Journal of Knowledge Management

Big data text analytics: an enabler of knowledge management

Zaheer Khan Tim Vorley
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 Big data text analytics: an enabler of knowledge management

1. Introduction
The role of big data in effective decision-making and improving many business functions
from marketing to supply chain has been acknowledged (Chae, 2015; Chen, Chiang, &
Storey, 2012; Davenport, 2013; Waller & Fawcett, 2013). As such, big data was
acknowledged by Davenport & Patil (2012) as the next big thing in the 21st century.
Testament to this, a Businessweek (2011) survey of the state of business analytics found that
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97 percent of companies with revenues exceeding $100 million were to use some form of
business analytics. However, according to IBM as much as 80% of the data available to an
organization is unstructured (George et al., 2014), and so there is a significant opportunity to
leverage in the analysis of unstructured data. Unlocking this potential represents the next Big
Data challenge for businesses, concerning how to use big data to extract useful information to
make more informed decisions and develop a competitive advantage (Rajaraman & Ullman,
2011).

Companies such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart are using big data text analytics to
effectively manage vast amount of knowledge, communicate with their customers and
enhance their operations (Davenport & Patil, 2012). This has led to a growing academic
interest in big data text analytics, yet there is a dearth of research examining the role of big
data text analytics as an enabler of knowledge management (Davenport, 2013; Watson &
Marjanovic, 2013). Indeed big data has been characterized as powering the next industrial
revolution, so it is somewhat surprising that it has not figured more prominently in the field
of knowledge management. Big data has been characterised in terms of volume, variety and
velocity (Laney, 2001), while knowledge has been defined in terms of tacit, explicit, implicit,
complex, simple, as well as tacit codified and encapsulated (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995;
Zander & Kogut, 1995; Gao et al., 2008; van den Berg, 2013). There is an opportunity in big
data to discover hidden knowledge and generate new knowledge which is important to enable
and enhance knowledge management using big data text analytics.

Knowledge management (KM) deals with the processes and practices that enable the
creation, acquisition, capturing, and sharing of knowledge (Scarbrough & Swan, 2001;

1
 Cockrell and Stone, 2010). KM systems have been suggested to be the key for improving the
efficiency of business processes and key determinants of competitive advantage (Cockrell &
Stone, 2010; Vorakulpipat & Rezgui, 2008; Witherspoon, Bergner, Cockrell, & Stone, 2013).
However, there is a paucity of research on the role of big data text analytics in KM (Chen et
al., 2012; Davenport, 2013). However, it has previously been stated that big data text
analytics is an important part of KM (Chen et al., 2012; King, 2009; Wang & Wang, 2008). It
can help not only in the sharing of common knowledge of business intelligence, but also
helps in extending human knowledge (Wang & Wang, 2008). However, the application and
utility of big data text analytics in the generation of knowledge insights as part of KM is not
fully explored. Big data text analytics tools could help organizations in the discovery of
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hidden knowledge and generation of new knowledge from vast amounts of structured and
unstructured data.

The aim of this article is to show the utility of big data text analytics as an enabler of
knowledge management (George, Haas, & Pentland, 2014; Grant, 1996). We apply text
analytics as an example on 196 articles published in two of the leading journals in the domain
of knowledge management- the Journal of Knowledge Management and Knowledge
Management Research & Practice during 2013-14 to show how the vast amount of data can
be visualized. The paper demonstrates the value of big data text analytics in visualising data
and improving knowledge management. By doing so, the article demonstrates the utility of
big data text analytics as a method for the discovery of hidden knowledge and generation of
new knowledge. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: The second section
deals with conceptual background; the third section discusses big data text analytics as a
method; the fourth section presents the findings; and the final section of the paper is the core
discussion and conclusions.

2. Conceptual background
Big Data Text Analytics

Big data is defined as huge amounts of structured and unstructured data comprising billions
of data points or observations, which can be accessed in real time and is characterized by its
volume, velocity, and variety (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2012; Einav & Levin, 2013; Laney,
2001; O'Leary, 2013). Big data has been suggested to be ‘raw’ in nature and is everywhere,
but due to its complexity it is difficult to understand and interpret using traditional methods

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 (Mackenzie, 2006). Manyika et al. (2011) labelled big data as the next frontier for
competition, innovation and productivity growth. Big data text analytics is a process of
extracting and generating useful non-trivial information and knowledge from structured and
unstructured data (Chen et al., 2012), which through its categorization, visualization and
interpretation can enables more effective KM (Chen et al., 2012; Davenport, 2013).

