KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND TRENDS

Objective: In recent years, knowledge management and innovation have become topics of great interest in both the academic and business environments. However, the dynamics of the relationship between these concepts and how they have evolved still lack a comprehensive analysis. The aim of this bibliometric research is to fill this gap by investigating how these concepts have developed in recent academic literature (2017-2022) and how these dynamics can inform organizational strategies to promote innovation. Theoretical framework: Knowledge has been recognized as a source of competitive advantage and its management aims to add value, making it a strategic resource. Innovation is an essential element for competitive advantage, as it makes companies more flexible and adaptable, allowing continuous learning and creativity. Method : To achieve this objective, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis was carried out on the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. Bibliometrix software was used for quantitative performance analysis and scientific mapping. Result and conclusion : The results revealed a steady growth in the production of articles related to these topics, highlighting the importance of international collaboration for the advancement of these areas. Research implications : Current trends emphasize the relevance of technology, global collaboration and team diversity in promoting knowledge management and innovation. Originality/value


INTRODUCTION
In recent years, knowledge management and innovation have become subjects of great interest in both the academic and business environment.Knowledge is recognized as a crucial strategic asset, while the ability to innovate is critical to competitive advantage in a constantly evolving business landscape (Hernandez et al., 2022).Correia et al. (2018) collaborate by affirming that the connection between knowledge management and innovation is fundamental, because the constant search for innovation is vital for the success of organizations.
According to Fedato et al. (2018), companies are investing in building knowledge management capabilities to support operational and innovative activities, as innovation is essential for organizational development.However, the precise dynamics of this relationship and how it has evolved still need comprehensive analysis.Therefore, this bibliometric research aims to fill this gap by analyzing how the concepts of knowledge management and innovation have developed in recent academic literature.
In this context, the research problem that guides this study is formulated as follows: How have the concepts of knowledge management and innovation evolved and related in recent academic literature, specifically in the period from 2017 to 2022, and how can these dynamics inform organizational strategies to promote innovation?
This study aims to contribute to an understanding of these dynamics by analyzing how the concepts of knowledge management and innovation have developed and interacted in recent academic literature.In addition, it seeks to identify future research directions by providing valuable insights to organizations that wish to formulate more effective strategies to leverage internal knowledge in pursuit of innovation.The review period covers the years 2017 to 2022, a period marked by significant changes in the global scenario.To achieve these goals, a comprehensive bibliometric analysis was performed in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases.
The structure will be as follows: in the following section, a review of the relevant literature on knowledge management and innovation is presented, highlighting the main concepts and debates.The methodology used to perform the bibliometric analysis, including criteria for data selection and analysis, is then described.The results of the analysis are presented and discussed in the subsequent section, followed by conclusions summarizing the main findings and their significance for research in knowledge management and innovation.Finally, the practical implications and future directions that can be explored on the basis of the trends identified are highlighted.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Knowledge management is essential to drive innovation in organizations, as it provides the necessary knowledge base for creating innovative ideas and solutions.Innovation, in turn, is a crucial competitive advantage in an ever-evolving market (Hernandez et al., 2022).Current trends in knowledge management include the use of advanced technologies, global collaboration and team diversity, while strategies such as creativity incentive programs and innovation impact measurement are shaping how organizations manage knowledge and promote innovation.

