Knowledge management has been a major discourse amongst scholars and business practitioners’ across the globe (Li et al. 2020; Mustafa et al. 2021; Ingram and Nitsenko 2021; Shashkova et al. 2021); this growing interest is as a result of KM contributions to organisational competitiveness and survival (Opeke and Adelowo 2020; Niqresh 2021). Knowledge management is the process of creating, acquiring, sharing, and utilizing useful knowledge that would improve the performance of the organisation (Armstrong 2009). In addition, Armstrong (2009) expanded the definition of knowledge management as how organisation retains and distributes accumulated wisdom concerning its operations, processes and techniques. In another perspective, KM is the utilization of relevant knowledge by members of the organisation to tackle problems that bedeviled the organisation (Edeh and Ukpe 2019). For Edeh et al. (2020a), knowledge management is concerned with how top-level leaders of the organisation are able to utilize tacit knowledge in the minds of the subordinates to achieve the goals of the organisation; what this implies is that the duty of managers is to draw useful knowledge from their subordinate so as to solve organisational needs. Also, there are certain time that managers lack prerequisite knowledge to handle some situations but due to their ego, the problem would persist. Thus, knowledge created not shared for organisations’ interest is a waste thereby making it impossible for learning to occur (Valmohammadi and Ahmadi 2015; Opeke and Adelowo 2020). Again, shared knowledge helps organisation to save money that would have been wasted to acquire it from different sources of knowledge (Edeh et al. 2020a). Knowledge management is human resource department responsibility which is directed at individuals that possess certain tacit knowledge that need to be expressed for the benefit of others. Edeh and Ukpe (2019) asserts that tacit knowledge sometimes outweighs explicit knowledge because of the originality of the former. KM is seen as a process of developing and utilizing knowledge to attain organisational goals (Darroch 2005; Mills and Smith 2011; Chen et al. 2018; Kholiavko et al. 2020). Ever since workplace economy has metamorphosed into knowledge economy, managers, human resource professionals have equally adjusted their strategy to embrace KM as a practice of recognising people with core competencies. Therefore, KM encompasses all processes associated with generating, distributing, storing and utilizing knowledge for the good of the organisation. Employees generate knowledge that is relevant for organisational prosperity during meetings and work hours, but it behooves management to utilise that knowledge rather than discarding it just because it came from an employee (Opeke and Adelowo 2020).

Nonetheless, results from previous studies on the investigation of knowledge management with different organisational criterion variables were enumerated in this section. Mustafa et al. (2021) examined the impact of KM on corporate performance; their finding revealed knowledge management predicted institutional performance. The result of the investigation carried out by Edeh et al. (2020a) investigations on the relationship between knowledge management and employee extra-role behaviour, and their result shows that knowledge management (knowledge acquisition, knowledge storage and knowledge sharing) has a significant association with discretionary behaviour of employees. Alolayyan et al. (2020) on KM showed that knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing, and knowledge storage have a significant influence on organisational performance. Finding of Li et al. (2020) empirical investigation regarding KM, entrepreneurial and SMEs performance in Pakistan revealed that knowledge management dimensions have a significant positive influence on dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial and corporate performance. Valmohammadi et al. (2019) examined the mediating influence of innovation practices on the relationship between KM and sustainable balanced performance and found KM to predict innovation practices and sustainable balanced performance. Rezaei et al. (2021) examined the influence of knowledge management on business performance in Afghanistan. Result of their research showed that KM has significant positive influence on organisational performance. Niqresh (2021) investigated the role of KM on attaining quality education in Jordan. Niqresh’s result revealed that knowledge management has positive effects on improving quality higher education in Jordan.