In this context big data text analytics role becomes even more salient in enabling the
processes and practices of capturing and sharing of vast amount of data (Chen et al., 2012;
Rajaraman & Ullman, 2011). There has been a growing use, and reliance, on big data in a
variety of different industries and commercial contexts from finance, healthcare to supply
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chain domains (Chae, 2015; George et al., 2014). Big data text analytics applications have
even been trialled in detecting epidemic diseases in society (Ginsberg et al., 2009), as a
means of digital infectious disease surveillance. Arguably the growing role of dig data
analytics could lead to the reframing of what constitutes knowledge and how we engage with
data and information (Boyd & Crawford, 2012).

As noted above, big data can be structured and/or unstructured, and may originate from
multiple sources. Consequently big data is often not well understood due to its complexity.
Understanding big data demands a combination of analytic tools and high-level skills that are
often not widely available (Tambe, 2014). Indeed the challenge of big data is particularly in
its interpretation, converting seemingly data into insights that can improve knowledge
management (e.g. Cheung et al., 2005; van den Berg, 2013). In this context, big data text
analytics plays an important role in generating valuable knowledge which otherwise would be
impossible for organizations to source and share. This is in keeping with previous studies
which have found out that ICT-enabled data analytics tools support both the acquisitions and
sharing of information and knowledge (Jarle Gressgard et al., 2014).

Beyond answering 'know-what' questions with more information, big data text analytics can
also be used to address 'know-why' questions which are critical for developing a competitive
advantage through KM (Kogut & Zander, 1992; Witherspoon et al., 2013). Due to these
characteristics Rae and Singleton (2015:2) regard big data as a ‘fluid, user-centred concept
that emerges as a result of a relative imbalance between the data themselves and the
constraints on collection, management and then synthesis by the analyst’. These views have
led big data text analytics to be seen as a new approach to research, with its application

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 permitting the exploration of unique patterns and predicting future trends (Aiden & Michel,
2014). Scholars have also noted how the application of big data text analytics has become
increasingly important in the discovery and solution of business problems (Mayer-
Schönberger & Cukier, 2013). Similarly the use of data analytics, and text mining
specifically, have generated significant research interest (George et al., 2014), with
applications including predicting stock market (e.g. Chung, 2014).

Due to the volume of data available, big data text analytics play a key role in capturing and
sharing key information (Chen et al., 2012). Similarly Lazer et al. (2009:722) suggest that big
data text analytics offers ‘the capacity to collect and analyze data with an unprecedented
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breadth and depth and scale'. Due to these characteristics Boyd and Crawford (2012:6)
suggested that big data text analytics ‘reframes key questions about the constitution of
knowledge, the processes of research, how we should engage with information, and the
nature and the categorization of reality'. Big data text analytics could transform personal
knowledge management, with the role of individual knowledge workers becoming
increasingly vital as well (Pauleen, 2009). Similarly scholars suggest that many organizations
are developing information systems to facilitate the sharing and integration of knowledge
(Alavi & Leidner, 1999; Jarle Gressgard et al., 2014). Despite the academic interest in big
data, there is still a limited understanding about its opportunities and challenges, and
particularly the paucity of research an enabler of KM (Davenport, 2013; LaValle, Lesser,
Shockley, Hopkins, & Kruschwitz, 2013; Watson & Marjanovic, 2013). This could be due to
the inherent challenges associated with big data text analytics and the fact it is difficult to
capture, store, analyze and visualize vast amount of data; or it could be the result of lack of
availability of skilled big data analysts (e.g. Ahrens et al., 2011; Chen & Zhang, 2014;
Tambe, 2014). Next we review characteristics of knowledge and knowledge management
before exploring the links between knowledge management and big data.

Knowledge and Knowledge Management

As with big data, knowledge as a broad concept that has been classified and defined in many
different ways in the extant literature (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Spender, 1996; Gao et al.,
2008; van den Berg, 2013; Crane & Bontis, 2014). Knowledge has been defined as set of
justified beliefs, which can be managed to enhance the organization's capability for effective
action (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Nonaka, 1994). There are acknowledged to be three major

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 KM processes, namely the acquisition, conversion, and application of knowledge (Gold,
Malhotra, & Segars, 2001; Alavi et al, 2006; Kulkarni et al, 2007; Gasik, 2011). Knowledge
acquisition refers to developing new knowledge from data, information, or knowledge (Gold
et al., 2001; Magnier-Watanabe & Senoo, 2010). Knowledge conversion refers to making the
acquired knowledge useful for the organization (Gold et al., 2001; Orzano et al., 2008) by
structuring it or transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Knowledge
application refers to the use of knowledge to perform tasks (Sabherwal & Sabherwal, 2005).
Thus, KM includes the firm's processes of acquiring new knowledge, converting knowledge
into a form that is usable and easily accessed, and applying knowledge in the organisational
setting (Verkasolo & Lappalainen, 1998; Gasik, 2011). KM processes enable organizations to
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capture, store and transfer knowledge efficiently (Grant, 1996; Magnier-Watanabe & Senoo,
2010), and within this context big data text analytics is becoming increasingly important
(Chen et al., 2012; Davenport, 2013).

