Green Knowledge Management—Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The current article delves into the concept of green knowledge management (GKM), aiming to elucidate the intricate web of intellectual connections within the literature already published on this subject. The significance and value of this pursuit lie in its endeavor to pinpoint the most pivotal works in the field and to elucidate the overarching research directions that have been pursued. Through this process, the ability to centralize and encapsulate the knowledge within the GKM domain is achieved. Employing bibliometric analysis tools, the apparently elusive or intangible body of the literature on GKM is given structure and form through the creation of bibliometric analysis maps, which are then scrutinized through the discerning eyes of the author. Consequently, this paper seamlessly integrates the benefits of systematic literature review methodologies with those of computer-aided software, thereby efficiently processing a substantial volume of data on GKM and transforming it into tangible representations of this specialized literary niche. Thus, this undertaking serves as an open invitation to the advancement of the GKM field, providing a solid foundational platform for further research endeavors. In essence, it serves as a stepping stone towards the development of a GKM encyclopedia, offering a comprehensive repository of knowledge and insights for scholars and practitioners alike.

1. Introduction

Over the past decades, in sync with developments in the international business market [1], the field of knowledge management (KM) has undergone a remarkable and almost exponential evolution [2,3,4]. Nevertheless, KM also received its share of the novel challenges notorious for their disrupting effect on past, settled times. Nowadays, KM has a mission of meeting the frequent and intense reconfigurations of the business arena with innovative approaches towards the effective handling of intangibles and with tenets and models for knowledge strategies essential for shaping a desirable future. According to Zbuchea, Pînzaru, Busu, Stan and Bârgăoanu [5], KM should be implemented as a natural and integrated method to ensure the long-term growth and success of companies.

In the current context shaped by the endangered state of natural resources, activists, policymakers, and business representatives are more involved than ever in their efforts to transition towards environmentally sustainable systems. In the dedicated literature, there has been a prevailing scientific agreement about the relevance of sustainability, including not just organizational contexts but also national and global scales [5,6,7,8]. From a business management perspective, this requires strong green knowledge capabilities which involves not only the awareness of the key improvement areas and green solutions but also relevant resources for integrating and developing green knowledge management.

Green knowledge management (GKM) represents the result of a group of scholars’ effort to develop the knowledge management field beyond its existing footprint, by integrating environmental sustainability objectives in the KM area of expertise. In the literature, GKM aims to identify the main enablers or hindering factors for business sustainable performance and to identify and promote best practices for achieving organizational performance with a minimal negative impact on the environment. The central values of GKM remain business performance and growth but in a sustainable environmentally friendly manner. GKM is an emerging concept, still defining its limits and focal points, but already strongly intertwined with green innovation, green knowledge, or environmental intellectual capital. The roots of this literature segment reside in the increased concern of civil society and policymakers concerning the negative impact of human activities on the state of the environment and scarce natural resources. In this context, this segment of the literature is of high relevance in the present day and has a significant potential to contribute to the collective transformations aligned with the strategic sustainable objectives for the next decades.

GKM is a niche research direction of KM, recently approached by scholars, who seek to expand the current limits of the KM concept. More specifically, the GKM research field developed as a response and reflection into the academic life of the societal and political struggles related to environmental sustainability [9,10], into all elements of KM: knowledge acquisition, adoption, retention, dissemination, etc.

Beyond the United Nations’ [11] recommendation towards organizational sustainable transformation from an external effects perspective, authors have shown how this aim shall be adopted by businesses from internal performance perspectives [12]. Through the present article, the author aims to unveil the current state of the art of the GKM field of the literature reunited within the Scopus and Web of Science databases. At the end of our bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review, the reader gets a clear understanding and overview of the key concepts approached concerning GKM, the evolution of the literature from a time perspective, and the main findings in this research field.

The present article falls under the scope of the Encyclopedia Studies by representing an original contribution to the KM field, and by incorporating theoretical and bibliometric analysis research. The objectives of the research are to identify the key concepts in the existing literature, to reveal potential gaps and highlight future research directions. The outcomes of this endeavor are represented by a through and detailed overview of the GKM literature, promoting and contributing to the development of digital encyclopedias in the field of KM.

