Innovation Centric Knowledge Commons—A Systematic Literature Review and Conceptual Model

Abstract

Commons theory is one of the influential economic theories that study the governance of shared resources, including knowledge. This paper provides a comprehensive view of the application of the concept of the commons towards supporting innovation in the Knowledge Management (KM) literature. A systematic literature review identified forty-four (44) relevant research papers discussed the commons published in twenty-three (23) high-impact KM journals. The research found that the application of commons in KM literature covers diverse areas, including Intellectual Property, Knowledge Cities, and Industrial Commons, that are related to innovation. The study found that extant literature does not adequately address innovation-centric knowledge. To address the gap, a conceptual model is presented to apply the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to Open Innovation.