The most widely cited types of knowledge is are those of explicit and tacit knowledge
(Inkpen & Dinur, 1998; Polanyi, 2009; Crane & Bontis, 2014). Explicit knowledge is that
which can be documented and (Nonaka, 1991), and can consequently be easily transmitted
Kogut and Zander, 1992) and embedded in standardised procedures (Martin & Salomon,
2003; Nelson & Winter, 1982). Tacit knowledge, by contrast, is often implicit and not
codified. Such knowledge is difficult to capture in the form of text and is context dependent
(Crane & Bontis, 2014), often derived and shared through a process of learning by doing
(Nonaka, 1994). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) posit that explicit and tacit knowledge are not
mutually exclusive, but rather complementary with knowledge converted from one form to
the other in some organisations.

The conversion of knowledge from one type to the other is not always an easy task for
organizations, as organisations have to make systematic efforts to reap the benefits of tacit
knowledge. It is in this context that the role of big data text analytics becomes vital in
capturing, acquiring and sharing huge volumes of explicit knowledge which through big data
text analytics may be interpreted through tacit insights (Davenport, 2013; Scarbrough &
Swan, 2001). The knowledge-based view (KBV) of the firm considers knowledge and the
ability to integrate individual knowledge in organizations as an important source of
competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992). Indeed effective KM in
organizations is defined as getting the most out of knowledge-based resources including

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 explicit and tacit knowledge (Sabherwal & Becerra‐Fernandez, 2003; Dalkir, 2005; Vitari,
2011; Al-Sudairy & Vasista, 2012).

Knowledge management and big data share similar objectives, as both role is to create
competitive advantage for organizations (Chen et al., 2012; George et al., 2014; Grant, 1996),
while big data text analytics allow firm to track and catalogue sources of external knowledge
to enable effective sharing of knowledge (Chen et al., 2012; Davenport, 2013; Davenport &
Prusak, 1998; Gold et al., 2001). Both roles are important as the bases for creating
competitive advantage for firms, and neither can be pursued independently of the other (Alavi
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& Leidner, 1999; Nonaka, 1994). However, there is hardly any research on the mutual
relationship between big data and knowledge management (Davenport, 2013; LaValle et al.,
2013; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; O'Leary, 2013).

Big Data and Knowledge Management

The relationship between big data and knowledge management is rooted in the knowledge-
based view of the firm and it can provide an overarching theoretical framework (Davenport,
2013; Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1993). The KBV sees knowledge as a key source of
competitive advantage, and suggests a similar reciprocal relationship between knowledge and
knowledge management. On the one hand, knowledge serves as the basis for knowledge
management, for example Grant (1996) notes the complementarity between different kinds of
knowledge. Big data text analytics, to this end, has the potential to capture and utilise
different sources of explicit and tacit knowledge, and produce new depth of knowledge as a
basis of more effective decision making (e.g. Grant, 1996; Kitchin, 2013; Laney 2012).
Similarly, knowledge management can improve and strengthen the combinations of
knowledge resources (Cockrell and Stone, 2010).

Following the underlying assumptions of KBV, the above literature provides considerable
basis for expecting big data to inform knowledge management. The use of big data text
analytics affects the processes for absorbing the new knowledge coming from different
sources (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Andreeva & Kianto, 2011), applying knowledge (Grant,
1996), and its conversion from one form to another (Sabherwal & Becerra-Fernandez, 2003).
The extant literature provides reason to expect that big data text analytics will enhance KM
by enabling enhanced knowledge creation, integration and sharing (Chen et al., 2012; George

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 et al., 2014; King, 2009). Moreover, the use of big data text analytics can further improve
KM processes and transactive memory systems in leveraging the value of big data (Alavi &
Leidner, 1999; Argote, McEvily, & Reagans, 2003; O'Leary, 2013).

