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Knowledge management in the construction industry: current state of

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DOI: 10.3846/jcem.2021.16006

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 Journal of Civil Engineering and Management
ISSN 1392-3730 / eISSN 1822-3605
2021 Volume 27 Issue 8: 671–680
https://doi.org/10.3846/jcem.2021.16006

Invited Review

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY:

CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Víctor YEPES *, Salvador LÓPEZ

ICITECH, Department of Construction Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Received 15 December 2020; accepted 16 November 2021

Abstract. Knowledge management in the construction industry has become an element of transition between traditional
processes and the current needs demanded by technological change. This research reviews the updated scientific contri-
butions of knowledge management in construction, as well as its influence. The results come from a bibliometric study,
elaborating a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the current state. The research method was divided into the following
stages: preliminary approach to the bibliography, establishment of search strategies, selection and classification of articles,
quantitative analysis and discussion of relevant articles. Three main factors were identified: use and exploitation of knowl-
edge, knowledge transfer, and information technologies; five complementary facets were also identified: culture, innova-
tion, quality, knowledge generation and human factors. The results reaffirm the importance of the use and exploitation of
knowledge, in addition to increasing attention to the transfer and technology of information. However, the generation of
knowledge has declined because the sector still does not report the results of applying knowledge, and this underlines the
need for the future study of strategies to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.
Keywords: knowledge management, state of knowledge, bibliometric analysis, construction industry, use and exploitation
of knowledge, knowledge transfer.

Introduction
Knowledge management has become an indispensable in- process (Senaratne et al., 2017) of its management (Sun
tellectual asset in obtaining a competitive advantage (Yang et al., 2019).
et al., 2014; Yu & Yang, 2018), and should be considered In the last decades, research, in addition to increas-
a key element of good practice in an organization. As a ing the evaluation of social impacts (Navarro et al., 2020),
systematic, integrated and directed process (Arriagada & has emphasized the complexity of the processes used in
Alarcón, 2014), it allows the balance between the use of the construction industry (Villarreal et al., 2017), because
technology, human relations and strategic management. the sector intensively combines knowledge and experi-
The purpose of this study is to determine the current state ence (Yang et al., 2014). The problem is not the genera-
of investigation in knowledge management in the con- tion of knowledge in the construction sector, but the waste
struction sector, from 2012 to date, complementing the of valuable information for future projects (Alashwal &
paper of Castro et al. (2012). Abdul-Rahman, 2014b). Therefore, building on previous
Knowledge is a product of learning (Qian Li et al., knowledge transforms beliefs and previous patterns (Pel-
2017) that allows employees to act and make better deci- licer et al., 2012), from which it can be concluded that the
sions, becoming in the long term an added value. It has more capabilities an organization has, the greater will be
always been considered an abstract concept, associated its adaptation to technological changes (Papadonikolaki,
with intangible assets (Hartono et al., 2019), a main chal- 2018).
lenge being the management of knowledge assets (Hoła With the demand for qualified personnel, the global-
et al., 2015), which is the core of knowledge management ization of the economy and the presence of technological
(Castillo et al., 2018). The more knowledge remains tacit, change in all areas, the professional development of staff
the more difficult its management is (Zhang & He, 2016). is also changing. The challenge is to develop talent (Jun-
On the contrary, if it becomes explicit, it improves the yong, 2018), because it is people who have the knowledge.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unre-
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672 V. Yepes, S. López. Knowledge management in the construction industry: current state of knowledge ...

