Modeling Prosocial Organizational Behavior in Knowledge Management

The objective of this paper is to give visibility to the concept of ‘prosocial organizational behavior’ (PSOB) and its relevance to knowledge management (KM) for managing the intellectual assets represented by workers. The study starts with a scientometric survey, using the Publish or Perish™ tool, of PSOB’s presence in the KM literature from 1987 to 2020, finding that PSOB is mostly absent. Then, a conceptual model is induced, based on a hermeneutical analysis of a purposively sampled literature from 1978 to 2020, that describes the many ways PSOB is relevant to the social dimension of KM, and providing a framework to refine policies and procedures that can lead to improved KM outcomes for business organizations. The presented model shows how PSOB influences knowledge workers behavior affecting the social dynamics of KM