3. Method of Big Data Text analytics

The growing amount of data available to decision-makers in organisation is becoming
overwhelming. In practice this means big data cannot be processed manually, and
consequently KM tools are required to support more informed and effective decision making
in a timely manner. It is in this context that big data text analytics tools offers a means to
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identify patterns and other non-trivial information and knowledge from vast amount of both
structured and unstructured data that may otherwise not be visible. This new and emerging
research domain endeavours to address potential data overload issues by using techniques of
data mining, information retrieval, machine learning and knowledge management (Feldman
& Sanger, 2006; Chen et al., 2012; Davenport, 2013).

There has been a rise in the use big data text analytics in scholarly research. The use of big
data text analytics in the social sciences (King, 2014; Varian, 2014), and particularly regional
and information sciences (e.g. Chen et al., 2012; Chen & Zhang, 2014; Gandomi & Haider,
2015; Rae & Singleton, 2015), as a means of data collection, processing, extraction and
analysis (Chen et al., 2012; Chaudhuri et al. 2011, Watson & Wixom 2007). Big data text
analytics offer a high potential value and wide applications in diverse areas to develop a
competitive advantage (Chen et al., 2012). For instance, it has been used in understanding
supply chain related issues, and guests’ experiences and preferences for hotels (Chae, 2015;
Xiang, Schwartz, Gerdes, & Uysal, 2015), as well as in mapping digital businesses (Nathan
& Rosso, 2015). However, the application of big data text analytics is still lacking in different
fields including KM, which is in part due to lack of understanding about the possibilities of
big data text analytics (e.g. Davenport, 2013; LaValle et al., 2013), and of the big data
capture, processing and analysis techniques available (see Chen & Zhang, 2014).

In this article, we apply the method big data text analytics to articles published in two of the
leading journals in the domain of knowledge management as a means to demonstrate the
insights that can be generated. Over a 2 year period (2013 and 2014) a total of 196 articles
were published on variety of topics from the Journal of Knowledge Management and

7
 Knowledge Management Research & Practice. All of the articles were downloaded and
converted them into plain text format to facilitate processing in the subsequent analysis.
During the conversion process, we removed graphs, tables, authors’ related information,
journal name and references pages as these could create potential repetitions into the analysis.
We then applied text analytics techniques with the aim to show the application of big data
text analytics techniques in the capturing, acquisition and sharing of knowledge (Davenport,
2013; Grant, 1996; Scarbrough & Swan, 2001). We applied text analytics approach on the
entire document instead of picking particular sections of the documents as we wanted to
avoid self-selection bias in the analysis.
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Applying big data text analytics approach to the entire document is more comprehensive as it
can give depth of information about a particular topic. In this way insights can be identified
and presented more effectively and intuitively (Simoff et al., 2008). We also applied custom
stop words to overcome any potential bias related issues arising from the analysis, for
instance 'journal of knowledge management' or the words 'they' and 'research & practice'
could potentially show up as the most frequent word in the words list. We added such words
to the stop word query in order to have a reliable list of most frequent words. By applying
text analytics techniques on the 196 articles we identified the 50 most frequent words used
across these articles. This approach further helps in capturing important knowledge, but also
the organization and analysis of knowledge. Various tools for big data text analytics are
available to organizations in capturing, acquiring and sharing organization-wide knowledge
and table 1 list some of these tools.

Table 1. Available tools for big data text analytics

Big data text analytics tools Brief Overview
Apache Hadoop Distributed File System Open source Java based software framework
that enables the storage, distribution of large
data set on multiple servers
MapReduce Provides the interface for the processing,
generation and distribution of large data sets.
It provides clustered scale-out large data
processing capabilities and solutions
Hive Data warehousing Hadoop infrastructure,
provides data summarization, data query and
analysis
Zookeeper Facilitate a centralized infrastructure, provide
synchronization across a cluster of

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 computers.
HBase Open source, distributed and non-relational
database management systems, based on non-
SQL approach
Cassandra A distributed database system, handles big
data distribution across multiple computers
Apache Pig Platform for the analysis of large data sets
that consists textual language- PigLatin
(process both structured and unstructured
data)
Source: based on various sources including Raghupathi and Raghupathi (2014).
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4. Findings

Big data text analytics and KM

The 196 articles published during 2013 and 2014 were analysed using big data text analytics.
The findings suggest that big data text analytics can be an enabler of effective KM, as it
generates quality of knowledge. Figure 1 is a word cloud of the most frequent words across
the 196 articles. For reasons of space and readability, we only show the most frequent words
that appear at least 50 times in the entire sample of articles. The larger and darker the word is,
the more frequent it appears in 196 articles. This form of visualization helps in the quick
extraction of key knowledge from a large volume of data, in this case the 196 published
articles.

