Thinking Together: Making Communities of Practice Work (abridged)

Human Relations, 2017

In this article, we develop the founding elements of the concept of Communities of Practice by elaborating on the learning processes happening at the heart of such communities. In particular, we provide a consistent perspective on the notions of knowledge, knowing and knowledge sharing that is compatible with the essence of this concept – that learning entails an investment of identity and a social formation of a person. We do so by drawing richly from the work of Michael Polanyi and his conception of personal knowledge, and thereby we clarify the scope of Communities of Practice and offer a number of new insights into how to make such social structures perform well in professional settings. The conceptual discussion is substantiated by findings of a qualitative empirical study in the UK National Health Service. As a result, the process of 'thinking together' is conceptualized as a key part of meaningful Communities of Practice where people mutually guide each other through their understandings of the same problems in their area of mutual interest, and this way indirectly share tacit knowledge. The collaborative learning process of 'thinking together', we argue, is what essentially brings Communities of Practice to life and not the other way round.

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015

2019

Communities of Practice have existed for as long as people have been learning and sharing their experiences. However, it was not until the early 1990's before the study of these communities gained attention from the research community. Since then, these communities have been studied in many research domains, yet, the core structural elements, which are critical to these communities remain constant-Domain, Community and Practice. In this paper we reexamine the structural elements of Communities of Practice and argue for the extension of these to include aspects on Participation, Learning and Knowledge. We also take a first step in validating these new structural elements by presenting a study that explores how they appear in a known Communities of Practice (the CoderDojo movement). Our research informs the future study of COP from both a theoretical and organizational perspective.

2007

Summary This paper addresses the issue of knowledge management and learning within Communities of Practice (CoPs). This issue is particularly challenging at a time of global elearning and implementation and development of CoPs within public or private organisations. Communities of Practices (CoPs) are groups of professionals who share their knowledge, ideas and practices in a common domain or topic. More and more companies and public institutions turn to the implementation of CoPs, both for capitalizing knowledge and for improving the experience and knowledge of their employees. In this context, important questions arise about the management of collective knowledge and the human organisation, as well as the technological tools to support this process. What are the needs of (online) CoPs concerning their learning, their knowledge management and the organisation of both? What kind of needs could be satisfied by web services? What kind of services? How could they be produced to meet th...

Academy of management Annals, 2022

This paper provides a comprehensive, integrative conceptual review of work on communities of practice (CoPs), defined broadly as groups of people bound together by a common activity, shared expertise, a passion for a joint enterprise, and a desire to learn or improve their practice. We identify three divergent views on the intended purposes and expected effects of CoPs: as mechanisms for fostering learning and knowledge-sharing, as sources of innovation, and as mechanisms to defend interests and perpetuate control over expertise domains. We use these different lenses to make sense of the ways CoPs are conceptualized and to review scholarly work on this topic. We argue that current debate on the future of work and new methodological developments are challenging the received wisdom on CoPs and offer research opportunities and new conceptual combinations. We argue also that the interaction between the lenses and between CoP theory and adjacent literatures might result in new theory and conceptualizations.

Innovation Through Communities of Practice

This chapter examines knowledge sharing between Communities of Practice, a relatively neglected topic of study. Theory and evidence is presented to suggest that knowledge sharing between communities is likely to be more complex than intra-community knowledge sharing, due to the lack of shared consensual knowledge or shared sense of identity which typically exists in inter-community contexts. In such situations, the development of trust is seen to be a key foundation which requires to be developed before effective knowledge sharing can occur. Three brief case studies are presented to illustrate the arguments made. Practitioner implications flowing from this chapter are twofold. Firstly, to facilitate effective inter-community knowledge sharing requires effort to be invested in developing the social relationship (and hence trust) between members from the communities. Secondly, organizations need to balance their efforts at building Communities