2. Methodology

The present conceptual review has been enforced and doubled by a bibliometric network construction and visualization software application: VOSviewer version 1.6.20, released on 31 October 2023.

As such, in March 2024, by following the methodology as presented by the developers of the software [13,14,15,16] the author ran two distinct searches for “green knowledge management” syntagm on Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases search fields. The two selected databases are appreciated by researchers, academics, and institutions for their qualitative content, reuniting high-quality, peer-reviewed journals, comprehensive coverage, citation tracking, global reach, and integration with other tools [17,18]. For the present study, trusting the reliability and credibility of the content indexed in the two data bases was among the most important selection factors.

Next, the author extracted all documents that held the syntagm within their content: 10 from Scopus and 18 from WoS. Scopus and WoS can be integrated with other research tools and platforms, enhancing their utility for researchers. For example, they may integrate with research management software, streamlining the research workflow. After collecting the bibliometric analysis data from Scopus and Web of Science, the author utilized specific instructions developed in R coding language within RStudio program. The main reason for using R programming in RStudio was to gather data from the two repositories with the particular goal of eliminating duplicates and organizing the many entries into a single source for bibliometric analysis while preserving all related information for every item. Consequently, the author compiled the exports and removed the duplications (8 duplicated documents).

The nature of the present study is exploratory, understood as research conducted to investigate a topic which is not yet frequently approached, well understood, or very clearly defined at the moment of the research. A primary goal of present study, which is in line with the exploratory approach, is to gather preliminary information, from a limited data lake, on the green knowledge topic. According to Theodorson and Theodorson, a small sample is a key characteristic of exploratory studies, like the present one is [19].

The result was represented by 20 documents and their associated details (keywords, author names, connections). While the source data lake can be seen as limited compared to other studies, it is important to consider the novelty of the field and the outmost importance of the research topic. Integrating the sustainability or green component in organizational strategies is becoming essential for the preservation of life on our planet, while keeping companies profitable. To contribute to this goal, from the scholar perspective it is necessary to focus also on the emerging fields which have, so far, been neglected. Along these lines, the author decided to approach the “green knowledge management” study from a fully responsible and ethical research position and developed a detailed qualitative review of the existing resources, despite the quantitative disadvantages.

The philosophy behind this effort is that, while working with emergent concepts which belong to such important domains like sustainability is today, researchers are more likely to grasp and study more subtle connections between concepts, while identifying meaningful present concerns and relevant future research directions. By comparison, when working with larger starting data (or very popular concepts) there is a higher chance of generalization, especially in bibliometric analysis. A risk here could be represented by the prevail of mainstream ideas in the results, hence limiting the originality and added value of the study.

As such, the author uploaded the combined export to VOSviewer which created the “green knowledge management” map, based on bibliometric data, obtaining a total of 149 keywords. To meet the purpose of the present article on GKM the author opted to reflect the most frequent concepts approached in the literature by setting the keyword threshold to 2, obtaining a total of 31 keywords, grouped by VOSviewer based on intellectual proximity in 5 clusters, connected by a total of 164 links and a link strength of 239.

3. Results

In this section of the study, the author is going to present the results of the qualitative analysis. The discussions based on the results are included in Section 4 (Findings). In Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 below, each cluster, the keywords, as well as the associated occurrence and link strength values are presented.

Table 1. Cluster 1—Green knowledge management. (The keyword with highest occurrence and link strength was highlighted with bold format.)

Keyword	Occurrence	Link Strength
chain management	2	4
Firms	2	14
green knowledge management	19	73
Impact	7	33
Innovation	3	9
knowledge-based view	2	8
organizational sustainability	2	4
View	2	7

Table 2. Cluster 2—Performance. (The keyword with highest occurrence and link strength was highlighted with bold format.)

Keyword	Occurrence	Link Strength
green creative behavior	2	12
Performance	8	39
social network sites	2	12
Technology	2	11
transactional leadership	2	12
transformational leadership	2	15
Trust	2	10
workplace learning	2	12

Table 3. Cluster 3—Sustainability. (The keyword with highest occurrence and link strength was highlighted with bold format.)

