Customer knowledge management antecedent factors: A systematic literature review

• Author: Ab Razak Che Hussin,Arash Khosravi
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1557
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Published date: 01 January 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Customer knowledge management antecedent factors: A

systematic literature review

Arash Khosravi

1

|Ab Razak Che Hussin

2

1

Department of Information Systems, Faculty

of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

2

Department of Information Systems,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru,

Malaysia

Correspondence

Arash Khosravi, Department of Information

Systems, Faculty of Computing, Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, 81310 Johor

Bahru, Malaysia.

Email: Khosravi.280@gmail.com

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.

1|INTRODUCTION

Currently, an increasing number of establishments are making moves

to take on a customer‐centric attitude. Such an attitude serves to

generate value through the active incorporation of the

establishment's customers into its product and service enhancement

procedures (Bagheri, Kusters, & Trienekens, 2015b; Lorenzo‐Romero,

Constantinides, & Brünink, 2014). Customers require detailed and

comprehensive solutions. A customer‐centric view on solution

offerings motivates companies to enhance their understanding of

customers' needs. To achieve a shared understanding of customers'

needs across an organization, customer knowledge can be seen as

a prerequisite (Taherparvar, Esmaeilpour, & Dostar, 2014). The

successful fabrication of customized products calls for precise

knowledge not only about the customer but also from the customer.

The present‐day global economy is progressively influenced by the

usage of knowledge, and generally, the customer is deemed a

decisive factor when it comes to the success or failure of an estab-

lishment (Aho & Uden, 2013). A good management of customer

knowledge is essential for the generation of improved goods and

facilities. Efficient customer knowledge management (CKM) will

serve to enhance customer allegiance and the customer‐establish-

ment alliance (Chen & Su, 2006).

The objectives of CKM are to collaborate with customers and

cocreate value (Wang & Zhao, 2015). CKM is the processes in the

organization that need favorable conditions and capabilities to be

developed and that facilitate CKM activities (Bagheri et al., 2015b).

That means understanding of customer value needs to be integrated

in the product development process (Aho & Uden, 2013). CKM

depends on how a company builds and manages its best connections

to their customers to absorb, transfer, and apply customer knowledge.

To achieve this goal, firms need to provide CKM oriented culture and

the shared belief that customer retention is a high priority for everyone

(Hammami & Triki, 2011). There are significant challenges regarding

the transfer and integration of customer knowledge inside companies

(Kannabiran & Sankaran, 2011). Attafar, Sadidi, Attafar, and Shahin

(2013) have investigated the barriers of the design and implementation

of CKM in the organization. He noted that lack of senior management

commitment to CKM, poor communication, lack of cultural readiness,

and lack of customer management skills are the barriers to the design

and implementation of CKM. The biggest problems for effective

application of CKM in any company are organizational, not technical

Received: 24 November 2016 Revised: 9 June 2017 Accepted: 22 December 2017

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1557

12 Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Knowl Process Manag. 2018;25:12–30.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm

(Smith & McKeen, 2005). Although research on CKM is still in the

initial stages, the number of studies has been rising continuously of

late. Many studies in the area of CKM have investigated factors that

influence CKM, however, comprehensive systematic review on

Human, Organizational, and Technological factors that enhance CKM

seems to be one of the less explored and examined topics in this

domain. Furthermore, not many efforts have been made to appraise

these studies analytically so as to make them expedient for academics

and practitioners. Hence, there is a need to find out the CKM anteced-

ent factors that help the managers and practitioners in the organiza-

tions to implement CKM plan successfully. Therefore, this study aims

to investigate the important Human, Organizational, and Technological

factors that enable and facilitate CKM in the organizations.

This study is based on the gathering of information from specific

articles in relevant literature for an evaluation of the present day

standing of CKM. The primary objective of this investigation is to

present a concise opinion on current research in this area and forward

proposals for further studies. Section 1 is the introduction, Section 2

describes the research procedure, Section 3 forwards the study results,

Section 4 offers our response to the research queries, and Section 5

provides the conclusion of this investigation.

2|CKM THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

2.1 |Customer knowledge management

According to Campbell (2003), customer knowledge refers to the

ordered and structured information pertaining to the customer driven

by methodical processing. Gebert, Geib, Kolbe, and Riempp (2002)

offered a commonly acknowledged definition of customer knowledge:

“the vigorous blend of value, experience, and perceptive information

that is required, generated and imbibed during the process of transac-

tion and interchange between the organization and customers.”