How do software developers, field service technicians, and medieval cathedral builders accomplish collaborative work? This paper looks at how they learn from each other by building and sharing knowledge across time and space. To illustrate this, we first present Community of Practice (CoP) as a way of understanding collaborative work which puts focus on the community and its social interaction. CoP, introduced by Lave and Wenger (1991), is based on the fundamental belief that dividing theory from practice is unsound. Hence CoP contradicted traditional theories of learning, where learning and working often are conceived as separate processes. Using Orr's (1996) rendition of service technician's work, it is shown that stories act as repositories of accumulated wisdom in keeping track of facts, sequences and their context. Representations made by a CoP to aid their work, are termed Reifications which can be stories, tools, artefacts etc. Practice is seen as a duality of Participation and Reification which both require and enable each other. We find however, that CoP based analyses tend to focus on the human actors in that you start out by looking for the communities and what defines them. We also present examples of alternative approaches that illuminate the technology and artefacts that are present in collaboration. Berg(1997) uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to illustrate the responsibility awarded to artefacts in the process of documenting a hospital-patient's fluid balance. Hutchins(1995) describes navigation as a joint accomplishment of artefacts and people. Turnbull(1993) sees a wooden template as a chief enabler of building gothic cathedrals without use of structural mathematics. Facets of knowledge/knowing is discussed, their accumulation and transfer by stressing the value of both the social and the technical approach.

Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 2010

Social work in the UK has undergone a period of momentous change in the last decade with the introduction of a 'modernising agenda' that has increased managerial approaches to the organisation, development and delivery of services. These approaches are embedded and social workers and social work managers must fi nd ways of working within them to synthesise appropriate responses that promote the values and cultural heritage of social work within the new context. This paper considers the possibilities offered by communities of practice to develop learning organisations in which a managed and participatory approach to social work and social care can be generated. A super-ordinate model of contending learning cultures is developed and used to create a blue print for practice that draws on a range of management and professional theories and perspectives. Successful involvement of people who use services is identifi ed as a key feature of a more advanced approach to leading a community of practice and the effectiveness of supervision is seen as dependent on the development of a community. The approach offers a strategy for fi rst line and middle managers to develop team effectiveness and improve services that is robust and not dependent on organisational initiatives and cultures.

Journal of Workplace …, 2008

Purpose – The notion of communities of practice (CoP) has received great attention in educational and organisational practice and research. Although the concept originally refers to collaborative practices that emerge naturally, educational and HRD practitioners are increasingly searching for ways to create these practices intentionally in order to stimulate learning and professional development in specific fields. This paper aims to gain insight into ways in which communities of practice can be deliberately organised. Design/methodology/approach – The study concerns a multiple case study of the deliberate initiation of 15 communities of practice of small and medium-sized companies in the tourist sector, located in seven European countries. The analysis focuses on how meaningful, shared and coordinative activity is organised in each of the 15 cases. A multiple case study allowed for comparison between the various cases in order to target fruitful conditions and actions in organisation processes. Findings – In the initiation of a CoP it is important that before an outsider starts to organise and coordinate activities questions such as “How are we relevant to one another?” and “Who are we and where are we going?” are answered first, and by the group itself. These questions relate to the development of meaningful activity (domain) and of shared activity (community). Following this, any coordinative system, any practice, should be subordinated to the motives of the group. Originality/value – Besides identifying various actions for human resource developers who aim to apply the concept of CoP in professional work, the study contributes to the scientific formulation of pedagogical notions around communities of practice.

2005

In the late 1990s, Knowledge Management (KM) and Communities of Practice (CoPs) seemed inseparable. CoPs appeared to offer the key to reversing the failure of some of the earlier technologically based attempts to manage knowledge. However, the original CoP concept was built around a very different set of principles to those put forward by the proponents of KM. This paper presents a critical review of some of the claims made for CoPs. It will address questions such as Are CoPs really suitable for use in a business setting? and Can a CoP ever be truly virtual?