Fifty Years of Knowledge Management Research: A System-Level Analysis of Intellectual, Conceptual and Social Structures

Knowledge Management (KM) has evolved over the last five decades as a complex socio-technical system shaped by interactions between organizational processes, technologies and social actors. This study maps the systemic evolution of KM research between 1975 and 2025 by examining its intellectual, conceptual and social subsystems. Using a large-scale bibliometric science-mapping approach that combines performance indicators and network-based techniques, we analyze 33,153 documents indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. The results reveal a pronounced post-1995 expansion of the field, marked by a consolidated core of specialized journals and influential scholars, alongside an increasingly global research network. The analysis shows that KM research is structured around four interdependent dimensions: organizational processes, strategic orientations, technological infrastructures and socio-cultural factors. More recent developments indicate the emergence of new system trajectories associated with digital transformation, knowledge governance and sustainability. Viewed through a system-level lens, these findings position KM as an evolving research system characterized by adaptive and cross-domain dynamics.