Only through the periodic evaluation of entrepreneurship, panies (see Figure 1). Likewise, for this paper we will use
knowledge sharing, organizational learning and the im- the classification made in the paper of Castro et al. (2012)
provement of social capital (Senaratne et al., 2017) is it to delimit it, consisting of: knowledge culture, human
possible to improve the stock of knowledge and employ- factors, quality of information, generation of knowledge,
ees’ skills, in addition to improving organizational and in- knowledge transfer, use and exploitation of knowledge,
novative performance (Ni et al., 2018). innovation and, finally, information and communication
The construction sector should take initiatives to de- technologies.
velop a knowledge culture (Zhang & Ng, 2012b), not only Figure 2 shows the interrelationships between the eight
to manage time threats, costs (Ortiz-González et al., 2018) factors of knowledge management. A solid line indicates
and poorly managed projects (Orsi et al., 2020), but also a direct relationship between two factors, so that one fac-
to generate opportunities to renew knowledge. The mea- tor directly influences the objective factor. In contrast, a
sures of openness (Kale & Karaman, 2012b) and flexibil- dotted line indicates an indirect relationship between two
ity (Zhu & Cheung, 2017) generate confidence, which is a factors. In this case, however, the relationship is not direct;
very important factor, affecting both those who seek and that is, the source factor influences other factors that, in
those who generate knowledge (Arif et al., 2015). Finally, turn, influence the objective factor. These relationships are
inefficiency can be reversed by transmitting, expanding shown in Figure 2, resulting in a model that represents the
and renewing knowledge in the presence of technological influences between the knowledge management factors.
change (Papadonikolaki, 2018), benefiting the organiza- Knowledge management is made difficult when it is
tion (Eken et al., 2020) in the long term. not known either what knowledge is held or what its po-
Hence, this study set to answer two questions: what has tential use is (Caldas et al., 2015) and, like innovation in
been studied from 2012 to 2020 in regard to knowledge
management in construction? and what are the potential
Business Management
research directions in the future? To answer these ques-
tions, major topics and research framework were summa-
rized, and future research directions were predicted in this
paper on the basis of literature review. Generation Knowledge
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. of transfer
knowledge
The literature retrieval methodology and paper selection
is explained in Materials and methods section. The past Knowledge
learned
lessons

ICT
research framework is summarized in Literature review management
section, through eight subchapters. The Prediction section
proposes the prediction of possible research directions to
Continuous Technological
improve the past research framework. Finally, conclusions, improvement Gap
limitations and future work are presented in the Conclu-
sions section.
Competitiveness

1. Literature review
Figure 1. Quality, innovation, and knowledge relationships in firms
Knowledge management is a systematic, organized (Liu
et al., 2019) and continuous (Kim, 2014) process, whose
objectives are to increase competitiveness, promote or-
I
ganizational learning and preserve knowledge. It is ap-
plied throughout the organization, adapting to policies
and always requiring monitoring and evaluation. Good
knowledge management becomes a competitive strategy QI KC HF
(Ni et al., 2018), because it works on learning from pre-
vious lessons, avoiding mistakes and repeating successes UEK
(Dong et al., 2018). GK
It is based on three pillars, which are technology, hu-
man relations and strategic management (Arriagada &
Alarcón, 2014), its effectiveness being determined based
KT
on the balance between them: technology, focused on the
creation and reuse of knowledge; human relations, inter- ICT
ested in creating qualified networks; and strategic manage-
ment, focused on the optimal use of intellectual capacities. Innovation (I); Quality of Information (QI); Knowledge Culture (KC); Human Factors (HF);
In the research of Pellicer et al. (2011), they conceive Use and Exploitation of Knowledge (UEK); Generation of Knowledge (GK);
Knowledge Transfer (KT); Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
knowledge management as fundamental for the feedback
processes of quality and innovation management in com- Figure 2. The knowledge management cycle in organizations
Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 2021, 27(8): 671–680 673