Figure1. Most Frequent Words across 196 articles published in the Journal of
Knowledge Management and the Journal of Knowledge Management Research &
Practice during 2013-14

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The frequency of words appearing in the 196 articles published in 2013 and 2014 are shown
in Table 2, which clearly shows the focus to range from the organizational level to individual
level. The most frequent words 'organizational', 'sharing', 'information', 'innovation', 'social',
'learning' and 'transfer'. These are the terms that are important for KM and creating
competitive advantage for firms (Alavi & Leidner, 1999; Argote et al., 2003; Grant, 1996).
Such visualizations of both unstructured and structured data facilitate KM and improve
timely decision making. These findings show the utility of text analytics for capturing,
acquiring and constructing important knowledge (Chen et al., 2012; Davenport, 2013; Grant,
1996). Knowledge of the most frequent and popular words is beneficial for understanding the
focus of the research and its emerging domains.

One of the central challenges for organization has been how to codify and share knowledge
(more) effectively. Big data text analytics increases the capacity to capture, process and
analyse data, as well as it speed compared to traditional KM tools. The importance of
visualizing knowledge also further aids in the codification of important knowledge, which
was another limitation of traditional KM tools. The analysis also indicates that research in the
domain of knowledge management have been mostly done at the organisation level, with less
focus on micro level issues concerning knowledge management.

Table 2. Most frequent words appeared across 196 articles published during 2013-14 in
the Journal of Knowledge Management and the Journal of Knowledge Management
Research & Practice

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 Journal of Knowledge Knowledge Management
Both Journals
Management Research & Practice
Word Word Word
Words Words Words
Count Count Count
organizational 7683 sharing 3837 organizational 1929
information 6903 organizational 3604 innovation 1868
sharing 6892 information 3387 information 1621
innovation 6811 innovation 3059 learning 1442
social 5565 social 2943 intellectual 1230
learning 5480 transfer 2825 firm 1223
transfer 5069 learning 2441 social 1209
performance 4629 performance 2009 performance 1193
capital 4511 organizations 1678 sharing 1109
development 3354 processes 1668 systems 889
processes 3313 development 1641 firms 886
organizations 3204 network 1512 development 860
systems 3097 work 1503 strategic 828
technology 3093 technology 1482 resources 781
network 3072 systems 1434 technology 729
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work 3069 individual 1357 processes 726

strategic 2750 firms 1325 product 712
individual 2741 strategic 1312 work 710
employees 2634 employees 1300 organizations 692
resources 2480 international 1167 transfer 678
creation 2433 resources 1165 system 673
firms 2354 creation 1149 network 663
activities 2333 tacit 1137 creation 629
international 2288 practices 1124 employees 581
practices 2282 activities 1074 individual 579
tacit 2075 people 994 strategy 574
external 2044 strategy 965 practices 564
networks 2026 networks 959 relationships 552
people 2026 external 952 assets 547
relationships 1989 trust 911 activities 515
intellectual 1970 group 908 networks 511
strategy 1969 individuals 903 resource 506
system 1894 internal 893 tacit 505
product 1889 relationships 883 international 497
team 1773 culture 853 competitive 492
culture 1764 team 831 external 477
internal 1731 capabilities 820 people 474
trust 1718 customer 814 culture 457
group 1715 structure 799 market 450
individuals 1713 document 794 structural 445
customer 1702 share 777 capabilities 429
structure 1665 system 760 decision 423
capabilities 1611 managers 745 customer 416
change 1553 communication 734 industry 410
share 1539 capability 723 technological 399
competitive 1506 product 723 environment 395
industry 1504 capacity 708 individuals 392
capacity 1475 community 697 structure 389
managers 1465 change 696 group 382
communication 1437 competitive 689 change 381

In addition to the combined analysis, we has also conducted separate analysis for each of the
journals to see how the pattern changes across the two journals. The Figure 2 is a
comparative analysis of the two journals, showing the difference in rank of the most
frequently appearing words ranked in the top 50 of both journals. The pattern extrapolated
from the data also shows that while the terms are shared, that certain terms tend to be more
dominant in each journal. The analysis of big data text analytics serves to show respective
specialisms and priorities in each of the journals as is reflected by the 196 articles.

