Investigating the Concept of Knowledge Management System

Lack of enough understanding of the Knowledge Management System (KMS), including the definition, components as well as the success factors in it, is among the main elements of failure in the knowledge management projects. The present work attempts to enlighten the concept of KMS and the related components. This work in addition to detailed reviewing of the KMS, studies the concept of KMS extracted from 290 papers in SCUPUS database using content analysis method. It further identifies and classifies the definitions, approaches, elements and success factors of the KMS. Review of the related literature resulted in identification of 5 topics, respectively as: success factors of KMS, benefits of using them, components and elements of KMS instruments and technologies of KMS, and approaches to KMS. It wa also revealed that there is a great overlap between the concepts of KM and KMS.Originality/Value: This is among the first researches that deals with reviewing the texts related to KM. Hence, it develops a new front in the field of KM.