Keyword	Occurrence	Link Strength
Creativity	2	9
fit indexes	3	20
green innovation	3	23
Model	2	11
Motivation	2	16
Sustainability	4	20

Table 4. Cluster 4—Supply chain. (The keyword with highest occurrence and link strength was highlighted with bold format.)

Keyword	Occurrence	Link Strength
Advantage	2	7
environmental performance	2	14
green knowledge acquisition	2	9
green technology innovation	2	10
supply chain	3	11

Table 5. Cluster 5—sustainable development. (The keyword with highest occurrence and link strength was highlighted with bold format.)

Keyword	Occurrence	Link Strength
Capability	2	16
Drivers	2	9
dynamic capabilities	3	8
sustainable development	4	20

Each cluster was allocated as a name the keyword with the highest occurrence and link strength values. As such, to cluster 1, reflected in Table 1 above was allocated the name “green knowledge management” (19; 73), the core concept of our map, strongly connected within and outside the source cluster. On the visual representation of our bibliometric analysis (Figure 1), the network visualization of the map, cluster 1 with the same concepts in the table is reflected in the red-colored part of the network, present at the relative center of the map. In this cluster, most of the concepts are robust and strongly connected on the map, reflecting the key areas of interest in the literature in the field.

Figure 1. Network visualization of “green knowledge management”—bibliometric map generated by VOSviewer based on the author’s research.

The second cluster, reflected in Table 2, is dominated by “performance” (8; 39) and completed by “green creative behavior”, “transformational leadership”, “social network sites” and other such relevant keywords, defining a relevant piece in the GKM overview. In Figure 2, the second cluster is painted by the software in green and it is positioned in the right half of the map, distributed horizontally. Moreover, “performance” is placed at the center of the network, representing a focal point of the second cluster concerning the rest of the map.

Figure 2. Overlay visualization of “green knowledge management”—bibliometric map generated by VOSviewer based on the author’s research.

The third cluster, represented in Table 3, is named “sustainability” (4; 20). This concept defines a separate cluster in the top part of the network map, reflected in blue. In the same cluster, we find concepts like “creativity”, “fit indexes”, “green innovation”, “model” and “motivation”, offering us a first understanding of this segment of the literature. In Figure 2, the third cluster is represented by the blue part of the network, strongly vascularized internally and relatively connected with the rest of the clusters externally.

The fourth cluster “supply chain” (3; 11) is detailed concerning contained keywords, occurrences, and link strength in Table 4 above. Here, we can find other relevant concepts related to green knowledge management such as “advantage”, “environmental performance”, “green knowledge acquisition” or “green technology innovation”. Complementary to the table view, in the network map view the cluster is reflected in yellow, with most elements being in connection with other clusters as well.

Finally, the fifth cluster is composed of four concepts, out of which “sustainable development” (4; 20) is the most frequently encountered in the literature of Scopus and WoS research documents, as well as the most strongly connected with different other concepts. Next to it, we find “capability”, “dynamic capabilities “and “drivers”. On the bibliometric map, the fifth cluster is reflected in purple, closely intertwined predominantly with the blue, red, and green clusters.

Generally, the network visualization map has a relatively compressed and focused distribution, with a focal point at the imaginary center of the map, associated with GKM, and four main focal areas emerging from the center towards the extremities of the map, but also well connected amongst them. On the map, we can visually notice some gaps, and this is explained by the emerging state of the art in the field, inviting the academic community to lean more over the topic. The first focal area of development in the GKM literature niche is represented by “organizational sustainability”. The link between this concept and the center of the map is grounding the entire structure, while also balancing the red cluster to which it belongs. The second pillar of the map is represented by the organizational advantage offered by GKM and it is reflected through the yellow cluster concepts. Thirdly, we notice “sustainability” reflected in the blue cluster at the top of the map. While this concept can be understood as a value, an objective to reach for, surrounded by “model”, “motivation” or “green innovation”, then the red cluster’s “organizational sustainability” positioned at the bottom of the figure can be seen as the reflection of the sustainability ideal into the reality of organizational adaptation. Moving forward, we notice the purple direction defined by “sustainable development” and the green one defined by “performance”, in association with GKM.

