Handbook of Research on Communities of Practice for Organizational Management and Networking: Methodologies for Competitive Advantage Olga Rivera Hernáez University of Deusto - San Sebastian, Spain Eduardo Bueno Campos The Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handbook of research on communities of practice for organizational management and networking: methodologies for competitive advantage / Olga Rivera Hernaez and Eduardo Bueno 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. ISBN 978-1-60566-802-4 (hbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-60566-803-1 (ebook) 1. Knowledge management. 2. Organizational learning. 3. Management. I. Rivera Hernaez, Olga. II. Bueno Campos, Eduardo. III. Title. HD30.2.H36424 2011 658.4’038--dc22 2011003702
British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
Editorial Advisory Board Margaret Peteraf, Dartmouth College, USA Alock K. Chakravarti, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA Leif Edvinson, Lund University, Sweden Göran Roos, Intellectual Capital Services Ltd. (ICS), UK Johan Ross, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark J.C. Spender, Lund University, Sweden Philippe Byosiere, Dôshisha University, Japan Denise J. Luethge, Dôshisha University, Kyoto, Japan Francisco Javier Carrillo, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico José Emilio Navas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Cesar Camisón, Universidad Jaume I, Spain José Ruiz Navarro, Universidad de Cadiz, Spain José María Viedma Martí, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Spain Aino Kianto, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Manuel Becerra, Instituto de Empresa, Spain Jonathan H. Klein, University of Southampton, UK Igor Calzada, University of Nevada, USA Jon Landeta Rodríguez, Universidad del País Vasco, Spain Alfons Sauquet Rovira, ESADE Business School, Spain
List of Contributors
Adelstein , Jennifer / University of Technology, Sydney, Australia................................................... 102 Akoumianakis, Demosthenes / Technological Education Institution of Crete, Greece.................... 263 Aramburu, Nekane / University of Deusto, Spain............................................................................. 183 Bernhard, Willi / Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland................................. 394 Bettoni, Marco / Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland.................................. 394 Calvey, David / Manchester Metropolitan University, UK................................................................. 380 Campos, Eduardo Bueno / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain....................................... 19, 306 Carbery, Ronan / University of Limerick, Ireland............................................................................. 335 Chisalita, Cristina / Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands..................................................................... 70 Chu Mei-Tai /, LaTrobe University, Australia ................................................................................... 199 del Puy Carretero, María / Visual Communication Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain........... 281 Fung-Kee-Fung, Michael / The Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, Canada.................................. 454 Garavan, Thomas / University of Limerick, Ireland.......................................................................... 335 Goubenova, Elena / The Ottawa Hospital, Canada........................................................................... 454 Grima, Francois / Université Paris 12 & Reims Management School, France................................. 295 Hadjimanolis, Athanasios / European University Cyprus, Greece................................................... 220 Hayes, Kathryn J. /University of Western Sydney, Australia............................................................. 243 Hernáez , Olga Rivera / University of Deusto, Spain........................................................................ 122 Hong, Jianzhong / Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland.................................................. 46 Jameson, Jill / The University of Greenwich, UK.............................................................................. 441 Josserand, Emmanuel / University of Geneva, Switzerland.............................................................. 295 Khosla, Rajiv / LaTrobe University, Australia................................................................................... 199 Lämsä, Tuija / University of Oulu, Finland....................................................................................... 361 Landaeta, Reinaldo Plaz / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain................................................ 19 Loyarte, Edurne / Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain................... 122 Mäkäräinen-Suni, Irma / Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland...................................... 46 Martinez, Jesús / Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain........................................................................... 419 Morash, Robin / The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Canada........................................................ 454 Moreno, Carlos Merino / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.................................................. 19 Nätti, Satu / University of Oulu, Finland............................................................................................ 361 O´Brien, Fergal / University of Limerick, Ireland.............................................................................. 335 Ortiz, Amalia / Enne, Spain................................................................................................................ 281 Oyarzun, David / Visual Communication Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain........................... 281
Perez-Montoro, Mario / University of Barcelona, Spain............................................................ 83, 419 Prado, Julio Acosta / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain....................................................... 144 Rivera, Cecilia Murcia / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain................................................. 144 Roberts, Joanne / Newcastle University, UK......................................................................................... 1 Sáenz, Yosune / University of Deusto, Spain...................................................................................... 183 Salmador, M. Paz / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.......................................................... 306 Sanz, Sandra / Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain...................................................................... 83 Schiller, Gabiele / Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland................................ 394 Skilton, Paul F / Washington State University, USA.......................................................................... 161 Somoza, Mónica Longo / Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain........................................ 144, 306 Veenswijk, Marcel / Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands..................................................................... 70 Whelan, Karen / University of Limerick, Ireland............................................................................... 335 Zárraga-Oberty, Celia / Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain.................................................... 32