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 Figure 2. Difference in ranks of the most frequently used shared words
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Beyond analysing the frequency of words, the data can also be analysed to cluster the key
information and the findings indicate important patterns of clusters. For example, sharing,
information, tacit, people, innovation, international, processes, systems, communication,
team, practices are part of transfer cluster, whereas individual, social, trust, capital,
intellectual, relationships constitute as another cluster- called networks cluster as presented in
the cluster analysis shown in Figure 3. Using the 196 journal as an example the findings
demonstrate that big data text analytics has the potential to improve KM by clustering
important knowledge and such clustering helps for the better organization and analysis of key
data.

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 Figure 3. Most Frequent Words according to Clusters
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In table 3 we list four dominant clusters and the most frequent terms that appear in each. This
approach highlights the nature of clusters and contextual information that can be distilled
using big data text analytics. The findings provide important details about the frequency of
topics appearing within each of the clusters. These key clusters also point toward the
important topics in the wider knowledge management literature such as processes, people,
technology, networks, innovation, learning and value creations for the development of
organizational competitive advantage (Almeida, Song, & Grant, 2002; Grant, 1996). This
analysis also indicates that big data text analytics driven clustering can serve important role
for the enhancement of knowledge management in organization by text categorization,
identification of semantic relationship, and visualization. Thus analytics based clustering of
data can potentially mitigate information overload problem and facilitate new knowledge
creation and its dissemination.

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 Table 3: The Most Frequent Terms appearing in each Cluster

Clusters Most frequent terms within

the cluster
1- Transfer sharing, information, tacit,
people, innovation,
international, processes,
systems, communication,
team, practices
2- Networks individual, social, trust,
capital, network, intellectual,
relationships
3- Resources creation, practices, structure,
activities, strategic,
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technology
4-Organizational external, capacity, customer,
strategic, creation, networks,
relationship, innovation,
strategy, internal, managers,
processes

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The purpose of this article is to examine the potential of big data text analytics as a method
by highlighting the depth of knowledge that can be generated from big data for effective
knowledge management through the visualisation, organization, interpretation and analysis of
information that would not otherwise be feasible. Despite the increasing interest in big data
and business analytics, the topic remains underdeveloped within the KM literature, and its
role as an enabler of KM in particular is not well understood (Davenport, 2013; LaValle et
al., 2013; Watson & Marjanovic, 2013). Yet the big data text analytics approach presents
opportunities for organizations, the majority of whom are ill-informed about how big data
text analytics can support making informed and timely decisions through the generation of
valuable knowledge and its subsequent interpretation (e.g. Davenport, 2013; LaValle et al.,
2013).

Against this backdrop, performing big data text analytics on the 196 articles published in two
of the leading journals begins to highlight the value of big data text analytics to capture and
visualize knowledge that would otherwise be impossible to process and codify. The finding
drawn from the 196 papers as an example of big data text analytics as an example of effective
KM, and in contrast to traditional KM systems, highlight the utility of big data text analytics

14
 in KM (Malhotra, 2005). The key findings of this study in the context of KM are threefold.
Table 4 presents the summary of the key findings.

Table 4. Summary of key Findings

Utility of big data text analytics and Key findings

role in knowledge management
1. Capturing and visualizing most frequent words
big data text analytics plays an important
from a vast amount of both structured and role for the timely transfer, sharing and
unstructured data management of vast amount of data.

generations of key words through text
mining of big data can help in the
internalization, sharing and effective
management of key knowledge assets.
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text analytics of big data could potentially

overcome information overload problems
and facilitate both codification and
personalization knowledge management
strategies.

enable the effective codification of

2. Organization of dispersed knowledge into important knowledge.
categories and key words
stop words can be applied for real time
filtering of knowledge.

making the delivery and optimization of
relevant knowledge available to multiple
constituents within an organization for
effective as well as timely decision-
making.

knowledge generated through text
analytics of big data is fine-grained and
precise and organizations could
potentially benefit from such an efficient,
and high-quality knowledge thus enabling
the effective retention and sharing of
valuable knowledge.

3. Analytics oriented clustering analysis
provide important contextual details

through the clustering of important
knowledge.

clustering and the visualization of vast
amounts of data can provide an interface
that is well suited for effective knowledge
management and improved & timely
decision making.

analytics oriented clustering and
categorization of big data help KM
systems to improve the relevancy, quality
and timeliness of knowledge that is
captured, codified, and shared.

quality of knowledge is generated by
enhancing categorization of contents and
interpretation of big data and enables
effective KM.

