Title: Mapping the intellectual structure of the literature on leveraging social network for knowledge management: a bibliometric review

Authors: Kavita Verma; Kapil Malhotra

Addresses: Department of Commerce, Ahir College, Rewari, IGU Meerpur, Haryana, India ' Department of Commerce, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana, India

Abstract: Social networks facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovation by connecting experts and ideas. This study aims to conduct an extensive bibliometric review to ascertain the intellectual structure of social network and knowledge management (SN KM) studies. The study employs performance analysis and science mapping analysis on 532 documents retrieved from Scopus database between 1992 to 2024. Biblioshiny in RStudio package merged with VOSviewer was used to analyse and visualise data. The study analysed co-occurrence keywords, citation analysis, collaboration among countries and authors, and influential affiliations and documents. Bibliographic coupling and keyword analysis have been conducted to identify present research landscape and future roadmap. The results indicate a significant increase in publications over the past decade, highlighting most prolific authors, documents, countries, institutions, and journals in this field. The USA, UK, and China were noted as the most contributive countries leading international collaborations, where findings contradict Lotka's and Bradford's Laws.

Keywords: knowledge management; social network; bibliometric analysis; VOSviewer; Scopus; Biblioshiny.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMS.2026.152494

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 2026 Vol.17 No.1, pp.73 - 112

Received: 18 Nov 2024
Accepted: 16 Nov 2025
Published online: 23 Mar 2026 *

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