Table of Contents
Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xx Acknowledgment.............................................................................................................................. xxvii Section 1 Conceptualising Chapter 1 A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination................................ 1 Joanne Roberts, Newcastle University, UK Chapter 2 Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice ........................................................................ 19 Eduardo Bueno Campos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Carlos Merino Moreno, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Reinaldo Plaz Landaeta, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Chapter 3 Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management................................................. 32 Celia Zárraga-Oberty, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain Chapter 4 Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward............. 46 Irma Mäkäräinen-Suni, HAAGA-HELIA & Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Jianzhong Hong, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Chapter 5 Unraveling Power Dynamics in Communities of Practice ................................................................... 70 Marcel Veenswijk, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands Cristina Chisalita, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
Chapter 6 Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures............................. 83 Sandra Sanz, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Mario Pérez-Montoro, University of Barcelona, Spain Section 2 Contextualising Chapter 7 Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice........................................................ 102 Jennifer Adelstein, University of Technology, Australia & International College of Management, Australia Chapter 8 Communities of Practice: Context Factors that Influence their Development.................................... 123 Edurne Loyarte, Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Olga Rivera Hernáez, University of Deusto, Spain Chapter 9 Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP: The Experience at IADE-UAM................................................... 145 Mónica Longo Somoza, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Julio Acosta Prado, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Cecilia Murcia Rivera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Chapter 10 Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry............................................................................. 162 Paul F. Skilton, Washington State University, USA Section 3 Performance and Innovation Chapter 11 People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium–High and High Technology Companies: Organizational Facilitating Conditions and Impact on Innovation and Business Competitiveness.................................................................................................................... 185 Nekane Aramburu, University of Deusto, Spain Josune Sáenz, University of Deusto, Spain Chapter 12 Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation.................................................... 201 Mei-Tai Chu, LaTrobe University, Australia Rajiv Khosla, LaTrobe University, Australia
Chapter 13 Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation............................................................. 222 Athanasios Hadjimanolis, European University Cyprus, Greece Chapter 14 Triple Helix Organisations, Communities of Practice and Time......................................................... 245 Kathryn J. Hayes, University of Western Sydney, Australia Chapter 15 Cross-Organization Virtual CoP: A Field Study in an Information Based Industry ........................... 265 Demosthenes Akoumianakis, Technological Education Institution of Crete, Greece Chapter 16 Future Tools for Sharing Knowledge: Virtual Communities in the Web3D........................................ 283 David Oyarzun, Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Amalia Ortiz, Enne, Spain María del Puy Carretero, Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Section 4 Knowledge Intensive Organizations Chapter 17 The Roles of Peripheral Participants and Brokers: Within and Beyond Communities of Practices............297 Francois Grima, Université Paris 12 & Reims Management School, France Emmanuel Josserand, University of Geneva, Switzerland Chapter 18 CoPs & Organizational Identity: Five Case Studies of NTBFs .......................................................... 308 Eduardo Bueno Campos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Mónica Longo Somoza, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain M. Paz Salmador, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Chapter 19 Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms................................ 337 Thomas Garavan, University of Limerick, Ireland Ronan Carbery, University of Limerick, Ireland Fergal O´Brien, University of Limerick, Ireland Karen Whelan, University of Limerick, Ireland
Chapter 20 Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization......................................................................................................................... 363 Tuija Lämsä, University of Oulu, Finland Satu Nätti, University of Oulu, Finland Section 5 Sharing and Experiencing Chapter 21 Creativity in Action: Creative Multimedia SMEs in Manchester........................................................ 382 David Calvey, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Chapter 22 A CoP for Research Activities in Universities .................................................................................... 396 Willi Bernhard, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Marco Bettoni, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Gabriele Schiller, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Chapter 23 Communities of Practice in Public Administration: The Case of Catalonia’s Government................ 421 Mario Pérez-Montoro, University of Barcelona, Spain Jesús Martínez, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain Chapter 24 Growing the eLIDA CAMEL Community of Practice Case Study..................................................... 443 Jill Jameson, The University of Greenwich, UK Chapter 25 Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery..................................................................................................... 456 Michael Fung-Kee-Fung, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Robin Morash, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Elena Goubenova, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 467 About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 498 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 505