the sector, it is considered a process that is not yet stan- nizational climate, influence the behaviors, attitudes and
dardized (Yepes et al., 2016). Also, its good management prevailing norms (Yang & Cheng, 2020). It is important
can become a trigger that increases profits (Sun et al., to emphasize that personnel in pursuit of knowledge will
2019), because companies in the sector are very competi- always be connected through affinity with others. If that
tive and have small profit margins (Skibniewski & Zavad- affinity is supported by the higher levels, then the impor-
skas, 2013). tance of human factors in the exchange of knowledge is
After applying the respective criteria to update the recognized.
state of the art to the current year, the articles considered
most important were analyzed from both a quantitative 1.3. Quality of information
and qualitative perspective, using the framework of Castro
et al. (2012), represented in Figure 2. Subsequently, the The quality of information is defined, according to re-
resultant publications were classified into the eight aspects search of Sheriff et al. (2012), as a critical element for the
of the model adopted, and the researchers’ contributions innovation and optimal performance of companies. For
are summarized in the following section. this reason, construction companies that have implement-
ed quality management systems, based on ISO 10006 in
1.1. Knowledge culture 2005 and ISO 9001 in 2008, have increased their efficiency,
competitiveness (Hoła et al., 2015) and innovation capac-
The culture of knowledge in organizations has become a ity (Pellicer et al., 2014).
key factor for knowledge transfer, provided that there is a From a more entrepreneurial perspective, information
constant flow of information. Knowledge is tied to indi- quality is seen as a corporate asset that aligns information
viduals (Goddard et al., 2016), and this is why the main demands with business processes, improving the ability to
concern of organizations is the generation of an environ- run a business, its performance and operational efficiency
ment of social interaction to allow the flow of information. (Sheriff et al., 2012). On the other hand, information qual-
On the other hand, individuals must be provided with re- ity requires constant rethinking and a holistic view. The
sources, continuous training, and the necessary strategies first is to ensure long-term competitive advantage and the
to apply knowledge in specific situations. second is to balance both technologies and the capacity of
The establishment of a knowledge culture in the or- staff to use and leverage information for more profitable
ganization is influenced by the attitude of the employ-
results.
ees. This represents a critical barrier to change, because
inherited values and beliefs are not readily questioned
1.4. Information and communication technologies
(Vennström & Eriksson, 2010), in addition to which there
may be concern about being replaced in the job if knowl- Information and communication technologies constitute a
edge is shared. However, it is possible to generate confi- technological infrastructure that facilitates the codification
dence in the organization (Arif et al., 2015) if horizontal of knowledge to be placed in databases (Park et al., 2013),
leadership is consolidated in the organizational structure, enabling its agile collection, storage and exchange (Kale &
which is the first step in developing the commitment (Al- Karaman, 2012a). In addition, it creates an interconnected
Tmeemy et al., 2012), collaboration, and loyalty of the em- environment that strengthens the volume of knowledge
ployees (Kale & Karaman, 2012b). (Tan et al., 2012) coming from the construction process,
departments and the work field.
1.2. Human factors The barriers limiting the potential represented by in-
One of the main drivers of national economies are com- formation technologies are a product of the fragmentation
panies. As long as there is no reason to stop their activity, of the sector, i.e., the disconnection of personnel between
the companies will generate the offer and demand of het- departments continues to be an obstacle (Haron et al.,
erogeneous human resources, maintaining personnel with 2015) to overcome. There is also a fear of data security,
more capacity and aptitude. Currently, human resources failures and a lack of knowledge about how to use plat-
are indispensable to the organization, due to specific his- forms (Afolabi et al., 2017), and a lack of physical control.
torical conditions, social complexity and causal ambiguity Finally, they are evolving as a tool capable of dealing
(Zhai et al., 2014). with more complex projects, promoting the use of more
The personnel are the main creators of functional complex business systems (Afolabi et al., 2017), the effi-
knowledge (Ding et al., 2013) in an organization. From ciency and effectiveness (Nourbakhsh et al., 2012) of in-
the human development perspective, there are two main formation exchange, remote access to administrative ac-
aspects that potentialize people’s capabilities, being per- tivities and web-based project management (Doloi, 2014).
sonal motivations and contextual factors (Zhang & Ng, The ease of use and perceived usefulness, determine the
2013). In principle, personal motivations are developed behavioural intention to use a technology (Wang et al.,
based on trust (Zhang & Ng, 2012a), tightly connected 2020). This facilitates the transmission of information
social networks and shared objectives. On the other hand, to human knowledge, which is one of the main tasks of
contextual factors, whose essence is centered on the orga- knowledge sharing (H. Wang & S. Wang, 2016).
674 V. Yepes, S. López. Knowledge management in the construction industry: current state of knowledge ...