15
 First, we demonstrate the utility of big data text analytics by capturing and visualizing most
frequent words. Figure 1 and Table 2 indicate that the focus of the research in KM have
focused on understanding KM at the organisational level issues related to KM such as
organizational knowledge creation, sharing, transfer and innovation. However, less attention
has been paid to micro level issues impacting knowledge management such as the role of
individuals in the creation and transfer and management of knowledge, routines, processes, as
well as particular managerial actions, communications- the micro-foundations of KM. As
such, big data text analytics plays an important role for the timely transfer, sharing and
management of such vast amount of data as this study has demonstrated. The generations of
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key words through big data text analytics can help in the internalization, sharing and effective
management of key knowledge assets (Davenport, 2013; LaValle et al., 2013; Nonaka &
Takeuchi, 1995; O'Leary, 2013), which would otherwise be very time consuming through the
use of traditional KM methods (e.g. Chen et al., 2012). For instance, Hansen et al. (1999),
noted that it was a mistake on the part of the traditional KM systems to apply codification and
personalization strategies at the same time, and indicated that companies should only focus
on one of them. As the findings of the study indicate, big data text analytics could overcome
such problems and facilitate both codification and personalization knowledge management
strategies. Put differently, the conversion of unstructured and structured forms of data could
generate explicit knowledge that may lead to easier absorption (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990),
which is exemplified by the two journals reviewed. Traditional KM systems have faced
information overload issues and emphasized on predetermined workflows and rigid
‘information-push’ approaches (Malhotra, 2005). Big data text analytics can overcome
information overload with so-called information-push strategies making important knowledge
accessible and available.

Second, the findings indicate that big data text analytics facilitates the organization of
dispersed knowledge into categories and key words, which enable the effective codification
of important knowledge. As this study shows that text mining enabled stop words can be
applied for real time filtering of knowledge, thereby making the delivery and optimization of
relevant knowledge available to multiple constituents within an organization for effective as
well as timely decision-making. The other implications for KM is that big data text analytics
helps analyzing all the data rather than choosing a particular set of data. The knowledge
generated through text mining of big data is fine-grained and precise, therefore, organizations

16
 could benefit from such an efficient, and high-quality knowledge thus enabling the effective
retention and sharing of valuable knowledge (e.g. Kogut & Zander, 1992).

Big data text analytics can be utilized in the capture of both structured and unstructured data
to enable the generation of new depth and codification of knowledge as the basis of
competitive advantage (e.g. Grant, 1996; Kitchin, 2013; Laney, 2012). Traditional KM
approaches have often been criticized for being expensive, time consuming and unable to
provide timely knowledge to the right persons, whereas the application of big data text
analytics, as demonstrated in this paper, suggests that rich and quality knowledge can be
generated through such approach (e.g. Chen et al., 2012; Laney, 2012). The richness and
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generation of quality knowledge then facilitates the effective sharing of this knowledge
across the organization, thus improving workers productivity and 'transactive memory
systems' (e.g. Argote et al., 2003; Argote & Ren, 2012; Lewis & Herdon, 2011). The
generation of quality knowledge through big data text analytics has wider implications for
organization since knowledge has been suggested to be important for developing competitive
advantage in the knowledge-based economy (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992; Spender,
1996), and most of the organizations are not well-informed on the opportunities offered by
text mining of big data for making timely decisions (e.g. Davenport, 2013; LaValle et al.,
2013).

Third, cluster analysis (see figure 3 and table 3) can be performed through the use of big data
text analytics techniques to show important contextual details through the clusters. Clustering
and the visualization of vast amounts of data can provide an interface that is well suited for
effective knowledge management and decision making (e.g. Chen, 2001). Such clustering can
generate insights to enhance knowledge management, to understand the relational aspects of
themes. All four clusters show common themes as well as important differences, with terms
such as ‘processes’, ‘practices’, ‘innovation’, ‘creation’, and ‘networks’ occurring frequently
across the four clusters. These findings indicate the utility of big data text analytics based
clustering as a key approach of optimizing, synthesizing and capturing important knowledge
in the discovery of hidden knowledge and generation of new knowledge that can support
KM.

The big data text analytics clustering approach offers important insights for not only the
effective deployment of knowledge assets, but also making informed decisions in the

17
 organization. These findings indicate that big data applications and tools are important
enablers of KM (George et al., 2014; Grant, 1996). The results of this study further supports
the views of King (2009:87) who noted: ‘text analytics have great potential utility for
knowledge management’. Through the application of big data text analytics, the paper has
shown how the visualization of important topics as well as clustering-based approaches can
show the categorization and proximity of topics, which can be utilized by the KM systems to
improve the relevancy, quality and timeliness of knowledge that is captured, codified, and
shared. Again this has significant scope to improve knowledge management and
organizational performance. The visualization of big data text analytics can also enable
effective KM, by presenting data that would otherwise be very time-consuming and difficult
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to process through the use of traditional KM systems.