In addition to the conceptual map and the representation of different clusters of the “green knowledge management” map, VOSviewer offers the option to analyze the timeline evolution of the literature (Figure 2) as well as the conceptual density (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Density visualization of “green knowledge management”—bibliometric map generated by VOSviewer based on the author’s research.

The overlay visualization of the GKM literature evolution has been automatically determined by the software based on the data uploaded for the Scopus and WoS exports. The results show the temporization of topics approached by scholars across 3 years, representing the most lucrative period. As such, we notice from the map and the legend above that at the beginning of the reflected timespan, halfway through 2021, the main concepts approached in the GKM literature were “impact”, “performance”, “sustainability” and “trust”, pointing to the early interest in the theoretical filed, which was reflecting the practical and social main interests. By 2022, concepts like “motivation”, “capability” or “green knowledge acquisition” came into the picture, and within 6 more months the field evolved towards “green innovation” and “drivers” for it. At the beginning of 2023, we notice new ideas being approached, such as “environmental performance”, “technology” or “transformational leadership”. Most recently, the literature grew and expanded in novel directions, keeping track of the public and business agendas, in connection with “chain management”, “organizational sustainability”, “green technology innovation”, “dynamic capabilities” or “green creative behavior”.

Finally, the density visualization of GKM generated by VOSviewer based on the fed data shows a great concentration of work in the center of the map, around the GKM concept itself. In the same aura, we notice “performance” and “impact”. Similarly, there are several sets of 2 or more concepts sharing an aura of interest in the field, indicating to us duo or groups of concepts that scholars tended to approach together to advance the knowledge in the field. Nevertheless, we also notice existing areas in the literature that can benefit from additional attention and focus which, at another similar implementation of the methodological steps at a future moment in time would reveal intensified density of the existing concepts on the intellectual map.

Next, we will presented the detailed literature summary by authors, year of publication, topic of research, the enabled research method, and summary of the findings, focusing on the exact research items that represented the source of the VOSviewer analysis above. In this way, the author ensures to offer a thorough overview of the GKM literature, by doubling the bibliometric analysis with a systematic literature review of the involved materials originated from Scopus and WoS databases.

The focus here is exactly on the 20 documents [20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39] extracted from Scopus and WoS databases at the date of the research and combined through R Studio coding. The keywords of these publications have been analyzed by the bibliometric analysis software and offered the different conceptual visual snapshots above. By integrating the GKM Scopus and WoS literature summary below we enrich the present entry paper, and we build a relevant repository of available research in the field, helping scholars and practitioners to refer to the relevant sources in the field, depending on their detailed interest.

4. Findings

From the data curated and summarized in Table 6 above, there is a set of observations that can be presented concerning the GKM filed, as the results of our bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review show. The first finding relates to the interest in the field which seems to be more visible, at least at the moment of the present research, in the non-European area, as several studies of the above are focused on firms in China, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia or India. Complementarily, only two of the studies revised above are focused on Spanish and Greek companies. In this context, the author identified a gap for similar phenomena to be studied as well in different European business arenas.

Table 6. GKM Scopus and WoS literature summary.