1.5. Generation of knowledge reciprocity and cultural identity (Schröpfer et al., 2017).
In the construction sector, other factors may be con-
The generation of knowledge is the extraction of knowl-
sidered more important than the transfer of knowledge.
edge from individuals or groups (Addis, 2016) with the
First is delivery times, referring to the need to comply
purpose of collecting, renewing and codifying it, allowing
with the planning. Second is the organizational structure
its use at all organizational levels. It is an interconnected
process that involves teams, individual skills (Alashwal & (Forcada et al., 2013), often considered by itself as too lean
Abdul-Rahman, 2014a) and organizational leaders, creat- for the knowledge exploitation. Third is the organizational
ing a network of relationships. It not only consists in the culture (Zhang & He, 2016), which traditionally excludes
creation, but also implies the adaptation of existing knowl- long-term strategies. Then there is the maintenance of
edge (Kale & Karaman, 2012a), for the benefit of corporate knowledge in the tacit context (Schröpfer et al., 2017), be-
learning (Baloian & Zurita, 2012). It comes from a com- cause it is neither demanded nor considered relevant. Fi-
bination of factors, beginning with everyday practice, in- nally, the transfer of knowledge will be unsuccessful if di-
formal dialogues among employees, and shared objectives. rect communication and trust fail (Sun et al., 2019), even
Knowledge is represented as explicit and tacit. While within the same company (Javernick-Will, 2012), because
explicit knowledge refers to that which can be stored it requires a certain level of shared meaning (Alashwal &
and distributed, tacit knowledge belongs to the person- Abdul-Rahman, 2014b).
nel of the organizations. Traditionally, explicit knowledge
has been considered very important for managing new 1.7. Use and exploitation of knowledge
knowledge, which demeans tacit knowledge that is just as The use and exploitation of knowledge is defined as the
important. An important strategy will be to convert tacit use of transferred knowledge that provides value to the
knowledge into explicit knowledge (Baloian & Zurita, organization (Alashwal et al., 2016), and is able to solve
2012), relying on the use of tools and techniques (Yap & both human errors and technical problems, optimizing
Lock, 2017) to achieve the creation, storage and applica- time in the project results and supporting decision making
tion of knowledge, which is the prelude to innovation.
(Jansson et al., 2015). It should be treated as institutional-
ized learning capable of connecting personnel (Alashwal
1.6. Knowledge transfer et al., 2016), that is, a methodical collection disposed in
Knowledge transfer is defined as a social form in which the transfer networks that can be assimilated by the work-
individuals, teams and organizations interact (Keung & ers (Kale & Karaman, 2012b) and that is constructed on
Shen, 2013), to share a commitment with a common pur- the basis of the articulation capacity of the sender of the
pose. In research of Alashwal and Abdul-Rahman (2014b) knowledge (Garcia & Mollaoglu, 2020). Depending on the
it is defined as the flow of knowledge from a source to articulation capacity of the emitter will be the absorption
a receiver for assimilation and reuse, based on previous capacity of a recipient of knowledge, even if there is no
experience. On the other hand, Keung and Shen (2013) common knowledge between them.
define it as a functional activity at an internal level, in This is based on four principal phases known as: con-
which team members interact with each other, collecting struction, incarnation, diffusion (Kale & Karaman, 2012b)
and disseminating knowledge. and use (Kim, 2014). Firstly, the construction phase is
Knowledge is also represented from internal and ex- where the knowledge is structured. Secondly, it is in the
ternal approaches. Internal knowledge is generated in the incarnation phase that the site of the concentration of
organization itself, coming from the personnel, the design knowledge is chosen. Thirdly, the phase of dissemination
processes (Bashouri & Duncan, 2014) and the decision makes the knowledge available. Finally, the stage of use is
making, generally supported by the technical capacities, the result that gives value to the organization (Kim, 2014).
social dimension and culture of knowledge (Costa et al., In addition, the internal learning routines and the absorp-
2016). External knowledge is generated in other organiza- tion capacity of the companies must be known in order to
tions, and is more appreciated than internal knowledge, al- use it correctly; only in this way is it possible to update the
though both are equally important (Javernick-Will, 2012). traditional routines of the sector (Manley & Chen, 2015).
The purposes of knowledge transfer consist of the ap- Their principal deficiencies are linked to the lack of
plication, systematization (Arriagada & Alarcón, 2014) knowledge when it is required, the loss of important
and socialization of knowledge. Its application is to ben- knowledge (Yap & Lock, 2017), the repetition of previous
efit the results of the project (Garcia & Mollaoglu, 2020), efforts and the inability of workers to use the information.
to generate more value (Park et al., 2013), to encourage On the contrary, if we learn from the previous lessons, it
exchange within the organization and between organi- will be possible to develop the potential for innovation in
zations (Wu, 2013), and to avoid the loss of knowledge. a company (Goddard et al., 2016).
Likewise, systematization represents the passage from the
object to the routine (Arriagada & Alarcón, 2014), and so-
1.8. Innovation
cialization means transmitting people’s knowledge to the
organization. It is the responsibility of managers to invest, Innovation not only represents the creation of new things;
motivate, and encourage human resources in a context of that is, it can also be considered within the adoption,
Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 2021, 27(8): 671–680 675