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xx Acknowledgment.............................................................................................................................. xxvii Section 1 Conceptualising Chapter 1 A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination................................ 1 Joanne Roberts, Newcastle University, UK A communities of practice perspective is used to unravel the actions and activities that facilitate the dissemination of management knowledge between organizations across space and time. In so doing, the local embedded nature of knowledge is recognized, as is the manner in which interactions between the pervasive and the specific provide a creative dynamic that facilitates the widespread dissemination and a multiple creation of knowledge. Knowledge interactions are explored in terms of boundary processes involving interactions between management gurus, management consultants, business schools/management academics, managers and business media. Moreover, by making a clear distinction between management knowledge and management ideas and techniques, important differences between the groups engaged in the dissemination of management knowledge are revealed. Chapter 2 Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice ........................................................................ 19 Eduardo Bueno Campos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Carlos Merino Moreno, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Reinaldo Plaz Landaeta, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain The aim of this chapter is deepening into the concept of ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoPs) as a useful scope to share knowledge, trying to present some key issues about a practical knowledge management approach. COPs are a main trend inside innovation strategies, including not only management, but also knowledge creation and development, a richer focus for knowledge governance. There is a wide range of strategies to improve intangible assets management but practical side around two case studies is
the main added value for this chapter. For this reason, the purpose is not about a model configuration but COPs as a useful mechanism to knowledge governance. First of all, a reality based on consultancy activity inside military sector, Isdefe, with a three years project aimed to knowledge management as a core business plan, taking into account a technological development. Secondly, a framework related to nuclear power plants in Spain through “CoPs Project” an initiative aimed to improve organizational performance linked to tacit knowledge transfer. Chapter 3 Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management................................................. 32 Celia Zárraga-Oberty, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain In today’s competitive environment, it is widely accepted that knowledge is a key strategic resource. Nevertheless, to be a source of competitive advantage, the knowledge embedded in individuals must be transformed into organizational knowledge. This chapter defends the idea that this process can happen in work teams, but only if they have the necessary characteristics to be considered communities of practice. These characteristics are: self-managed teams whose members have individual autonomy, heterogeneous and complementary skills, a common understanding, with a leader that encourages work teams and a climate of trust which favors knowledge management. Chapter 4 Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward............. 46 Irma Mäkäräinen-Suni, HAAGA-HELIA & Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Jianzhong Hong, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland This chapter examines primarily the concepts of ba and communities of practice. It explores how the concepts have been used in the previous knowledge management, organizational learning, and innovation research during a decade, from the year 1999 till 2009. The reviewed studies show that both concepts have been used in various industries and in various knowledge sharing situations. The similarities and differences of concepts are compared, and the concept of strategic communities is proposed as a way forward in future research and practice in terms of ba and communities of practice. The chapter includes also a comparative view of each concept, in which its major contributions, limitations and complementary nature are highlighted. Chapter 5 Unraveling Power Dynamics in Communities of Practice ................................................................... 70 Marcel Veenswijk, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands Cristina Chisalita, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands This chapter concentrates on the question how does power dynamics relate to the development of Communities of Practice within the organizational context of European public-private Megaprojects. The notion of power seems to be one of the underdeveloped fields in current CoP theory (Veenswijk& Chisalita, 2007). After a theoretical evaluation of the CoP concept, a Dutch Community of Practice case ‘’Partners in Business’ is presented. In this community, actors of four leading Dutch construction firms and the Ministry of Public Works participate in an informal and unofficial setting. This community was
established in 2005 and is still active as innovative platform in the infrastructural field. The researchers act as catalyst and project reflector during the different stages of community building. After presentation and analysis of the case, the authors discuss the results of the case study while reflecting back on the theory, and they illustrate the advantages of considering the blind spots relating to power dynamics in CoP theory. Chapter 6 Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures............................. 83 Sandra Sanz, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Mario Pérez-Montoro, University of Barcelona, Spain In recent years, the interest in and development of communities of practice (CoPs) has undergone exponential growth. However, this uncontrolled expansion has, to a large extent, led to the name of community of practice being attributed to working groups or communities that are not communities of practice. The aim of this work is to shed a little light on this confusion and identify and characterise communities of practice compared with other types of groups or organizational structures. To achieve this aim, the authors first introduce an intuitive and agreed definition of community of practice. In a second movement, they identify and define the principal groups or organizational structures that are used, besides communities of practice, by organizations to improve their strategies when meeting these aims that they are pursuing. The authors then present a comparison between these organizational structures or groups and communities of practice. The chapter ends by offering a number of conclusions and providing some guidelines on the future development of communities of practice. Section 2 Contextualising Chapter 7 Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice........................................................ 102 Jennifer Adelstein, University of Technology, Australia & International College of Management, Australia The chapter proposes that an emerging management strategy, which prescribes and aims to measure what goes on in a community of practice (CoP), may have unexpected and negative outcomes. Voluntary participation in CoPs may come to an end and knowledge transfer may be minimized rather than optimized as knowledge practitioners rebel against command and control strategies by management. This may severely impinge on the viability and sustainability of CoPs as a means of ‘situated learning’ theorized by Lave & Wenger (1991) and knowledge sharing expressed by Brown & Duguid (1991; 1998). The chapter conceptualizes that an impasse may arise between management and knowledge practitioners in divulging the quantity and quality of knowledge that can be made available for organizational use. Rather than facilitating a flow of knowledge from practitioners to the organization, CoPs may become another conflicted terrain of unequal power relationships. While laying out these possibilities, the chapter also suggests that there could be a different outcome, one that rebalances the pendulum of power relationships for mutual benefit and interests of both management and knowledge practitioners.
