Knowledge creation in IT projects to accelerate digital innovation: two decade systematic literature review

Abstract

The interactivity and ubiquity of digital technologies are exerting a significant impact on the knowledge creation in information technology (KC-IT) projects. According to the literature, the critical relevance of KC-IT is highly associated with digital innovation (DI) for organisational success. However, DI is not yet a fully-fledged research subject but is an evolving corpus of theory and practise that draws from a variety of social science fields. Given the preceding setting, this study explores the interaction of KC-IT with DI. This work provides a systemic literature review (SLR) to examine the literature in KC-IT and its connection to DI. A SLR of 527 papers from 2001 to 2021 was performed across six online databases. The review encompasses quantitative and qualitative studies on KC-IT factors, processes and methods. Three major gaps were found in the SLR. Firstly, only 57 (0.23%) papers were found to examine the association between KC and IT projects. These works were analysed for theories, type of papers, KC-IT factors, processes and methods. Secondly, the convergence reviews indicate that scarce research has examined TMS and trust in KC-IT as factors. Thirdly, only 0.02% (5) core papers appeared in the search relevant to KC in IT projects to accelerate DI. The majority of the papers examined were not linked to DI. A significant gap also exists in these areas. These findings warrant the attention of the research community.