The interactive relationship of corporate culture and knowledge management: a review

Abstract

Knowledge management and corporate culture are two managerial concepts that are often connected in articles, especially in knowledge management literature. It is, however, a rather complex relationship, as evidenced by the existence of various theoretical and empirical contributions as well as various implicit assumptions. This review therefore, aims at systemizing and clarifying different approaches towards the relationship between intraorganizational knowledge management and corporate culture. I identified three different perspectives on this topic. The first perspective regards cultural values as knowledge resources. The second approach deals with the characteristics of “knowledge cultures” that are regarded as a favorable antecedents for knowledge management. The third view assumes a different causal relationship because knowledge management initiatives can also modify cultural assumptions if employees are subject to positive experiences. This paper describes all three, discusses their underlying assumptions, and shows their implications for theory and practice. By comparing the three perspectives, this systematic review reveals that they are based on different theories and therefore, their results cannot be easily combined. Our conclusions show that being aware of these differences and providing a common theoretical basis opens up avenues for future research in this field.