Variation, Selection, and Retention in Knowledge Management: An Evolutionary Integrative Review
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to develop an interpretation of the temporal development of Knowledge Management (KM) through the lens of variation-selection-retention (VSR) logic. More specifically, it examines how KM arrangements emerge, gain support, become stabilised, and subsequently follow different post-retention trajectories over time. Although KM research has generated rich insights into knowledge creation, transfer, innovation, and technological enablement, it has been less explicit in theorising what happens after KM arrangements are introduced and retained within organisations. This paper addresses that gap by proposing an evolutionary reading of KM that extends beyond implementation and performance. The study adopts a PRISMA-informed, theory-driven integrative review of Scopus-indexed journal articles in the Business, Management and Accounting subject area published between 2000 and 2026, complemented by a focused VOSviewer term co-occurrence analysis. The final corpus of 25 studies was analysed through interpretive synthesis, with VSR used as a sensitising framework and bibliometric mapping employed to support the identification of recurring thematic configurations. The analysis identifies four connected configurations of KM scholarship: KM as routinised capability, ecologically embedded knowledge creation, sharing-driven innovation, and technology-mediated infrastructure. These configurations show that KM literature already contains important temporal and evolutionary insights, but that these remain dispersed across adjacent streams. Building on them, the paper develops an evolutionary conceptual model in which retention is not treated as an endpoint. Instead, retained KM arrangements may follow four post-retention trajectories: renewal, dormancy, replacement, or obsolescence. These trajectories are shaped by the interaction of functional relevance, organisational support, social legitimacy, and adaptive renewability. The paper contributes in three ways. First, it offers a temporally oriented reinterpretation of KM as an evolving organisational phenomenon. Second, it extends existing debate beyond implementation and performance by foregrounding differentiated post-retention trajectories. Third, it proposes a conditions-based framework that can guide future empirical research on the long-run viability, adaptation, and decline of KM practices and systems across different organisational settings.