Knowledge Management
In the last 20 years, knowledge management (KM) has emerged as a crucial factor in companies, recognizing knowledge as a source of competitive advantage.Second Singh & Tantray (2022), GC involves the identification, sharing, and integration of valuable knowledge into the organization.Sharing knowledge expands the capabilities of companies and builds organizational knowledge.In the "age of knowledge", GC becomes essential, as long as it leverages internal knowledge and uses modern technologies to promote its effective use (Salehi et al., 2022).
Knowledge management, as highlighted by Marschner et al. (2016), does not have a universally accepted definition.The definition of GC varies, with several approaches by scholars, but all highlight the importance of identifying, acquiring, storing, organizing, sharing, and applying knowledge in the organization.GC aims to transform knowledge into a strategic resource that adds value by fostering competitiveness and innovation.
The authors Correia et al. (2018) they agree that although there is no universal consensus on the definition of Knowledge Management, the diversity of definitions enriches the understanding of the concept.The types of knowledge can be either tacit (experiential) or explicit (formalized).Conversion between these types of knowledge is facilitated by the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization) model of Takeuchi & Nonaka (2002) which is widely recognized in GC.
The four pillars of the SECI model (Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization) contemplate the transformation of data into knowledge and demonstrate how this leads to the socialization of knowledge within an organization.Mendrot et al. (2018) they explain that each member of the organization, with its unique set of knowledge, skills and competencies, contributes to the collective knowledge of the group and the organization as a whole.
Bueno Carneiro & Streit (2021) they point out that the creation and sharing of knowledge within organizations can be hindered by various barriers, which can be of an individual nature (related to people's attitudes and behaviors) and of an organizational nature (related to the structure and culture of the organization).
An effective GC approach can boost an organization's performance and competitiveness.Second Kriswanto et al. (2023), GC involves the promotion of knowledge sharing among staff, through processes such as socialization, outsourcing, knowledge combination and internalization.This improves the company's ability to compete in the marketplace, innovate, and make informed decisions, resulting in improved performance and increased competitiveness.
Santos & Zattar (2019) report that innovation or business ecosystem environments introduce new challenges for GC, as knowledge is shared among multiple actors in complex networks.GC must adapt to these environments, facing additional knowledge management challenges.In other words, for the knowledge flow to be effective, the organizational culture needs to promote openness, collaboration, and knowledge sharing.

Innovation
Innovation plays a key role in the search for sustainable competitive advantages in companies, making them more flexible and adaptable.As Sofiyabadi et al. (2022), in order to promote innovation, organizations need to create infrastructure that enable continuous learning, as innovation is an adaptable process.Salehi et al. (2022) define innovation as the creation of profitable products for all parties involved, covering the generation of ideas, implementation and improvement of products and processes.Creativity and the development of ideas play a key role in the innovation process.And it is in this sense that these authors corroborate with the authors Sofiyabadi et al. (2022), in the sense that development and research activities related to knowledge management play a significant role in the performance of innovation.
Second Bueno Carneiro & Streit (2021), the concept of innovation can manifest itself on several fronts, such as product, process, marketing and organization, according to the Oslo Manual (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2006).Over the decades, several theoretical models of innovation have emerged, evolving from linear approaches to models that emphasize the creation of innovative environments and the creative combination of skills and knowledge (Klein et al., 2021).Wuryaningrat et al. (2023) have verified numerous studies in the Scopus database (2018-2021) that have established a causal link between knowledge transfer and innovation capacities.The authors report that the variations in the results of these studies highlight the importance of absorption capacity for effective knowledge transfer in promoting innovation.
The relationship between innovation and knowledge management is complex, as knowledge creation aims to acquire new capabilities for organizations, while innovation focuses on transforming these capabilities into products and services that add value to the market.The constant exchange of technical and market knowledge plays a key role in the innovation process (Hernandez et al., 2022).

METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURE
The present study is characterized by quantitative research, applied in nature and exploratory in nature, using bibliometric research as the methodological procedure.Searches were conducted on September 23 and 24, 2023 on the Scopus and Web basesof Science (WoS).For data collection, combinations with the descriptors "Knowledge Management" and Innovation*, were used in both databases.We used "" to return the accuracy of the expression and * to return plurality of the descriptor.
In the Scopus database articles were selected that contain the descriptors in the title, abstract and keywords.In WoS, the Topic option was selected, which groups the title, abstract, keywords and words that most appear.The two searches were conducted with a limitation of the period from 2017 to 2022.In addition, there was a limitation to documents in Article format and with English language.
In the Scopus database, only articles in final publication were selected and in the WoS database, articles with early release were excluded.The final restriction was due to the selection of the themes.Board 1 shows the categories of themes selected in each of the bases.
After applying all the criteria, the results were exported in CSV format in Scopus and "Plain Text File" in WoS, being tabulated in Excel Software for evaluation of repeated articles in each search and between them.Prior to the evaluation, a result was taken from Scopus, which returned untitled and without author, and 127 from the WoS search, which dated from 2023.Table 1 shows the number of results remaining from searches and the number of repeated articles found and removed.With all the documents tabulated, corrections were made in the spellings of the authors' keywords and groupings of the terms in the singular and plural.After the adjustments, the Bibliometrix R-package software was used to generate the quantitative data and graphs.The Bibliometrix R-package is a toolkit with high-level statistical algorithms and numerical routines used for bibliometric research.Developed in R language, it contains integrated tools for visualizing data (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Using the tools available in the Bibliometrix software it was possible to conduct quantitative performance analyzes and scientific mapping.From the evaluation of the relationships between the authors' keywords, possible trends were observed when the terms Knowledge Management and Innovation are united.