Chapter 8 Communities of Practice: Context Factors that Influence their Development.................................... 123 Edurne Loyarte, VICOMTech Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Olga Rivera Hernáez, University of Deusto, Spain Many organizations have developed Communities of Practice and they are one of the most important vehicles of knowledge management in the 21st century. Organizations use Communities of Practice for different purposes, but both, organizations and Communities, are limited by different context factors. Therefore, different goals are achieved with them: sometimes the intended goals and sometimes unintended goals. With this in mind, this chapter focuses on the context factors that influence the development of Communities of Practice. To this end, the authors review different cases of Communities of Practice within various organizations. This analysis provides: (a) a reflection on the Context factors in the process of integrating Communities of Practice, (b) an analysis of the impact of these factors on the development of Communities of Practice in different organizations and (c) the conclusions of the study. This study is based on the general idea that Communities of Practice are a valid management tool for organizations. This chapter is therefore based on the study of Communities of Practice from the perspective of organizational management. Chapter 9 Knowledge creation, Ba and CoP: The Experience at IADE-UAM.................................................... 145 Mónica Longo Somoza, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Julio Acosta Prado, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Cecilia Murcia Rivera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain This chapter analyzes the knowledge-creating process that has been developed in the Institute for Research in Knowledge Management and Business Innovation (IADE) of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). IADE develops activities of technical and scientific investigation, makes projects of technical assistance to different kind of organizations and makes a labour of postgraduate education. This chapter proposes that professors and doctoral students, from different countries and organizations, who carry out their research projects in IADE, work as an investigation community of practice (CoP) both in purpose, character and functionality, and develop a knowledge-creating process in a Ba. This chapter studies this process, describe the Ba and the investigation CoP as an element of the Ba. In order to get a deep understanding of these elements, the authors have chosen a case study as empirical research methodology and they have based their findings and conclusions in a previous theoretical analysis of these concepts. Chapter 10 Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry............................................................................. 162 Paul F. Skilton, Washington State University, USA This study explores the question of how the competitive environment, regional clustering and industry network structure influence the potential for developing firm level competitive advantage based on communities of practice. Paying attention to the context that communities of practice function in is important because only by doing so can we understand the conditions that constrain or facilitate the
emergence of competitive advantage from them. Using the motion picture visual effects industry as the basis for a descriptive case, the study relies on primary sources and archival data to examine how managers can move toward competitive advantage by understanding communities of practice and the social, economic and organizational contexts in which they emerge. Section 3 Performance and Innovation Chapter 11 People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium–High and High Technology Companies: Organizational Facilitating Conditions and Impact on Innovation and Business Competitiveness.................................................................................................................... 185 Nekane Aramburu, University of Deusto, Spain Josune Sáenz, University of Deusto, Spain The aim of this chapter is to analyse the organizational conditions that foster the development of different people-focused knowledge sharing initiatives in medium-high and high technology companies, as well as the degree of influence of those initiatives on the ideation stage of innovation processes. Finally, considering that successful innovation is the one that helps to improve business competitiveness, the degree of influence of this innovation capability dimension on company performance is examined. For these relationships to be tested, an empirical study has been carried out among medium-high and high technology Spanish manufacturing firms with more than 50 employees and which carry out R&D activities. To this end, a questionnaire has been designed and submitted to the CEOs of the companies making up the target population of the research. Structural equation modelling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) has then been applied in order to test the main hypotheses of the research. Chapter 12 Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation.................................................... 201 Mei-Tai Chu, LaTrobe University, Australia Rajiv Khosla, LaTrobe University, Australia Knowledge Management (KM) is known to enhance an organization’s performance and innovation via the knowledge sharing both explicitly and tacitly. Moreover, Communities of Practice (CoPs) has been accepted as an effective way to retrieve and facilitate tacit knowledge particularly. Performance Evaluation of CoPs will significantly impact an organization’s strategic focus, knowledge transfer, resource allocation, and management performance. Meanwhile, proper measurement and decision making processes are critical for KM and CoPs success. However, the ultimate performance of CoPs implementation is uneasy to measure correctly. This chapter attempts to analyze how to establish a feasible framework to assess CoPs performance to meet organizational demands. This framework contains four dimensions and sixteen criteria built from review of existing literature and experts’ interviews in a large R &D organization. Therefore, this chapter tends to discuss the CoPs and its performance evaluation from a theoretical and practical perspective.
Chapter 13 Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation............................................................. 222 Athanasios Hadjimanolis, European University Cyprus, Greece Communities of practice (CoPs) have been introduced as a useful concept for the comprehension of peer-to-peer learning in workplaces. Learning and knowledge creation and exchange are essential ingredients in innovation success therefore CoPs have been proposed as a useful framework for the elucidation of the innovation process in organizations. It is also argued that they contribute to innovation through being more efficient than formal organizational structures. Innovation, however, comes in different forms and types and internal CoPs are more relevant for incremental innovation, while interorganizational communities are more important for radical innovation. The chapter focuses on a critical evaluation of the concept of community of practice and an assessment of the role of CoPs in knowledge creation and exchange at the various stages of the innovation process. Furthermore it evaluates the contribution of communities to innovation success and organizational performance. It also refers to current trends and future developments especially in inter-organizational virtual innovation communities. Chapter 14 Triple Helix Organisations, Communities of Practice and Time......................................................... 245 Kathryn J. Hayes, University of Western Sydney, Australia Commercialisation activities require knowledge sharing between groups such as researchers and commercial managers. The existence of research based Knowledge-stewarding Communities of Practice (CoPs) within industry/research/government innovation collaborations has important implications for innovation management practice. The context of the study is four Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) composed of academic, government and industry personnel. Semi-structured interviews with a total of twenty scientists, engineers and managers explored collectively shared and dissimilar perceptions of time in commercialisation activities. Knowledge-stewarding CoP members and commercial participants within triple helix organisations working to commercialise inventions report differing temporal perceptions. Commercial and research groups described distinctively different views of pace and flexibility, contributing to tension, distrust and negatively influencing knowledge sharing, communication and commercialisation outcomes. Management techniques in use in the four CRCs and an agenda for future research conclude the chapter. This chapter contributes to the literature on collaborative innovation management and inter-organisational CoPs. Chapter 15 Cross-Organization Virtual CoP: A Field Study in an Information Based Industry ........................... 265 Demosthenes Akoumianakis, Technological Education Institution of Crete, Greece The chapter motivates and presents an approach for assembling innovative information-based products and services by virtual cross-organization communities of practice. Using a case study on assembling vacation packages, the author describes the cross-organizational virtual partnership, the mechanics allowing it to operate as a virtual community of practice and how collective intelligence of the members is appropriated to ensemble innovative information-based products for tourists. The results provide useful insights into innovating through virtual networking as well as the ICT tools that may be used to foster value-creating networks of practice in boundary spanning domains.