Authors (Year)	Topic	Research Method	Findings
Gauthier J.; Zhang Z. (2020) [20]	Discourse in strategic renewal and GKM.	Qualitative	The authors developed a model based on discourse for GKM, integrating strategy renewal elements.
Al-Faouri A. (2023) [21]	GKM impact on organizational sustainability (OS).	Quantitative	GKM improved OS by over 25% and knowledge-based leadership is a mediator for GKM, technology, and OS
Yu S.; Abbas J.; Alvarez-Otero S.; Cherian J. (2022) [22]	Development and validation of a new GKM scale.	Qualitative and quantitative	A new GKM scale of 27 items and 5 variables has been developed and validated
Cheng J.; Singh H.; Zhang Y.; Wang S. (2023) [23]	The impact of big data analytics (BDA) on sustainability performance (SP), as moderated by GKM in manufacturing firms.	Quantitative	While BDA has a significant impact on SP, the relationship between business intelligence and SP is affected by the changes in GKM.
Sahoo S.; Kumar A.; Upadhyay A. (2023) [24]	The role of GK acquisition (GKA) and GK innovation (GKI) in GKM development and, respectively, corporate environmental performance (CEP).	Quantitative	The relationship between GKA, GKM, and GKI is moderated by resource commitment, which enables managers to plan, allocate, and budget resources to meet green targets for improving CEP.
Shehzad M.; Zhang J.; Latif K.; Jamil K.; Waseel A. (2023) [25]	The relationship between green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO), ambidextrous green innovation (AGI), GKM, and resource orchestration capability (ROC).	Quantitative	GEO impacts both exploratory and exploitative GIs while ROC enhances the effect of GOE on GKM as well as the effect of GKM on exploratory GI.
Dornhöfer M.; Weber C.; Zenkert J.; Fathi M. (2019) [26]	Necessary knowledge for transformation of cities into smart cities.	Conceptual	A model for transforming a city into a smart city is introduced, and the Green KM Cube, which is a part of GKM, is used as a method to outline the stages of knowledge management dimensions to assist in planning and decision-making.
Abbas J.; Khan S. (2023) [27]	What is the impact of GKM on the development of organizational green innovation capabilities (GIC), which in turn leads to improved green performance (GP)?	Quantitative	GKM predicts and improves OGI and GP while green innovation partially mediates GKM and corporate green performance (CGP). Furthermore, green culture (GC) emphasizes the relationship between GKM and OGI.
Wang S.; Abbas J.; Sial M; Alvarez-Otero S.; Cioca L. (2022) [28]	Organizational capabilities (OC) required to meet sustainable development goals (SDG), involving the analysis of green knowledge management (GKM) and green innovation (GI).	Quantitative	GKM has a positive impact on OC to acquire GI and SDG. GKM positively predicts corporate sustainability development (CSD). GKM is relevant for all sizes of firms analyzed (manufacturing and services).
Khan A.; Mehmood K.; Kwan H. (2024) [29]	Relationship between GKM and green technological innovation (GTI), and sustainable performance (SP), while focusing on construction firms. What is the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in moderating the link between GKM and green human capital (GHC)?	Quantitative	A positive correlation between the development of GKM and GIC has been identified with effects on GTI and SP.
Hou Y.; Song J.; Li H. (2020) [30]	The importance of formal education in shaping green knowledge (GK) for sustainable transformation.	Quantitative	The authors define a set of best practices for higher education to meet organizational trust objectives in present times.
Cai X.; Khan N.; Egorova O. (2023) [31]	Exploring the predictive link between transactional leadership (TL) and employee green creative behavior (EGCB). Exploring the role of workplace learning (WL) and GKM in the system above, powered by the leader-member exchange theory (LMX).	Quantitative	The study’s findings showed that TL has a relevant effect on WL and GKM. Furthermore, WL and GKM act as mediators in the impact of TL and EGCB.
Sahoo S. (2024) [32]	Investigating the relevant correlations between stakeholder pressure (SP), green data analytics (GDA), green knowledge management (GKM), green technological innovativeness (GTI), and environmental performance (EP).	Quantitative	The study’s findings show a positive impact of SP on GDA, GKM, and GTI. Furthermore, it shows an indirect influence on organizational EP. Finally, GDA proved essential for GKM and green innovation.
Javeed S.; Akram U. (2024) [33]	The connection between digital block-chain technology (BCT) and circular economy (CE) by considering several moderators, including GKM.	Quantitative	GKM, organizational agility, and strategic and institutional factors prove responsible for enhancing CE practices.
Rehman N.; Majeed N.; Javaid M.; Arooj A. (2023) [34]	Integration of direct and indirect sustainable development (SD) antecedents including the interaction between GKM and green dynamic capacity (GDC) through green innovation (GI) and green competitive advantage (GCA).	Quantitative	The results proved positive and strong both direct and indirect effects with significant prof for GI and GCA as mediators of GKM and SD. Additionally, the results show that transformational leadership and large firm size are important moderators of the established relationships.
Di Chiacchio L.; Martínez-Caro E.; Cegarra-Navarro J.; Garcia-Perez A. (2023) [35]	The impact of ethical management of data privacy (EMDP) on the organizational reputation.	Quantitative	EMDP has a positive impact on organizational reputation and eco-innovation. Additionally, eco-innovation has a beneficial effect on the development of GKM. Finally, GKM determines growth in the perception of organizational ethical commitment, as perceived by stakeholders.
Baresel-Bofinger A.; Ketikidis P.; Koh S.; Cullen J. (2011) [36]	The role of GKM and environmental intellectual capital (EIC) in the setup process of the green supply chain management (GSCM)	Qualitative	A positive association between qualitative GKM and added value to GSCM, but not without defining and implementing well-suited measure items and targets.
Cheng C.; Hsu S.; Shen C. (2023) [37]	Develop an understanding of supply chain management (SCM) and green innovation development (GID) through green knowledge diversity (GND)	Quantitative	The GKM process is a mediator of the GKD impact on GID. Supplier network heterogeneity becomes a strengthening agent of GKD, which is hindered by the supplier network density.
Widyanti R.; Rajiani I.; Basuki B. (2024) [38]	Integrating sustainability elements into the operational practices of the mining industry is strongly related to the economy, environment, and society.	Quantitative	Findings reveal that 4 out of 5 components of GKM acquisition, storage, application, and creation directly impact mining activities. Additionally, the study’s results indicate certain measures encourage GKM for sustainable development, such as rewarding systems, organizational culture focused on sustainability, and adequate setup for social interactions in this respect.
Wan A. W.; Mohd M. S.; Yusr M. (2024) [39]	Testing the relationship between green market orientation (GMO) and green supply chain management (GSCM) in setting up GKM within manufacturing companies	Quantitative	GKM is positively and directly impacted by GMOs and by GSCM

