Knowledge Sharing and Organizational Performance: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis of Mechanisms, Contexts and Outcomes (2014-2025)

Abstract

Purpose: This review explains how knowledge sharing is converted into organizational performance and identifies the organizational, technological and contextual conditions that enable, constrain or redirect this conversion.
Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review covering 2014-2025 was conducted in accordance with PRISMA 2020 reporting principles and management-review guidance. The final analytical corpus comprises 92 empirical studies: 46 published during 2014-2024 and 46 published in 2025. The 2014-2024 screening sequence reported in the manuscript began with 1,204 records, of which 912 remained after deduplication; 96 were assessed in full text and 46 were retained. For 2025, 75 records were identified; after removal of duplicates/overlaps, one out-of-period record and two retracted reports, 67 were assessed and 46 retained. Eligibility, extraction and thematic coding were conducted by a single primary reviewer using explicit criteria, an audit trail and repeated coding. The synthesis combined descriptive mapping with iterative thematic analysis; no meta-analysis was conducted because constructs, outcome levels and effect statistics were heterogeneous.
Findings: Across the 2014-2025 literature, five interdependent themes emerged: enabling and inhibiting conditions; forms and quality of knowledge sharing; conversion mechanisms; multidimensional performance outcomes; and boundary conditions. The evidence is consistent with a conditional conversion pathway in which culture, trust, leadership, support, structure and digital infrastructure shape exchange, while learning, innovation, improvisation, agility, ambidexterity, knowledge quality and application help explain how sharing is associated with performance. The 2025 subset places stronger emphasis on artificial intelligence, human-machine interaction, knowledge-sharing quality, sustainability and the balance between sharing and protection. This late-period concentration is interpreted as an emerging development rather than a definitive temporal break. Mixed and non-significant findings show that more sharing is not automatically better.
Research limitations/implications: The evidence remains dominated by cross-sectional, self-reported SEM studies and emerging-economy contexts. A single-reviewer process and heterogeneous outcome measures limit causal and statistical generalization. Practical implications: Managers should manage the complete conversion chain: identify strategically relevant knowledge, create safe and well-governed sharing channels, validate quality, embed application in work processes and evaluate proximal and distal performance outcomes. Originality/value: The review extends earlier enabler-process-outcome syntheses by isolating the knowledge-sharing-to-performance pathway, separating proximal from distal performance outcomes, incorporating boundary conditions and failure paths, and proposing a dynamic conversion framework that integrates AI, knowledge quality, ambidexterity and governance. It also distinguishes established themes across the review period from emerging emphases concentrated in the 2025 subset.