From the foregoing, various scholars have measured knowledge management using different dimensions but majority agreed with the reliability and validity of knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing, and knowledge storage (Valmohammadi et al. 2019; Alolayyan et al. 2020; Tadesse 2020; Mustafa et al. 2021). Knowledge acquisition covers all the processes of generating knowledge from its sources such as subordinate’s ideas, suggestions and contributions during organisational meetings (Valmohammadi et al. 2019). Organisation can also acquire knowledge from their customers. Rezaei et al. (2021) assert that complaints from customers concerning how best the organisation should operate or reorganise their operations can serve as knowledge to management teams. In the banking sector, customer’s complaints are regarded as very important assets that is capable of changing the way services are rendered. Alolayyan et al. (2020) opined that knowledge acquisition refers to any idea or suggestion that can solve the problem facing the organisation. Again, Alolayyan et al. (2020) is of the view that knowledge acquisitions do not only mean suggestions or contributions, it also refers to sponsoring employee to acquire additional educational qualification from a higher institution of learning which at the end would be beneficial to the organisation. Supporting Alolayyan et al. (2020); Niqresh (2021) argued that acquiring new knowledge is necessary for any organisation because learning is continuum and hence management should enshrine it in their strategic intent. The second KM dimension is knowledge sharing. Sharing knowledge refers to activities of distributing knowledge amongst colleagues in the organisation for the purpose of achieving one goal (Chen et al. 2018). Mustafa et al. (2021) contended that knowledge sharing is the process of transferring acquired knowledge from one individual to another in the workplace for the benefits of using it to carryout organisational objectives. Knowledge dissemination is an indicator of cordial, loyalty and altruistic behaviour amongst employees working together to accomplish a common purpose (Niqresh 2021). Tadesse (2020) asserts that organisation that encourages knowledge sharing amongst their workers cannot be defeated by their competitor. It therefore implies that knowledge sharing is a strategic weapon against any competing organisations. Lastly, knowledge storage is concerned with the process of retaining acquired and shared knowledge for future use. Nurdin and Yusuf (2020) stressed that organisations store knowledge in books and databases which they can make reference to it whenever there is a problem that need to be resolved. Knowledge storage is a symbol of reputation for retaining employees that contributed for knowledge that was used to solve organisational problems (Razi et al. 2019; Syed et al. 2021). It has been shown that knowledge storage is a culture of sustainable development which translate to positive organisational outcome (Edeh et al. 2020a; Osaulenko et al. 2020; Kassaneh et al. 2021).

Innovation capability has dominated industrial core competencies which scholars, practitioners and business administrators’ regards as intangible capital necessary for the sustainability of stakeholders’ wealth. Innovation capability appeared in business disciplines through Schumpeter’s classification of innovation as new process of production, identification of new market opportunities, discovery of new sources of supply and new product (Schumpeter 1934); this was further pronounced by Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction which describes how old products, services, process and methods are being replaced by new discoveries thereby rendering the first discovery obsolete (Schumpeter 1942). It is against this development that respected management scholar, Drucker (1985) contended that innovation is the process of building capabilities or utility that would serve as firm’s strategic advantage. IC is concerned with the identification of new opportunities and development of new ideas that is in consonant with organisational goals (Chuang et al. 2014). On another hand, Lawson and Samson (2001) opined that innovation capability is an organisation’s capability to process knowledge into new products and services for the purpose of meeting the needs of stakeholders. IC is also perceived as management’s decision to develop new methods and strategies that would strengthen their resilience in the business hemisphere (Bell and Hindmoor 2009). Esdar et al. (2021) added that IC is the transformation of products, processes and marketing policies that would stop customers from patronizing complementary products. Chen (2009) perceived IC as a firm’s process, structure and system that can be deployed to develop a product, marketing or process innovations. Innovation capability constitutes skills and knowledge that are relevant to absorb, comprehend, and strengthened old technologies so as to generate new ones (Romijn and Albaladejo 2002). Innovation capability is also conceived as procedure through which management improves other organisational capabilities as well as the resources needed to explore new opportunities to meet market demands (Koc 2007). Other scholars viewed IC as a way of changing the features of products for the sole aim of maintaining leadership in the industry (Börjesson and Elmquist 2011; Purwati et al. 2021). Esdar et al. (2021) maintained that any organisation that fails to craft innovation capability would not be able to withstand competitors that have huge capital. In the context of financial service providers, continuous modification of product brands and services remain the key core competencies to outweigh rivals; this is the basis of why Tuominen and Hyvönen (2004) argued that service organisations must focus on process, product and marketing innovations in order to remain relevant in their industry. Adding lubricant to the wheel of Tuominen and Hyvönen (2004), Mendoza-Silva (2020) contended that financial service providers need to employ necessary methodologies that would distinguish them from others.