Gebert, Geib, Kolbe, and Brenner (2003) classified customer knowl-

edge into three main categories. The first type called “knowledge for

customers”refers to knowledge about products, markets, and suppliers

applied to satisfy customers' knowledge needs. The second type is

referred as “knowledge about customers,”which is created based on

the analysis of historical customers' data and information. The third

type which is known as “knowledge from customers,”refers to the

customers' feedbacks Another type of customer knowledge stated by

Smith and McKeen (2005) is cocreated knowledge. This knowledge

can be captured during the cooperation between the organization

and its customers.

As per Sofianti, Suryadi, Govindaraju, and Prihartono (2010), CKM

is the strategic practice based on which forward‐looking organizations

unshackle their customers from being submissive recipients of

products and services to authorization as knowledge partners. CKM

pertains to obtaining, sharing, and using the knowledge within cus-

tomers for the benefit of those customers as well as the organization.

It is termed as an ongoing practice of creating, distributing, and utilizing

customer knowledge within a business entity and between a business

entity and its customers. For a business entity to be more effectual and

competent in delivering products/services, and thus generating delight

among customers, customer knowledge would have to be managed to

make sure that the services a business entity offers are the ones that

will take care of customers' requirements. CKM should not essentially

be a tool such as the conventional customer relationship management

(CRM). Instead, it should be a strategic practice that grasps, creates,

and assimilates customers with dynamism. It is crucial to determine

what kinds of competences could aid CKM activities. Customer assim-

ilation is termed as a crucial approach for enhancing innovation and

quality. CKM is a blend of knowledge management (KM) and CRM

principles (Aho & Uden, 2013). According to Wang and Yu (2010),

CKM is the source and deployment of customer knowledge, and the

mindfulness of how to forge more valued customer relations through

the use of Information Technology.

According to the knowledge‐based view (KBV), knowledge is a

distinctive resource and organizational performance relies on how well

its members can improve the organization's knowledge base,

assimilate various knowledge areas, and deploy the knowledge for

the development of high quality and pioneering products (Eisenhardt

& Santos, 2002; Grant, 1996). Lin (2007) proposed the general

framework of knowledge management processes that is supported

by KBV. This framework involves three aspects: enablers, processes,

and outcomes. Lin (2007) arranged enablers into three categories,

Human, Organizational, and Technology. In this framework, “Enablers”

are the mechanism for developing individual, organizational, and

technological capabilities to facilitate knowledge management in the

organization (Lin, 2007). The “processes”dimension refers to the pro-

cess of collecting, sharing, and applying the experience, expertise,

know‐how, and contextual information in the organization. The “out-

comes”dimension exposes the consequences of the degree of knowl-

edge management effectively achieved in a company's performance,

innovation capability and product, and service quality (Lin, 2007).

Salojärvi, Saarenketo, and Puumalainen (2013) follow this general

framework for proposing the model for CKM. Other scholars recognize

the existence of different influences on CKM activities, such as

Human, Organizational, and Technological factors (Feher &

Gabor, 2006; Ghobadi, 2015; Lin, 2007; Salojärvi et al., 2013).

Orlikowski (1992) proposed the theory to show the interaction among

people, organization, and technology. The author proposed three enti-

ties with four relationships and emphasized that the technology is pro-

duced by human action, people are developer of technology, and this

technology is used in organizations. These three aspects and their

interaction and appropriate attributes of these entities can help us to

identify the conditions that facilitate CKM. Van Den Brink (2001) pro-

posed a knowledge transfer model based on the theory of Orlikowski

(1992; Theory of Technology in the organizations). He arranged the

conditions into three groups, people, organization, and technology.

2.2 |CKM enablers

CKM enablers are mechanisms to activate CKM, break the obstacles of

CKM, and provide Organizational, Human, and Technological condition

to facilitate CKM (Gebert et al., 2003; Khosravi, Ismail, &

Najaftorkaman, 2014; Liao & Wu, 2010). According to Gibbert,

Leibold, and Probst (2002), knowledge management (KM) enablers

are crucial aspects that put CKM ideas into practice for attaining

KHOSRAVI AND HUSSIN 13