Customer knowledge management antecedent factors: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Customer knowledge (CK) is recognized as a critical organizational resource that provides competitive advantage. Capability of absorbing, sharing, and applying CK can be a challenge for organizations. Human, Organizational, and Technological conditions that facilitate CK management (CKM) are vital capabilities for organizations. This article intends to delve into the world of CKM by appraising and scrutinizing the present state of research and extracting organizational, individual, and technological CKM precursor factors. On the basis of a systematic literature review, this study gathers, integrates, and scrutinizes 66 papers pertaining to CKM precursor factors published during the period 2003–2016 on seven databases by adhering to a predefined review convention. The chosen articles have been appraised so as to mine pertinent information on a series of research questions. We noted a general rise in the number of related papers in the last 8‐year period. Selected articles have investigated CKM in 14 different contexts and 19 different countries. The result of extracting CKM antecedent factors shows that “Customer‐Centric Culture,” “Collaboration System,” and “CRM Technology Infrastructure” have the most frequency in the literature. However, “Intellectual Property,” “Program Champion,” and “Trust” are less iterative factors. Therefore, companies and researchers can use the result of this research for developing Human, Organization, and Technological capabilities in order to implement CKM successfully.

Customer knowledge management in SMEs: Review and research agenda

“…CKM would not be possible without the commitment from senior management (Attafar, Sadidi, Attafar, & Shahin, 2013), which supports our finding that this commitment from senior management is closely related to the antecedents of CKM (program champion or change agent, reward system, and senior management support) proposed by Khosravi and Ab (2018). CKM has certain relationships with a KOL style within a firm.…”

“…To achieve successful CKM practice, Khosravi and Ab (2018) suggest that framing new routines and changing organizational structure are essential. According to Khosravi and Ab (2018), the antecedent factors of CKM can be categorized into three main groups: organizational factors, human factors, and technological factors.…”

“…To achieve successful CKM practice, Khosravi and Ab (2018) suggest that framing new routines and changing organizational structure are essential. According to Khosravi and Ab (2018), the antecedent factors of CKM can be categorized into three main groups: organizational factors, human factors, and technological factors. The authors studied 66 papers published from 2003 to 2016 on seven main databases and found that the most frequently studied enablers of CKM are culture (organizational factor), collaboration system (technological factor), and CRM technology infrastructure (technological factor).…”

“…The authors studied 66 papers published from 2003 to 2016 on seven main databases and found that the most frequently studied enablers of CKM are culture (organizational factor), collaboration system (technological factor), and CRM technology infrastructure (technological factor). Meanwhile, the least mentioned antecedents in the past literature are intellectual property (human factor), program champion (organizational factor), and trust (human factor) (Khosravi & Ab, 2018). The authors carefully studied the CKM enablers from past studies and categorized them into 18 key factors under three main categories (shown in Tables 4–8).…”

“…Few studies investigated the relationship between CKM and trust (Khosravi & Ab, 2018; Khosravi & Nilashi, 2018; L.‐R. Yang et al, 2013).…”