Drawing from the above, Calik et al. (2017) asserts that innovation capability conceptualized with marketing innovation, process innovation and product innovation has the capacity of improving task performance, resilience, contextual performance and workplace commitment. In addition, Börjesson and Elmquist (2011) is of the view that IC should cover functional areas of management to avoid destructive compensation. Corroborating with Börjesson and Elmquist (2011); Torabi et al. (2020) opined that organisations that want to be responsible and sustainable, must be ready to absorb and utilize innovation capability to protect stakeholders’ wealth; thus, in the environment of uncertainty, financial service providers need to embrace IC consciousness so as to withstand internal and external dislocation that may befall them. It is in this light that Hogan et al. (2011) alluded that organisations strategic advantage depend solely on their ability to develop new idea that would revamp product and service acceptance by prospective customers. Firms may have huge resources but may not have innovative competencies to tap from new market opportunities thereby losing huge amount of capital from the market (Benaim 2015; Sudolska and Łapińska 2020). Validated measures of innovation capability (IC) are product innovation, marketing innovation capability and process innovation capability (Camison and Villar-Lopez 2014; Nwachukwu et al. 2018; Opeke and Adelowo 2020); market innovation capability, product innovation capability, strategic innovation capability, process innovation capability, and behavioural innovation capability (Wang and Ahmed 2004; Purwati et al. 2021); operations innovation capability, marketing innovation capability, boundary management innovation, firm innovation, service innovation capability, process innovation capability, sustainability innovation capability, and technological innovation capability (Manimala 1992; Varis and Littunen 2010).

Marketing innovation capability includes all current marketing tools that are used for advertising and promoting new services and products to existing and new customers (Edeh et al. 2020a). Marketing innovation capability is concerned with an organisation’s implementation of new marketing approaches that is related to changes in product redesign, promotion, pricing, distributing channels and branding (Medase and Barasa 2019; Edeh et al. 2020b). Noticeable innovation capabilities in marketing area are changes in product packaging, reduction or increment of prices, changes in taste, improvement on quality or quantity (Grimpe et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2020). It has been shown that the essence of marketing innovation capability is to meeting consumer’s need, positioning for new market openings which directed at increasing sales (Karlsson and Tavassoli 2016). Another indicator of innovation capability is process innovation capability which refers to the injection or introduction of new methods, techniques, equipment or machine for the production of goods and services by organisations (Damanpour et al. 2009; Sadiki and Lebailly 2020). For instance, when manufacturing firms want to change the product features such as shape, quantity, quality or taste, they would purchase another kind of machine that has the capacity of turning out the intended finished product. A process innovation capability is also regarded as the implementation of new improved method for the delivery of goods to customers and meeting future supply chains in the business hemisphere (Guisado-González et al. 2014; Plotnikova et al. 2016; Abdu and Jibir 2018). The essence of rolling out process innovation capability is to meet customers’ constant demands as a result of competing complementary goods (Goel and Nelson 2018; Koffi et al. 2021). On the other hand, product innovation capability is associated with adding new features to existing products that would retain loyal customers and also attract new ones (Adegboyega 2017; Rajapathirana and Hui 2018). Some of the specific items in product innovation capability include changes in specifications, size or shape of the product, user friendly, taste and technical usage. Koffi et al. (2021) maintained that product innovation capability is concerned with any strategy that would create new product out of the old ones with the aim of capturing market.