Gen Z as a digital bridge: a conceptual model of AI–knowledge management for dynamic organisational capabilities

Abstract

This study aims to develop a conceptual framework explaining how artificial intelligence-enabled knowledge management (AI–KM) contributes to dynamic organisational capabilities through the socio-cognitive role of Generation Z knowledge behaviours. Drawing on the dynamic capability view and socio-technical systems theory, this study adopts a theory-building conceptual design based on a structured literature search across Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight, supplemented by selected foundational and measurement sources. A final set of 64 scholarly sources informed the conceptual synthesis using a hybrid deductive-inductive thematic coding approach. This study proposes a multilevel socio-technical framework in which AI–KM contributes to organisational sensing, seizing and reconfiguring through both a complementary direct pathway and an indirect pathway mediated by Generation Z knowledge behaviours, namely, digital collaboration, self-directed learning and openness to innovation. The framework also identifies technostress, trust in AI, digital competence, organisational learning culture, governance, industry risk and workforce composition as boundary conditions. As a conceptual study, this framework requires future empirical validation, particularly through multilevel research designs that distinguish individual- and team-level knowledge behaviours from organisational-level capabilities. The framework suggests that organisations should align AI-enabled knowledge infrastructures with employee learning, collaborative routines, governance mechanisms and human oversight. This study contributes to AI–KM, human–AI collaboration and strategic management literature by refining the notion of Generation Z as a “digital bridge” into a set of contingent socio-cognitive knowledge behaviours through which AI-enabled knowledge becomes strategically consequential.