5.1. Implications for Research and Practice

The study has several implications for research and practice. The study demonstrates the
value of big data text analytics in the discovery of hidden knowledge and generation of new
knowledge that would otherwise not be possible through traditional KM systems. The goal of
the KM system is to ensure that key knowledge assets are effectively codified and shared. In
the context of this paper the focus was the 196 papers, but this could equally be applied to a
wider variety of documents to provide insights about individual and organizational practices.
In this way managers would be well placed to take advantage of novel approaches, such as
big data text analytics, that enable big data to be interrogated and used to inform more
effective and timely decision making (e.g. Chen et al., 2012).

The usefulness of such techniques is likely to grow in the coming years as organization
adopts new technologies that might have unanticipated consequences such as managing
offshoring work through IT-enabled technologies or material source tracking and collecting
key clients information. The findings of this article demonstrate the usefulness of big data
text analytics in capturing, storing and sharing of knowledge in a timely fashion which can
enhance KM processes with quality knowledge (e.g. Davenport, 2013). Furthermore, big data
text analytics approaches can be applied to a variety of databases such as consumer complaint
databases or even Twitter feeds to capture the temporal and spatial trends in opinions, habits,
or events as well as online social interactions (Golder & Macy, 2011, 2014), thus enabling
effective knowledge codification and sharing.

18
 The findings presented in this article on the use of big data text analytics provides important
insights on the usefulness of using big data text analytics for knowledge management. The
use of big data text analytics has wider implications, as we have shown in this article; it
provides rich contextual detail so organization can focus their attention on where to dedicate
their efforts and how to create value by utilizing valuable assets in this case the application of
big data text analytics. However, there are still inherent challenges of using big data, as the
skills needed may not be available in different context thus hindering effective knowledge
management (Tambe, 2014). In the context of the empirical focus of this paper, the findings
indicate that research on knowledge management has mostly been conducted at the
organizational level topics and less attention paid to how the micro level processes such as
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routines and individual level actions impacts knowledge management through the creation,
transfer and management of knowledge. In this way, the study highlighted the important
application and utility of big data text analytics by demonstrating that depth of knowledge
can be generated for effective knowledge management. One of the key contributions of this
study is demonstrating the quality and nature of knowledge generated through the utilization
of big data text analytics methods. In addition, as a by product, we conceptually develop the
link between big data and knowledge based view (Grant, 1996), indicating that it is one of the
key theories that provides a much needed theoretical lens to investigate the role of big data in
various settings (e.g. George et al., 2014).

6. Limitations and Future Research Directions

This is an exploratory study that applied big data text analytics to demonstrate its value for
the effective generation and codification of rich and quality knowledge which enables
knowledge management and more effective decision making. Keeping aside its contributions,
it also has some limitations and these could serve an important avenues for further research.
The application of big data text analytics was applied only on articles published in two
leading knowledge management journals over a two year period. Future studies could apply
big data text analytics over a longer period to examine trends and consider more sources to
develop the robustness of the findings.
Indeed different sources of unstructured data, such as twitter feeds and other that is available
on the web, has the potential to generate useful insights and in so doing support effective
knowledge management of organizations. On this basis future research could build onto these
findings and apply big data text analytics in different context and on different research topics

19
 such as the role of individuals in the age of big data which would support the case for
focusing on the individual as well as the organization as a unit of analysis.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Guest Editor of this issue, David Pauleen, and two
anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions and comments that helped to improve
the quality of this manuscript.
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About the Authors

Zaheer Khan is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Strategy & International Business at the
Sheffield University Management School, University of Sheffield, UK. His research focuses
on global technology management, with a particular interest in knowledge transfer through
FDI to emerging economies. He received his PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK.
His work has been published in the International Business Review, the Global Strategy
Journal, The Journal of International Business Studies, Industrial Marketing Management,
Critical Perspectives on International Business and International Marketing Review, among
others.

Tim Vorley is a Professor and Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Sheffield University

Management School. He also heads the Centre for Regional Economic and Enterprise
Development (CREED). His research focuses on organisational dynamics of
entrepreneurialism, innovation, regional development. His work has appeared in Economic
Geography, International Small Business Journal, Entrepreneurship and Regional
Development, Education and Training, European Journal of Industrial Relations,
Environment & Planning C, and Growth and Change, among others.

24