Furthermore, the author noticed an inclination in the literature to review the integration of green practices and GKM in manufacturing organizations. This is the result of interest in green practices in activities that could be highly impactful on the environment, and therefore which have high improvement potential through green action integration. Nevertheless, it would also be of great impact to focus on analyzing the approach of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) for GKM, as they have an important role in advising other businesses as well.

Another idea relates to the research methodology, which is well represented by all the options: conceptual research, qualitative research, quantitative research, or mixed methods. There is a higher rate of quantitative research and a lower rate of conceptual or qualitative research. The quantitative methodologies verify conceptual hypotheses and show the maturity of the field, supporting the idea that GKM builds on the advancements of KM, by integrating a central focus on sustainability. Nevertheless, qualitative research could contribute to the identification of more subtle nuances, currently hidden in the strong quantitative correlations between robust variables. Therefore, this could represent a relevant direction for future research.

5. Conclusions

The study’s objectives defined in the introduction section were achieved and the present contribution can be seen as an overview of the GKM literature as present in the Scopus and WoS databases up to the date of the research. With the help of the systematic literature review and the bibliometric analysis the author revealed the intellectual map of the field, indicating the key research directions in the field and suggesting potential development areas, such as the role of KIBS in promoting GKM.

The limits of the study are represented by the novelty of the GKM concept and the emergence of the literature as well as the exclusion of research on the matter which are not part of Scopus or WoS at the moment of the research.

The main implications of the study can be summarized in documenting the field, promoting further research on GKM and bringing together the main scholarly hypotheses and findings up to date. The author considers this an important milestone and starting point for future research in the field.

The intricate nature of knowledge management necessitates fresh perspectives in research and a reevaluation of existing frameworks, incorporating insights from environmental sustainability, and understanding the alternatives to the current negative impact that industries have on the environment. Contrary to replacing traditional management practices, KM and GKM have the potential to serve as driving forces, infusing classical management with novel theories and business models, relevant in the scheme of a more sustainable and aware approach to our future. This symbiotic relationship not only enriches the managerial landscape but also opens avenues for enhanced organizational performance and adaptability.