The relationship between knowledge management and leadership: mapping the field and providing future research avenues

Purpose: Effectively handling knowledge is crucial for any organisation in order to survive and prosper in the turbulent environments of the modern era. Leadership is a central element for knowledge creation, acquisition, utilisation and integration processes. Based on these considerations, this study offers an overview of the evolution of the literature regarding the knowledge management-leadership relationship published over the last twenty years. Design/methodology/approach: A bibliometric analysis coupled with a systematic literature review were performed over a dataset of 488 peer-reviewed articles published from 1990 to 2018. Findings: We discovered the existence of four well-polarised clusters with the following thematic focuses: human and relational aspects, systematic and performance aspects, contextual and contingent aspects, and cultural and learning aspects. We then investigated each thematic cluster by reviewing the most relevant contributions within them. Research limitations/implications: Based on the bibliometric analysis and the systematic literature review we developed an interpretative framework aimed at uncovering several promising and little explored research areas, thus suggesting an agenda for future knowledge management-leadership research. Some steps of the paper selection process may have been biased by the interpretation of the researcher. We addressed this concern by performing a multiple human subject reading process whose reliability was confirmed by a Krippendorf’s Alpha coefficient value > 0.80. Originality/value: To our best knowledge, this is the first study to map, systematise and discuss the literature concerned to the topic of the knowledge management-leadership relationship.