A review of knowledge management research in public sector context with a specific focus on arab countries

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the aspect of knowledge management (KM) in the public sector across the developed and developing countries and also to investigate the same in the context of Arab countries to see the extent of awareness and growth in these countries. The research will also suggest the Arab countries to implement certain initiatives to be taken in the future to be at par with the other developed and developing countries. A total of 71 studies including 51 from the developed and developing countries and 20 from the Arab countries were found suitable for our analysis. The result indicated that although the awareness about the KM practices has advanced in the Arab world in the recent past, it still needs to learn a lot from the successful establishment of KM in the public sector of developed and developing countries. The paper also acknowledges the theoretical contributions, limitations and suggests further research directions.