Knowledge maps: A systematic literature review and directions for future research

Context: Nowadays the concept of knowledge mapping has attracted increased attention from scientists in a variety of academic disciplines and professional practice areas. Among the most important attributes of a knowledge map is its ability to increase communication and share common practices across an entire organisation. However, despite being a promising area for research, the knowledge maps community lacks a widespread understanding of the current state of the art. Objective: The objective of this article is to explore the world of knowledge mapping by reviewing and analysing the current state of research and providing an overview of knowledge mapping's concepts, benefits, techniques, classifications and methodologies, which are precisely reviewed, and their features are highlighted. In addition, we offer directions for future research. Method: Based on the systematic literature review method this study collects, synthesises, and analyses numerous articles on a variety of topics closely related to a knowledge map published from January 2000 to December 2013 on six electronic databases by following a pre-defined review protocol. The articles have been retrieved through a combination of automatic and manual search, hence extensive quantitative and qualitative results of the research are provided. Results: From the review study, we identified 132 articles addressing knowledge maps that have been reviewed in order to extract relevant information on a set of research questions. We found a generally increasing level of activity during this 5-year period. We noted that while existing research covers a large number of studies on some disciplines, such as systems and tools development, it contains very few studies on other disciplines, such as knowledge maps adoption. To aid this situation, we offer directions for future research. Conclusions: The results demonstrated that a knowledge map is an imperative strategy for increasing organisations' effectiveness. In addition, there is a need for more knowledge maps research. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.