adaptation and modification of processes as well as the

management and organization of work (Pellicer et al.,
2012), as long as it generates alternatives in accordance
with technological changes (Walker, 2016). It is considered
an advanced activity, in both the scientific and technical knowledge
transfer;
aspects, that requires more complex communication pro- knowledge sharing;
cesses (Lindgren et al., 2018). Being an advanced activity explicit knowledge;
implies being holistic (Sujan et al., 2020), continuous, and tacit knowledge
systematic (Yepes et al., 2016), which means integrating
both processes and people, thus eradicating the isolated civil engineering; construction
industry; construction rm;
perception of it. consulting rm; consultancy;
Although it is an important part of the organization’s construction
management (Pellicer et al., 2017), innovation has the dis-
knowledge management;
advantages that its processes are not completely under-
organizational learning; knowledge managing;
stood (Lindgren et al., 2018), it is considered unnecessary organizational memory; knowledge engineering;
in the short term (Castillo et al., 2018), and it does not lessons learned; knowledge management system;
intellectual capital knowledge map;
have specific departments for its standardized manage-
knowledge management tools
ment, all of which affect the potential benefits (Hadiwat-
tege et al., 2018). On the other hand, it represents uncer-
Figure 3. Search strategies (developed by the authors)
tainty (Kildienė et al., 2014) when it is adopted, although
this can be mitigated through standardization (Yepes
et al., 2016). aim of the study, in order to find the key words and es-
Small companies in the construction sector (Hartono tablish bibliometric search strategies. These strategies are
et al., 2019) have the characteristic of being more dis- shown in Figure 3. The search strategies combined four
posed to innovation. In the first place, this is because of groups of keywords: (a) “knowledge transfer”, “knowl-
their proximity to suppliers, which are sources of knowl- edge sharing”, “explicit knowledge” or “tacit knowledge”;
edge that can be captured. Finally, they can more easily (b) “knowledge management”, “knowledge managing”,
strengthen their organizational learning (Ni et al., 2018), “knowledge engineering”, “knowledge management sys-
without the need for an excessively institutionalized man- tem”, “knowledge map” or “knowledge management
agement, as a precursor of innovation processes (Wen & tools”; (c) “organizational learning”, “organizational mem-
Qiang, 2016). ory”, “lessons learned” or “intellectual capital”; (d) “civil
engineering”, “construction industry”, “construction firm”,
“consulting firm”, “consultancy” or “construction”. The last
2. Materials and methods
group of keywords was used in all the search strategies
The purpose of this study is to determine the current state in order to contextualize the search in the construction
of investigation in knowledge management in the con- industry. The research was carried out using specialized
struction sector, from 2012 to date, complementing the scientific databases (Clarivate Analytics Web of Science,
paper of Castro et al. (2012). The research began with a Scopus) and the analysis of information using the VOS
first exploratory stage, a bibliometric study, followed by a viewer software, during the period from 2012 to 2020
quantitative and qualitative analysis of the scientific docu- (September 10th). On the basis of the aforementioned
ments found. On the basis of this analysis, it was possible criteria, 2,598 articles were found.
to draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge
management in the construction sector. 2.2. Initial selection
After applying the respective criteria to update the
Once the papers were identified, the initial selection con-
state of the art to the current year, the selected articles
sidered the topic addressed and the type of document.
were analyzed according to the criteria described in the
Then, criteria were created to evaluate the relevance of
“initial selection of papers” section. From a quantitative
the documents by topic: 1) strongly related, 2) moderately
and qualitative perspective, based on framework by Castro
related and 3) slightly related. Items in category (3) were
et al. (2012), see Figure 2. Subsequently, the resulting pub-
excluded. The next step was to eliminate duplicates and
lications were classified into eight aspects of the adopted
delimit them to the English language. Finally, the impor-
model, and the contributions of the researchers are sum-
tance of the contribution was assessed at 3 levels: 1) very
marized in the following section.
important, 2) moderately important and 3) slightly impor-
tant. In this case, articles in class (3) were also excluded.
2.1. Preliminary approach and bibliometric search
The selection by relevance and importance was carried out
This first stage consisted in the search, examination and jointly by the authors. Table 1 summarizes the successive
reading of articles published in scientific journals with the stages of the selection of papers to be examined.
676 V. Yepes, S. López. Knowledge management in the construction industry: current state of knowledge ...