Performance
Between 2017 and 2022, 2,112 unique articles were found that contain the descriptors Knowledge Management and Innovation, presenting an annual growth of 18.04% within this period.All of these publications add up to 5,230 authors, of which 216 documents are from a single author.The other articles have an average of 3 co-authors per document, with 24% coauthoring internationally.
The publications are distributed in 582 different sources.The 10 journals with the most publications add up to 612 publications, absorbing 29% of the total of articles.The greatest highlight is Journal Of Knowledge Management with 196 publications being far removed from the second place, Technological Forecasting And Social Change with 81 articles.
When the productivity of the journals is analyzed within the defined period, it is noticeable that the publications involving the two terms have been growing in the Journal Of Knowledge Management in a consistent manner.In 2018 and 2019 alone, the number of publications became stable, with 29 documents published.Image 1 demonstrates the performance of the 10 journals with the most publications and Image 2 presents the productivity comparison of the 5 most relevant journals.The distribution of the articles among the authors is presented in a uniform manner in the researched period.The 10 most relevant authors, presented in Table 2, add up to 142 articles representing 6.7% of the total publications.The author with the largest number of publications is Manlio Del Giudice with 21 articles and is not far from Aberto Ferraris, second place with 18 publications.The highlight is in the authors' affiliations, with the University of Turin being the most relevant with 48 articles published and appearing with 5 authors in the listing.
Among the countries, China is the one that shows the greatest scientific production and holds the greatest quantity of articles, being followed, respectively, by Italy and Spain in these two indices.China is also the country with the highest rate of collaboration among its authors, reversing the positions between Italy and Spain.When countries are evaluated for their international collaboration, Italy ranks first with 77 articles followed by China and the United Kingdom.Table 3 presents the 10 countries with the highest scientific production calculated by 8 the frequency with which it appears in the author's affiliation, also demonstrating the quantity of articles, the internal and inter-country collaboration.The most important works were identified by means of the number of times they were cited.Table 4 presents the 10 articles with the largest citations, highlighting the work of Santoro et al. (2018) with 311 citations and with participation of 2 related authors in the list of the most relevant.

Trends
To visualize the trends of the works when the terms Knowledge Management and Innovation are together, analyzes of the authors' keywords were performed.All in all, there are 5,233 words and those that have the highest frequency are knowledge management, with 824 occurrences, and innovation, with 646.In the word cloud, shown in Image 3, it is possible to visualize the 25 words with the largest occurrences after the removal of the descriptors.Highlights are knowledge sharing, open innovation, SMES and intelectual capital.The two descriptors have links with the most frequent keywords, but they are presented with different intensities.To evaluate the trends in the work, these links were viewed separately.Image 4 shows the relationships that each descriptor has with the 20 keywords most often.
When the connections between the term knowledge management with others are analyzed, the strongest link is with knowledge sharing, followed by organizational learning and organizational performance, showing a strong tendency in works involving these themes.Other topics that are trending when engaging with knowledge management are: small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs), open innovation, intellectual capital, innovation performance, dynamic capabilities, and knowledge creation.
But when we evaluate the links between the terms with the descriptor Innovation, the relationship with the sharing of knowledge is no longer present with force.Innovation is associated with greater intensity in work involving the search for performance and with small and medium enterprises (SMEs).In a less intense manner, works involving intellectual capital, organizational learning, absorptive capacity, organizational performance and entrepreneurship are also revealed trends related to innovation.When the two descriptors are removed, the relationships between the 20 largest terms are more diversified, forming two distinct sets in the occurrence network.In Image 5, one can perceive a larger set, with most terms, and a smaller one, formed only with the terms knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer, knowledge creation and organizational culture.
Exploring the relationships from the two words with more than 100 occurrences, the term knowledge sharing presents trends in the themes of organizational culture and knowledge creation with greater intensity, but maintains links with organizational learning, innovation performance and small and medium enterprises.The term open innovation maintains a strong link with work involving small and medium-sized enterprises, and is the most relevant.

Image 1 -
Most relevant journals Source: Prepared by the authors.Image 2 -Productivity of journals Source: Prepared by the authors.

Image 3 -
Keyword CloudSource: Prepared by the authors.

Table 1 -
Number of Articles Found

Table 3 -
Countries with highest production Prepared by the authors.

Table 4 -
Most cited articles Source: Prepared by the authors.