Understanding the effect of knowledge management strategies on knowledge management performance: A contingency perspective.

•A contingency model is proposed to investigate the effects of four KM strategies on KM performance.•The effectiveness of KM strategies depends on external and internal contextual conditions.•KM strategies have a significant association with KM performance in their hypothesized contexts.•This study offers contingent guidance to managers on how to best use different KM strategies in different organizational contexts.•The contingent KM strategies provide organizations with a benchmark against which they can compare their own KM strategies.