Table 1. Stages for the selection of papers nologies in the last 8 years. 74% of the articles produced
relating to the topic cover the period from 2012 to 2016,
Number
Stage with 2012 being the year with the highest number of
of papers
contributions to date. On the other hand, the number
Bibliometric search 2598
of articles has decreased since 2017, indicating that the
First selection: type of document and topic 991 generation of knowledge and that related to human fac-
Second selection: level of relevance 285 tors has declined. It seems that the current trend shows
Third selection: elimination of duplicates 224 an improvement in aspects of knowledge management in
Fourth selection: level of importance 107 the construction sector, the core basis of which is still the
Total number of papers analyzed 107 three pillars mentioned above. Table 3 shows the trends of
the articles that have served as a basis for the classification
of the works.
3. Research findings and discussion
Table 3. Research trends per category*
3.1. Classification of papers
In order to properly classify these 107 documents, it was

Use and Exploitation

Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge culture
necessary to establish a logical categorization of knowl-

Communic. Tech.
Information and

Human Factors
edge management in the construction sector. Thus, the

of Information
Generation of

of Knowledge
articles were classified according to previously established

Knowledge

Innovation
factors (Figure 2). The results of this classification are pre-

Quality

Total
sented in Table 2. The research on knowledge manage- Year
ment has focused mainly on three factors (Table 2): use
and exploitation of knowledge (24%), knowledge transfer 2012 3 1 3 7 2 4 2 1 23
(23%) and information and communication technology 2013 2 1 5 3 1 2 2 2 18
(22%). As for the other five factors, the least studied were 2014 1 4 3 6 3 17
human factors (less than 3%), as shown in Table 2. 2015 1 4 3 2 10
2016 1 3 3 1 2 1 11
Table 2. Classification of papers
2017 2 1 2 5
Factor Percentage 2018 1 2 2 1 3 9
Generation of Knowledge 6.5 2019 4 1 1 6
Quality of Information 3.7 2020* 2 3 1 1 1 8
Knowledge Transfer 23.4 Total 7 4 25 26 7 24 11 3 107
Use and Exploitation of Knowledge 24.3 Note: * Until September 10th.
Innovation 6.5
Information and Communication Technology 22.4 The results show there was no a single researcher in
Knowledge Culture 10.3 a predominant position. There is a group of authors with
Human Factors 2.8 four and three articles each respectively: on the one hand,
Total 100.0 Chen and Ng. On the other hand, Abdul-Rahman et al. As
for the journals, those with more than four publications
are listed in Table 4, along with their impact factors for
3.2. Quantitative data analysis 2020 according to the Journal Citation Reports. The Jour-
The data mining phase involved the quantitative analy- nal of Management in Engineering should be highlighted,
sis of the 107 documents and included information re- with 15 articles (14% of the total).
garding: The country of origin of the studies was assigned ac-
– Research trends; cording to the institution where the main author of the
– Authors with the largest number of publications; article was located. The study shows that Asia (47%) was
– Journals with the largest number of publications; the main producer of scientific articles on this matter, fol-
– Countries of origin of the research; lowed by America (27%) and Europe (14%). China had
– Types of companies dealt with; the largest scientific production (26%), followed by the
– Method used by the authors; USA (22%).
– Focus of the articles in terms of classification. In addition, 12% of the research focused on companies
With the contrast of the works of Castro et al. (2012) in general, while 82% focused on construction companies
and Yu and Yang (2018) updated since that date until and 6% on consulting firms. In regards to the research
today, the use, exploitation and transfer of knowledge method or technique employed, 1% used case studies, 49%
remain dominant in the research, incorporating the im- surveys, 25% interviews and 25% of the papers were clas-
portance that has triggered the use of information tech- sified in the category of other methods used.
Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 2021, 27(8): 671–680 677

