Abstract: Starting from organizational goals and strategies, knowledge governance is an organizational arrangement utilizing a series of governance approaches to impact the knowledge activities of organization, which emphasizes the organizational capacity of improving knowledge process. Knowledge governance goes beyond the domain of knowledge management and provides a new theoretical explanation for the connection between organization and knowledge, which aims at solving the organization problems cannot be explained by knowledge-based view. The theory of knowledge governance takes the micro individual behavior hypothesis as the starting point, takes the economic effectiveness as the explanation principle, and explains the knowledge strategy realization of an organization from the requirement of individual knowledge action. The research of knowledge governance is still in the early stage, which have no common understandings of the theoretical framework of knowledge governance, lack clear theoretical foundations related to the understanding of relationship among organizational performance, knowledge behaviors and organizational performance, have no consensus to distinguish the difference between knowledge governance mechanism, structure and mode, and shot of the exploration of knowledge, competitive advantage and causal relationship between organizations. Thus, it is urgent to form a consensus on the concept and theoretical framework of knowledge governance and build a systematic research framework. Therefore, by utilizing the literature analytic method, this paper analyzed the cutting-edge researches of knowledge governance at home and abroad about the origin and theoretical basis first. Knowledge governance theory is believed to origin from two requirements: the obstacles in knowledge management practice and the development of knowledge-based view. The former shows that it is often unable to achieve the expected effect of knowledge activities in the practice of enterprises by knowledge management alone, which is caused by the lack of governance theory and organizational support to guarantee the knowledge management activities and ask for a higher level of knowledge governance methods. The later suggests the theory development of knowledge-based view from the focus on knowledge itself to the close connection between knowledge and organization, which promotes the establishment of a closed loop of organizational goals, organizational arrangements, individual action conditions, individual knowledge activities and organizational output. The theory of knowledge governance starts from the theoretical perspective of institutional theory, organizational economics, organizational behavior and sociology, and proposes to understand knowledge governance activities from the perspectives of institutional arrangement, organizational design, transaction costs and social relations. The above four perspectives define the scope of knowledge governance and solve the problems of the starting point, tools and objects of knowledge governance. The concept connotation of knowledge governance also presents the trend of sustainable development, which can no longer be viewed merely as a process of influencing knowledge management activities through some governance mechanisms, but should be understood from the perspective of organizational strategy. According to the connotation of knowledge governance, this paper considers that knowledge governance will guide, influence and control the knowledge exchange, sharing, integration, utilization and creation activities in the organization, and realize the organizational goals based on knowledge activities by systematically applying a series of organizational arrangements such as governance structure, mechanism and mode form the needs of the strategic goals on knowledge activities.Then, this paper identified and distinguished the elements of knowledge governance by analyzing the related researches on the existing knowledge management organizational conditions and the periodical researches on knowledge governance. The analysis of knowledge governance elements involves structure, mechanisms, mode and performance of knowledge governance, each element was analyzed separately. Knowledge governance structure is a framework that serves the knowledge strategic goal of an organization and reflects the relationship between the subjects of knowledge governance at different levels within the organization. It creates the structural conditions and lays the framework foundation for knowledge activities at the micro level. The research of knowledge governance structure needs to combine different organizational situations. The existing research on the knowledge governance structure is still very limited, which need to further research on the identification and applicability study. Knowledge governance mechanism is a potential and specific means of management and control in the context of knowledge, which is used to promote and explain how the behavior of the required subject is stimulated, influenced and established, and in what way the expected or expected benefits are achieved. The existing research on knowledge governance mechanism has put forward a lot of valuable ideas, while knowledge governance mechanism as a key system element still needs to be given more in-depth attention. Knowledge governance mode is an overall institutional arrangement within an enterprise to realize the strategic goals of the organization and rationally allocate knowledge resources, which can be understood as he general term of a series of systems and means including the choice of knowledge governance structure and the combination of knowledge governance mechanism. The research on knowledge governance mode still need to focus more on the suitability of organizational context. Knowledge governance performance is the potential result and goal orientation of knowledge governance, which aims to make the knowledge activities of enterprises approximate to the optimal results. The research of knowledge governance performance needs to pay more attention to the targeted evaluation and extensive evaluation of outcomes of knowledge governance. On this basis, this paper built the framework of knowledge governance research, which drives from the organizational knowledge-based objectives and applies governance principles and instruments to acting on knowledge activities and then achieving knowledge governance performance. Results indicate that knowledge governance is a systematic concept involving goals, actors, methods, principles, objects and outcomes, and the knowledge governance theory is forming a research framework which different from knowledge management theory. The findings convey several implications for practitioners to differentiate knowledge management and knowledge governance, overcome knowledge management barriers from organizational strategies and arrangement, and link organization and knowledge activities based on the principle of consistency. The theoretical implications reflect in providing theoretical focus for knowledge governance theory by setting research framework of knowledge governance, and clearly defining the concepts of knowledge governance and its elements. This study also prospects the future research direction to provide guidance for further in-depth discussion. The future research opportunities involve the measurement of related concept of knowledge governance, the synergetic rationale of knowledge governance mechanisms, the identification and contextual suitability of knowledge governance mode, the exploration of multi-dimensional and multi-level knowledge governance performance, and the extension of research context. 

Key words: knowledge governance, governance mechanism, governance structure, governance mode, knowledge strategy