Chapter 16 Future Tools for Sharing Knowledge: Virtual Communities in the Web3D........................................ 283 David Oyarzun, Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Amalia Ortiz, Enne, Spain María del Puy Carretero, Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain The goal of this chapter is to encourage an open discussion about current and future technological support for knowledge sharing and learning. This support can be especially beneficial for communities of practice, where technology can bring increasingly geographically distant companies and knowledge closer together. Section 4 Knowledge Intensive Organizations Chapter 17 The Roles of Peripheral Participants and Brokers: Within and Beyond Communities of Practices............297 Francois Grima, Université Paris 12 & Reims Management School, France Emmanuel Josserand, University of Geneva, Switzerland The objective of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of learning trajectories connecting external and internal communities of practices. To do so, the authors studied four internal communities of practice by actors belonging to a same external community. They realized semi-directive interviews in these communities supplemented by direct observation of meetings. Their results give a new perspective on participation to communities of practice. They describe how young members act as boundary spanners between the communities and the practice in their organization while more senior members act as unique facilitators with a balance between boundary spanning and buffering. They describe in detail the personal characteristics of these senior members. Chapter 18 CoPs & Organizational Identity: Five Case Studies of NTBFs .......................................................... 308 Eduardo Bueno Campos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Mónica Longo Somoza, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain M. Paz Salmador, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain The present chapter analyzes the emergent concepts of communities of practice and organizational identity, as well as their interrelationships, in the context of a knowledge-based economy. In particular, the chapter focuses on new technology-based firms (NTBF). Two main propositions are discussed. First, members of these organizations can build the organizational identity through communities of practice. Second, the organizational identity socially built by members can facilitate the emergence of communities of practice. These propositions are first grounded in a theoretical review and later they are
tested empirically in five case studies of new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. Finally, the main conclusions and directions for further research are presented. Chapter 19 Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms................................ 337 Thomas Garavan, University of Limerick, Ireland Ronan Carbery, University of Limerick, Ireland Fergal O´Brien, University of Limerick, Ireland Karen Whelan, University of Limerick, Ireland Knowledge is an important source of competitiveness in knowledge-intensive firms. However, these firms experience problems in sharing tacit knowledge. Communities of practice (CoPs) are viewed as effective mechanisms to enable knowledge sharing because they emphasize learning rather than structural imperatives. This chapter investigates knowledge sharing within- and between- CoPs in knowledge-intensive firms. Knowledge sharing in CoPs is influenced by a multiplicity of factors which the authors categorised as cognitive, relational and structural. Data collected from 40 members of eight CoPs support the view that knowledge sharing occurs more effectively within CoPs rather than between them. Such knowledge sharing is context driven and strongly dependent on shared mindsets, relationships and networks. The authors explore the implications for both researching CoPs and the facilitation of CoPs in knowledge-intensive firms. Chapter 20 Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization................................................................................................... 363 Tuija Lämsä, University of Oulu, Finland Satu Nätti, University of Oulu, Finland The communities of practice (CoP) approach has become increasingly influential within management literature and practice since it was identified as a mechanism through which knowledge is held, shared and created (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). 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 the authors’ empirical case examples they have linked to the theoretical review.