Table 4. Journals with most publications

Journals Impact according to JCR (2020) Number of articles Percentage

Journal of Management in Engineering 1.255 15 14.0
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 1.039 14 13.1
Engineering Construction and Architectural Management 0.682 12 11.2
Construction Innovation 0.595 9 8.4
Automation in Construction 1.69 8 7.5
Construction Management and Economics 0.866 5 4.7
Expert Systems with Applications 1.494 4 3.7
Others Various 40 37.4

The analysis of the bibliography, combined with the tion, another research direction is the correlation between
contrast of the work of Castro et al. (2012) and Yu and the adoption and implementation of BIM and the com-
Yang (2018) on the state of knowledge management, plex socio-technical issues in organizations. Knowledge
produced useful results. For example, the evolution of transfer is influenced, depending on the motivation and
research in this field. Beginning in the first stage with a obligation with the adoption of such technology. On the
trend of knowledge generation and acquisition. Then, in other hand, resistance behaviors to BIM implementation
a second stage, with a focus on ontology, tacit knowledge during the post-adoption phase in construction projects
and knowledge sharing. Finally, to the application of in- are a future line of research.
formation technologies and Big Data. According to Yu and Yang (2018), knowledge shar-
The approach of this research, based on the eight cri- ing and transfer research should take place in the social
teria described above, sheds light on the need for integra- network context. Social network analysis, represented in
tion of ICT, human relations and strategic management. terms of behavior, structure and relationship, are the de-
In addition to finding out how trends are behaving in the fining factors of the knowledge sharing mechanism. Both
environment of developed countries. For example, the social factors and social psychology explain the attitude
increase of research in Asian countries. This is with the and intention of personnel to share knowledge. These
intention of further studies of successful models applicable social components are culture, trust and environment.
to Western countries. Therefore, interactive knowledge activities and social psy-
chology are other parameters to be studied in depth.
Finally, the knowledge absorption and transfer capac-
4. Findings for future research ity, both in interdisciplinary and interorganizational proj-
By studying the main topics in the period 2012 to 2020 ect teams, are other trends to be explored.
it is possible to synthesize the recommendations of the
authors and determine the orientation of future research Conclusions
on knowledge management in construction. In addition,
As noted in the “Introduction” section, the paper address-
emphasis is placed on the three most important topics,
es the following research questions: what has been studied
such as: Information Technologies, the use and transfer in the period from 2012 to 2020 in relation to knowledge
of knowledge. management in construction, and what are possible fu-
Knowledge management in the construction sector is ture research directions? Based on the evidence gathered
based on an integrated methodology between informa- by the authors through a literature review of 107 articles
tion technologies and social techniques. The use of big published in the period from 2012 to 2020, the authors
data technology is imminent in the entire economic field. obtained the research framework in terms of eight pro-
Moreover, the technical approach will include more social posed factors of knowledge management, and predicted
elements, in order to improve knowledge management in the potential research directions in the future to expand
the sector. the research framework.
According to Yu and Yang (2018), Big data technolo- In the period from 1981 to 2012, research on knowl-
gies are expected to be widely used in every stage of edge management in the construction sector mainly con-
knowledge management in the construction industry. centrated on the generation, transfer, and use and exploi-
From acquisition, live capture, mining, discovery, genera- tation of knowledge, but it was really from the year 2000
tion and mapping. Those Big Data technologies are: RFID, onwards that it became a relevant factor to be studied. In
distributed cache and distributed database based on MPP. this research, we continue research of Castro et al. (2012),
In addition, research on application of big data technolo- which was concluded in 2012 and which has been updated
gies needs to integrate mature information technologies, to September 2020. On the other hand, we contrasted it
such as semantic web supported by ontologies. with the work of Yu and Yang (2018) in which the evolu-
From this study, a positive trend of knowledge man- tion of knowledge transfer in the sector was analyzed in
agement towards IT and Big Data is supported. In addi- three time periods, ending in 2015.
678 V. Yepes, S. López. Knowledge management in the construction industry: current state of knowledge ...

