Born to be Wild: Using Communities of Practice as a Tool for Knowledge Management (original) (raw)

Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice

Methodologies for Competitive Advantage

Campos, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: "This book provides a sound understanding of the managerial implications of communities of practice as well as their opportunities and limits for knowledge management"-Provided by publisher.

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Managing knowledge is an issue that is of critical importance to the international firm and the successful sharing of know-how and best practice have been identified as key elements in an international firm's competitive advantage (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Wan & Hoskisson, 2003). While there may be agreement on the value of knowledge sharing, there are many barriers and unknowns to the achievement of this objective.

Limits of communities of practice

… of communities in practice in information …, 2004

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the communities of practice approach to managing knowledge and its use among management academics and practitioners in recent years. In so doing, the aim is to identify the limits of the approach in the field of knowledge management. The paper begins with a brief description of the communities of practice approach. This is followed by a review of critiques of the approach evident in the management literature. A number of further challenges are then elaborated. The limits of communities of practice are subsequently discussed and brief conclusions drawn.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOL

Knowledge sharing have become essential requirements for every organization. Knowledge management has emerged as an overarching strategy to enhance knowledge creation, information transfer, utilization, and reticulation in order to generate innovation and improve organizational performance. Part of this strategy involves the creation of Communities of Practice. These are networks of individuals with a common, shared purpose grouped together to facilitate knowledge building, idea creation and information exchange.

Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization

IGI Global eBooks, 2011

The aim of this chapter is to link communities of practice to the knowledge creation and dissemination in the specific context of knowledge intensive organization. This is done by pointing out the role that CoPs may have in relation to knowledge sharing and innovativeness in the knowledge intensive context. CoPs can fulfill numerous functions in respect to the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge. Thus, Wenger's (1998) clarifying categorization of those knowledge-related functions has served as a foundation and inspiration in this context-specific description: exchange and interpretation of information; retaining knowledge; steward competencies and provide homes for identities. However, it is worth noting that while communities of practice are traditionally seen as the creators of knowledge and innovations, it is also important to acknowledge the challenges and even obstacles of these tightly-coupled groups may bring to the organizational knowledge sharing and learning processes. These issues are mainly defined through our empirical case examples we have linked to the theoretical review.

Why communities of practice succeed and why they fail

European Management Journal, 2008

A specific form of intra-organizational networks -a community of practice (COP) -is increasingly regarded as an important structure within organizations. This network structure is well suited for the development and sharing of knowledge and practices across divisions. Our research explores the most salient reasons for the success and failure of such networks. An investigation of 57 COPs from major European and US companies led to the discovery of 10 ''commandments'' that lead to the successful development and sharing of best practices. It also identified five main reasons for failure.

Communities of Practice: Going One Step Too Far?

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?

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AS A METHOD FOR KNOWLEDGE-ORIENTED COOPERATION1

After a short historical review of the development of the concept of "Communities of Practice" (CoP) we present examples of organisational Knowledge Management (KM) in which Etienne Wenger's CoP model has been applied. In the main part we focus on the business orientated CoP framework that Wenger, Snyder and McDermott proposed in 2002 for KM by extending the original approach of 1998. Finally we conclude with a critical reflection over the necessity - within KM frameworks - to explicitly emphasize participation in stewarding knowledge as a condition for bridging the gap between knowledge and its management.

The Evolution of Knowledge in Communities of Practice

Organizations and groups rely on the effective capture and sharing of knowledge for their survival. They spend a significant amount of effort and time to codify and manage the body of knowledge that their constituents collectively possess. Despite these efforts, tacit knowledge tends to solely reside within those who use it for their day to day work. It is widely believed that tacit knowledge disappears when the individual possessing it leaves an organization or group. More and more organizations are fostering communities of practice as a mechanism to influence knowledge creation and dissemination. Hence, it becomes imperative for us to understand how best to capture the knowledge that now resides within these communities, which could extend across multiple organizations. In this research article, we establish that the knowledge contained within communities of practice evolves over a period of time. We examine the evolution of this knowledge, and its impact on the community as well as the invidividuals concerned.