Section 5 Sharing and Experiencing Chapter 21 Creativity in Action: Creative Multimedia SMEs in Manchester . ..................................................... 382 David Calvey, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK This chapter explores the concept of communities of practice (CoP), with reference to ethnographic data from a range of creative multi-media SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) in Manchester in the UK. The central argument is that many of these communities are profoundly mediated by the interplay of competitive commercial imperatives with professional obligations and constructions of identity. Hence, the concept of community is a more fragmented and fractured one. Ultimately, CoP is a robust metaphor to analysis organisational life but more descriptive detail of situated lived practices and mundane realities of various work settings is called for. Ethnographic data is drawn on to demonstrate the participant’s accounts of their lived experiences, which include reflections on the process of creativity, collaborative negotiations with clients and organisational learning. Ethnomethodology, a form of sociological analysis, is then used to suggest alternative ways to analyse the situated nature of practice, learning and community. Chapter 22 A CoP for Research Activities in Universities .................................................................................... 396 Willi Bernhard, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Marco Bettoni, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Gabriele Schiller, Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland The authors’ mission is to investigate how to manage research knowledge and perform research activities in universities of applied sciences by means of CoPs; in this investigation, the authors use as an application case “CoRe,” the CoP of all researchers of the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences. They explain how they faced the challenge of answering the question of how to improve overall performance in all research activities of their university, and then illustrate their findings by telling the story of how they have been answering it by means of a new kind of knowledge network called CoRe. The authors explain the tools they have been developing in order to address the needs of such a CoP and finally reflect on lessons learned while establishing a CoP in a research environment. Chapter 23 Communities of Practice in Public Administration: The Case of Catalonia’s Government................ 421 Mario Pérez-Montoro, University of Barcelona, Spain Jesús Martínez, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain Currently, Knowledge Management (KM) is being received very positively by organisations. Nevertheless, there is a particular type of organisation in which there has been less of a general demand for KM: the public organisations. However, in the last three years, a Knowledge Management project, based in communities of practice (CoPs), has been put into practice in the area of the Justice Department in the Catalan government, the Generalitat of Catalunya. The aim of this work is to present a detailed analysis
of this project. To achieve this aim, first of all, the authors introduce the implementation methodology and the results obtained, as well as the success variables involved in this project. This allows them to offer a guide for implementing CoPs in public administration. Lastly, by way of conclusion, they provide a series of conclusions and lessons that can easily be applied to the majority of community of practice projects that are implemented in the Public Administration context. Chapter 24 Growing the eLIDA CAMEL Community of Practice Case Study..................................................... 443 Jill Jameson, The University of Greenwich, UK This chapter outlines key design features that may be necessary to ‘grow’ a successful intentionally designed community of practice (CoP) in education. Prior research on communities of practice (CoPs) has emphasised their benefits for knowledge management and the relative difficulties involved in ‘managing’ CoPs, given that such communities are frequently conceptualised as self-organizing entities. The chapter reports on reflections from the JISC-funded (2006-08) eLIDA CAMEL project, which created a community of practice in education based on the CAMEL CoP model imported from a Uruguayan selfhelp farming group and adapted by JISC infoNet and ALT (2005-06). The chapter provides a case study of a successful inter-institutional CoP and recommends that certain indispensable design features may be necessary to ‘grow’ CoPs, including sufficiency of duration of the community, limitations in shared focus, collaborative planning, expert leadership/ facilitation, an emphasis on building trust, explicating tacit knowledge and social networking in a framework fostering practitioner expertise. Chapter 25 Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery..................................................................................................... 456 Michael Fung-Kee-Fung, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Robin Morash, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Elena Goubenova, The Ottawa Hospital, Canada This chapter describes a framework for developing and evaluating Communities of Practice initiated by local healthcare organizations and groups. The framework explores specific features of a CoP in quality improvement field and managerial implications of utilising traditional forms of medical socialization and cultural transmission. The authors describe their own experiences with a CoP in one of the health regions of Ontario, Canada, and compare them to other conceptual and theoretical approaches in the field. The chapter breaks down the implementation of CoP projects in medicine into manageable steps and presents an evaluation tool that could help develop an adequate evaluation process. Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 467 About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 498 Index.................................................................................................................................................... 505
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Preface
Communities of practice (CoPs) have become increasingly influential within management literature and practice since being identified as an important mechanism through which individual, organizational and social knowledge is held, transferred and created. Their theoretical roots lie in the situated learning approach, but they have spread to the field of knowledge management, emerging as an important tool that managers and practitioners should know why, how and when to utilize. Doing so, however, is not a task without difficulties. First, because CoPs are, in some ways, spontaneous organizational forms that evolve over time due to their own affiliation process and their members’ activities. Second, because each firm and organization has to design its own set of tools to achieve its objectives and CoPs are just one of these tools. And third, because the interactions between CoPs and the inter and intra-organizational context of the firm is not yet fully understood and requires a deep consciousness and a systemic view. This Handbook of Research tries to connect academia with practitioners to achieve a more sound understanding of the managerial implications of CoPs as well as their opportunities and limits for knowledge management, which will foster innovation and help organizations to improve performance.
THE GENESIS OF THE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY The origin of studies about workplace practices in organizations is a natural consequence of the evolution of modern organization theory, which focuses on processes for sharing knowledge between the people and social groups in these organizations, in line with the appearance and development of the new, knowledge-based economic model dating from the middle of the 20th century, explaining the new productive work structure of the post-industrial society or knowledge society which grew up at that time. In 1945, Frederick Hayek published his study on the importance of knowledge in society and, consequently, in the economy, making use of and divulging Alfred Marshall’s advanced ideas (1890), which had been forgotten, about the crucial role of this knowledge as a resource and productive factor in the creation of wealth and social transformation, and even of nature itself, thanks to technological development and the role of organizations and the entrepreneurs who direct them. Hayek’s contribution (1945) received recognition and grew in importance over time thanks to Daniel Bell’s 1973 study of postindustrial society (1973), Peter Drucker’s 1965 and 1993 studies of post-capitalist society (knowledge society) and de Fritz Machulup’s 1967 and 1980 studies of the birth of the knowledge-based economy. This process made it possible to define the characteristics of the change in the economic model over the centuries from the agricultural age to the modern industrial age and on to the current age of knowl-
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edge: Gorey and Dobat (1996), OECD (1999); giving explanations of the importance of the models and techniques which active knowledge in organizations, making it the basis for the core competences and competitive advantages required by the contemporary economy (Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Bueno, 1998 and Bueno and Salmador, 2003). Consequently, with this change of focus in the analysis of work and business processes, based on the processes of creation and exchange of knowledge between the people taking part in these operations, interest in investigating the role of work practices arises. During the 80s, the first studies in this area from the perspective of cognition in practice, interpretative and ethnography appeared along with focuses on enacting and storytelling, particularly the studies of Daft and Weick (1984), Orr (1987, 1990) and Lave (1988), among others, as explained by Brown and Duguid (1991).
