How Can Knowledge Management Transform Organizational Culture to Enhance Data Security?

ABSTRACT Data security has become a paramount organizational priority, with global losses from breaches reaching trillions of dollars annually and 80% of security incidents involving human negligence rather than technical failures. This study addresses a critical theoretical gap by investigating how knowledge management (KM) can transform organizational culture to enhance data security. Despite extensive research on these domains separately, no comprehensive theoretical model systematically connects KM, organizational culture, and data security to address these human factors. A dual‐method approach combined systematic literature review of 102 Scopus articles (1990–2024) with qualitative interviews of 12 senior executives across four Indonesian companies. The research reveals four evolutionary eras: separated domains (1990–2000), emerging awareness (2000–2010), explicit integration (2010–2020), and holistic integration (2020–present). Key KM processes effectively enhancing security awareness include incident‐based learning, communities of practice, interactive training, and embedded security protocols. Facilitating factors encompass leadership commitment, adequate KM infrastructure, trust culture, and learning orientation, while impeding factors include departmental silos, blame culture, and resistance to change. This research contributes the first comprehensive conceptual framework bridging KM, organizational culture, and data security domains. Unlike previous fragmented studies, this integrative approach reveals how knowledge processes systematically influence security behaviors through cultural mechanisms, providing organizations actionable insights for developing security‐conscious cultural norms through structured knowledge creation, sharing, and application processes.