It was found that the most widely analyzed factors in Alashwal, A. M., & Abdul-Rahman, H. (2014a). Aspects of pro-
the publications were: the use and exploitation of knowl- ject learning in construction: a socio-technical model. Con-
edge, knowledge transfer and information and communi- struction Innovation, 14(2), 229–244.
cation technologies. In addition, five complementary fac- https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-06-2013-0029
Alashwal, A. M., & Abdul-Rahman, H. (2014b). Using PLS-PM
ets were identified: culture, innovation, quality, knowledge
to model the process of inter-project learning in construction
generation and human factors. projects. Automation in Construction, 44, 176–182.
In contrast with study of Castro et al. (2012), the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2013.11.010
importance of the use and exploitation of knowledge in Alashwal, A. M., Abdul-Rahman, H., & Radzi, J. (2016). Knowl-
investigations is consolidated, besides increasing the at- edge utilization process in highway construction projects.
tention to the transference and technology of informa- Journal of Management in Engineering, 32(4), 05016006.
tion, which are thus indicated as facets to investigate in https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000429
the future. On the contrary, the discontinuity in research Arif, M., Mohammed, A. Z., & Gupta, A. D. (2015). Understand-
on the generation of knowledge is very noticeable, which ing knowledge sharing in the Jordanian construction indus-
try. Construction Innovation, 15(3), 333–354.
generates the possibility of analyzing how the absorption
https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-03-2014-0018
capacity in organizations is behaving, the way it is man- Arriagada, D. R. E., & Alarcón, C. L. F. (2014). Knowledge man-
aged and the degree of importance it is given. agement and maturation model in construction companies.
The future of knowledge management is integrated by Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 140(4),
information technologies and social techniques. On the B4013006.
one hand, the use of big data technologies has become a https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000726
reality for successful knowledge management. On the oth- Baloian, N., & Zurita, G. (2012). Ubiquitous mobile knowledge
er hand, the social aspect should not be lost out of sight, construction in collaborative learning environments. Sensors,
because the manner in which the behavior of personnel 12(6), 6995–7014. https://doi.org/10.3390/s120606995
Bashouri, J., & Duncan, G. W. (2014). A model for sharing
towards technological change is managed will significantly
knowledge in architectural firms. Construction Innovation,
influence the transfer of knowledge in the sector. 14(2), 168–185. https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-10-2012-0057
Caldas, C. H., Elkington, R. W. T., O’Connor, J. T., & Kim, J.-
Funding Y. (2015). Development of a method to retain experiential
knowledge in capital projects organizations. Journal of Man-
Grant PID2020-117056RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ agement in Engineering, 31(5), 04014083.
10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000322
Europe”. Castillo, T., Alarcón, L. F., & Pellicer, E. (2018). Finding differ-
ences among construction companies management practices
and their relation to project performance. Journal of Manage-
Author contributions ment in Engineering, 34(3), 1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)me.1943-5479.0000606
This paper represents a result of teamwork. The authors Castro, A. L., Yepes, V., Pellicer, E., & Cuéllar, A. J. (2012). Knowl-
jointly designed the research. V. Y. drafted the manuscript. edge management in the construction industry: State of the
S. L. edited and complemented the manuscript until a art and trends in research. Revista de La Construcción, 11(3),
satisfactory version was obtained. Both authors have read 62–73. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-915X2012000300006
and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Costa, R., Lima, C., Sarraipa, J., & Jardim-Gonçalves, R. (2016).
Facilitating knowledge sharing and reuse in building and
construction domain: an ontology-based approach. Journal
Disclosure statement of Intelligent Manufacturing, 27(1), 263–282.
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-013-0856-5
Ding, Z., Ng, F. F., & Wang, J. (2013). The mediation role of trust
regarding the publication of this article.
in knowledge sharing. Engineering, Construction and Archi-
tectural Management, 20(6), 604–619.
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