THE DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH ON COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS At the start of the 90s and at the end of the 20th century there was increased academic interest in the study of CoPs and in their use in different types of organizations’ professional management. In this respect, the mentioned studies by Orr (1996) and Lave and Wenger (1990) of are particular interest, emphasizing new ways of working and individuals’ participation in tasks. In the same sense, the new theories about CoPs are based on the processes of organizational learning explained by Brown and Dugnid (1991, 1998), the perspective of organizations’ configuration as Communities-of-Communities in which there are canonical practices and non canonical practices, given the complex processes created by and which simultaneously make up working, learning and innovating. This situation called for a redesigning of organization structure and behavior. In a similar line of investigation and reflection, the concept of Ba was analyzed, investigated and proposed by the modern Japanese school of philosophy of knowledge led by Yuhiro Nonaka, which defines this concept as a context for sharing, creating and using knowledge between people who make us any such space, which may be physical, mental or virtual (Nonaka and Konno, 1998; Nonaka, Toyama and Konno, 2000), but which, above all, has the objective of creating knowledge or innovation in the organizations which base themselves on this productive resource for the creation of value (Nonaka, 1991, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). In this conceptual base for CoPs, starting with systemic relations between working, learning and innovating, the following contributions to creating the process of identity creating knowledge and, especially, cultivating knowledge, authors such as Wenger (1998), Wenger and Snyder (2000) and Wenger, Mc Dermott and Snyder (2002) are outstanding. Their studies show the importance of investigating the role of CoPs in the creation of value in contemporary knowledge-based economy, measured in terms of innovation, improved performance and, particularly, the creation and sustainability of competitive advantages, thanks to whose crucial role in the processes of current and emerging knowledge-based organization strategies (Bueno and Salmador, 2003).
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OBJECTIVE AND PERSPECTIVES This book will emphasize the managerial approach to CoPs and their limits and benefits of application, providing a number of case studies, lessons learned and guidelines from a sound conceptual and practical foundation. The mission of this book is to contribute to a better understanding of what a community of practice is, the differences and similarities of COPs to other organizational forms, and how these tools can be applied in organizations for different purposes and in different contexts. As other organizational tools can be applied to achieve the same goals, the specific features as well as limitations of CoPs will be emphasized using a systemic approach of different frameworks and different expertises in the area. This mission is achieved through the following objectives: • •
•
• •
Conceptualization of CoPs. This handbook will present the specific features of CoPs in an organizational context from different points of view that include knowledge and innovation. Contextualization of CoPs. This research collection will demonstrate the use of CoPs in different organizational contexts, in order to achieve better insight into their function, evolution patterns and results. Their emergence and use interorganizationally, within multinationals, in innovative contexts and in science will be an important way to compare differences and also common patterns on how CoPs can build spaces for the creation, development and transfer of knowledge. Performance and Innovation. In order to learn from and take advantage of all the benefits of CoPs, another main objective of the handbook is to show how CoPs can be cultivated to increase results considering different possibilities, such as technological tools, and also the individual motivational approach. Knowledge Intensive Organizations. Furthermore, the handbook aims to explore the relationship between CoPs and knowledge, outlining both their enhancement spiral and the risk of pitfalls. Sharing and Experiencing. In order to have a practical and in depth understanding of CoPs, another objective of the handbook is to present different experiences of organizations using CoPs and compare them with the conceptual and theoretical innovations in the field.
STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK The book contains 25 chapters, gathered under five section headings. Section 1, Conceptualising. These six chapters deal with the main conceptual basis used in current CoP theory, from its cognitive relationship with the Japanese concept of Ba and the importance of dissemination in the creation of organizational knowledge in the contemporary economy, from a dynamic transfer perspective and the transformation of the organizations which are characteristics of the knowledge-based economy. Section 2, Contextualising. These four chapters deal with CoP functions in the various different organizational contexts in creative knowledge processes, examining, on the one hand, the conceptual relationships between Ba and CoP and, on the other hand, analyzing the creation of competitive advantages. Section 3, Performance and Innovation. These six chapters further the analysis of CoP functions in the influence they have in the increase of performance and innovation in the organizations in which they are introduced, with special emphasis on companies with intensive R&D processes.
