Knowledge Management, Organisational Learning Processes, and Sustainable Entrepreneurship in New Ventures: An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

New ventures confront the liability of newness while operating under rising expectations for environmental and social performance. This paper examines how knowledge management practices enable organisational learning processes that support sustainable entrepreneurship outcomes aligned with the triple bottom line. An integrative review draws on recent systematic and bibliometric reviews of the knowledge management and sustainable entrepreneurship interface, together with foundational work on the knowledge-based view, absorptive capacity, organisational learning and unlearning, and sustainable entrepreneurship. The synthesis suggests that the knowledge management practices of external acquisition, internal sharing and creation, and retention supply the inputs for exploratory, exploitative, and unlearning processes, which help convert entrepreneurial intent into economic viability, environmental stewardship, and social equity. Absorptive capacity, digital and artificial-intelligence-enabled knowledge management maturity, and founder or top-team sustainability orientation act as boundary conditions. The paper offers thirteen testable propositions and a framework in which unlearning also helps ventures navigate tensions among the three outcome dimensions. Because venture-specific empirical evidence remains thin, the propositions are offered for testing, and the research agenda prioritises longitudinal designs, emerging-economy contexts, and clearer measurement of social outcomes and unlearning.