. The findings were augmented using two recent global surveys on Knowledge Management carried out in 2017. We report that many scholars view Knowledge Management Systems as a category of Information Systems. Additionally, mainstream Knowledge Management Systems were examined and the investigations revealed that the solutions focused on elicitation of explicit knowledge as opposed to facilitating the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge. We highlight that scholars have pointed out the need for a renewed direction, i.e. key characteristics that must be considered in the development of Knowledge Management solutions. The findings affirm the claim from studies on Knowledge Management Systems that most Knowledge Management solutions were developed based upon principles of Information Systems (IS), rendering prevailing Knowledge Management Systems ill-suited for organisation-wide Knowledge Management initiatives. The outcome of this research also revealed a significant disjoint between research and practice of Knowledge Management Systems. The research also pointed out gaps in the body of knowledge in relation to the development of effective Knowledge Management Systems and espoused how addressing the former could be a panacea to address limitations plaguing the prevailing mainstream Knowledge Management Systems.