Background To optimise care and support for people with intellectual disabilities (ID), sharing and application of knowledge is a precondition. In healthcare in general, there is a body of knowledge on bridging the 'know-do-gap'. However, it is not known to what extent the identified barriers and facilitators to knowledge sharing and application also hold for the care and support of people with ID, due to its specific characteristics including long-term care. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to identify which organisational factors are enabling and/or disabling in stimulating the sharing and application of knowledge in the care and support of people with ID. Method A systematic review was conducted using five electronic databases of relevant articles published in English between January 2000 and December 2015. During each phase of selection and analysis a minimum of two independent reviewers assessed all articles according to PRISMA guidelines.

The sharing and application of knowledge in intellectual disabilities care are vital and challenging. Therefore, organizations providing care and support for people with intellectual disabilities use strategies to stimulate these processes. To optimize these strategies, we investigated the contextual factors that influence their execution. We

Purpose Within intellectual disability care organizations (IDCOs), it is vital that professionals share and apply knowledge to improve the quality of care for their service users. Given that chief executive officers (CEOs) play a pivotal role in enabling these processes, this paper aims to investigate both the underlying motives and strategies behind CEOs’ organizational knowledge leadership and their contribution to improving these knowledge processes. Design/methodology/approach In this exploratory qualitative study, 11 CEOs from IDCOs in the Netherlands who are actively involved in knowledge management within their organizations were interviewed. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted. Findings CEOs’ motives for stimulating knowledge processes among professionals in IDCOs arise from the internal (e.g. the CEOs themselves) and external (e.g. policy) contexts. This study also identified four strategies adopted by CEOs to stimulate sharing and application of knowledge: providing organizational conditions for effective knowledge processes; focused attention on talent development; acknowledgment and deployment of knowledge holders; and knowledge-driven participation in collaborative partnerships. These strategies are used in combination and have been shown to reinforce one another. Practical implications An overview of strategies for stimulating knowledge processes is now available. Originality/value The results display the leadership of CEOs in knowledge strategies. Insights into their perceptions and values are provided while elaborating on their motives to take this role.

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During the COVID‐19 pandemic, support workers and health professionals caring for and supporting people with intellectual disabilities (ID) required new knowledge on, for example, treatment and infection prevention. ID care organizations had to quickly share up‐to‐date knowledge and encourage its application. This study explored the contextual factors influencing knowledge sharing and application in the care and support for people with ID, contrasted their relevance prior to and during the pandemic, and compared the relevance of these factors according to support workers and health professionals. In 2021, 160 Dutch professionals working with people with ID completed an online survey, with 69 being support workers and 91 being health professionals. For most of the participants, the contextual factors known to be relevant for knowledge sharing and application prior to the pandemic (e.g., the leadership of professionals, user‐friendliness of interventions) also helped them to process knowledge during the pandemic. These factors were rated equally or as being even more important (e.g., “Practice leadership of management” and “Office arrangements and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems”). Moreover, support workers and health professionals rated factors such as the available capacity of employees and office arrangements and ICT systems differently. The findings provide initial evidence that during a health crisis like the COVID‐19 pandemic, both the role and importance of contextual factors influencing knowledge sharing and application in the care and support for people with ID partially differ from prior to the pandemic.