Exploring the Role of KM in Integrating ESG Practices into Organizational Strategies

Abstract

Knowledge Management (“KM”) has a key evolving role in supporting businesses to better face the challenges related to the continuous economic and social long-run competitive development under the auspices of the new technologies and to the new advances of the digitization processes that seem to replace the human "touch." This paper investigates the KM integration into corporate strategies as a driver of sustainable practices within the financial sector. It examines, through a bibliometric analysis, how banks can take advantage of KM systems to efficiently capture process-critical relevant information by promoting collaboration and enabling competent decision-making to adopt and develop competitive business models regarding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors. By examining the impact of KM on sustainability, the paper highlights its potential as a catalyst for driving sustainable development within the financial sector. Considering these issues, our main goal is to identify the most relevant enabling tools of KM, such as to better boost the development of organizational strategies that encourage the development of ESG practices. The paper focuses on companies from the banking sector. The general results highlight the main enablers, also illustrating a series of challenges and presenting correspondingly a set of practical ways to face them, according to our team's vision. Based on these results, our team recommends a holistic vision of KM that has to be integrated into business models to ensure and keep a long-term competitive advantage. The paper is addressed mostly to practitioners and researchers manifesting a special interest in the financial sector. Our paper also has certain research limits, mostly in terms of the number of references identified and analyzed. For further research, we will continue to improve this perspective and enlarge our research.