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Section 4, Knowledge Intensive Organizations. These four chapters analyze the importance of CoPs in the working and sustainable development of organizations that make intensive use of scientific and technological knowledge in their creation of value. Section 5, Sharing and Experiencing. The five chapters in this last section present various different cases and experiences of CoP implementation in very varied organizations. In Section 1 there are six chapters, as summarized below. Chapter 1 outlines how a communities of practice (CoPs) perspective is used to unravel the actions and activities that facilitate management knowledge dissemination between organizations across space and time. The author also outlines some of the major differences between the groups engaged in management knowledge dissemination. Chapter 2 analyzes the concept of communities of practice as a useful scope for sharing knowledge, presenting some key issues about a practical knowledge management approach. The authors, for this reason, present two cases studies in this chapter, including not only management but also knowledge creation and development, a richer focus for knowledge governance. Chapter 3 establishes today’s competitive environment, where knowledge is a key strategic resource. In this chapter, the author defends the idea that knowledge held by individuals must be transformed into organizational knowledge and, nevertheless, be a source of competitive advantage. Chapter 4 examines the concepts of good and bad communities of practice. The author explores how the concepts have been used in previous knowledge management, organizational learning and innovation research in the last decade, includes a comparative view of each concept and analyzes contributions, limitations and their nature. Chapter 5 concentrates on the question of how power dynamics relate to the development of communities of practice within the organizational context of different European Megaprojects. The authors presents a Dutch community of practice case, “Partners in Business,” and also discusses the results of the case study while reflecting on and illustrating the advantages of considering power dynamics in CoP theory. Chapter 6 outlines how the interest in and development of communities of practice has undergone exponential growth. The author also outlines, identifies and defines CoP characteristics compared with other types of groups and organizational structures, providing some guidelines on the future development of CoPs. In Section 2 there are four chapters, as summarized below. Chapter 7 proposes that emerging management strategies, which prescribe and aim to measure what goes on in a community of practice, may have unexpected and negative outcomes. The author also suggests that an impasse may arise between management and knowledge practitioners in divulging the quantity and quality of knowledge that can be made available for organizational use. Chapter 8 focuses on the context factors that influence the development of Communities of Practice. To this end, the authors review different cases of Communities of Practice within various organizations based on the study from the perspective of organizational management. Chapter 9 analyzes the knowledge-creating process that professors and doctoral students, from different countries and organizations, have developed in the Research Institute of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). These people work as a research community of practice and operate a knowledgecreating process for a BA. The author studies this process and describes both concepts in order to get a deep understanding of the relationships between these elements.
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Chapter 10 explores questions of how the competitive environment, regional clustering and industry network structures influence the potential for developing firm level competitive advantages based on communities of practice. The author relies on primary sources and archival data to examine how managers can move toward competitive advantage by understanding CoPs in the different contexts in which they emerge. In Section 3 there are six chapters, as summarized below. Chapter 11. This chapter analyses the organizational conditions that foster the development of different people-focused knowledge sharing initiatives in medium-high and high technology companies, as well as the degree of influence of those initiatives on the ideation stage of innovation processes and on innovation performance. Chapter 12 analyzes how performance evaluation of communities of practice will significantly impact an organization´s strategic focus, knowledge transfer, resource allocation and management performance. The author in this chapter discusses CoPs and their performance evaluation from a theoretical and practical perspective. Chapter 13 focuses on a critical evaluation of the concept of community of practice and an assessment of the role of CoPs in knowledge creation and exchange at the various stages of the innovation process. The author also evaluates the contribution of CoPs to innovation success and organizational performance. Chapter 14 analyzes how the existence of research-based knowledge-stewarding communities of practice within industry / research /government innovation collaborations has important implications, such as the Triple Helix Model, for innovation management practice. In this chapter the author presents four studies on collaborative innovation management and inter-organizational CoPs. Chapter 15 presents an approach for assembling innovative information-based products and services by virtual cross-organization communities of practice. The author uses a case study and describes the mechanics allowing it to operate as a virtual community of practice and how the collective intelligence of the members is appropriated to ensemble innovative information-based products and services. Chapter 16 opens a broad discussion about current and future technological support for knowledge sharing and learning, support that amplifies the scope of CoPs and facilitates members to interact in increasingly geographically distant companies putting knowledge closer together. This chapter also suggests the ideal evolution of tools for knowledge sharing and learning on Future Internet, the advantages their use could provide and the factors that authors maintain should be improved to turn this ideal tool into a reality. In Section 4 there are four chapters, as summarized below. Chapter 17 outlines how to gain a better understanding of different learning trajectories connecting external and internal communities of practice. The author presents the detailed research results of four internal CoPs by members of a single external community. Both young and senior members take part in this study. Chapter 18 analyzes the emergent concepts of communities of practice and organizational identity, as well as their interrelationships in the context of a knowledge-based economy. The author focuses this chapter on new technological-based firms, and the propositions on the relations between both concepts are tested empirically in five case studies of new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. Chapter 19 investigates knowledge sharing within and between communities of practice in knowledgeintensive firms. The author also explores the implications of the influence of CoPs on the multiplicity factor, categorized as cognitive, relational and structural, in knowledge sharing in these firms.
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Chapter 20 analyzes how to link communities of practice to knowledge creation and dissemination in the specific context of knowledge intensive organizations. In this chapter, the author aims is to point out the role that CoPs may have in relation to knowledge sharing and innovativeness in the knowledge intensive context. In Section 5 there are five chapters, as summarized below. Chapter 21 investigates the concept of communities of practice with reference to ethnographic data from a range of creative multimedia SMEs in Manchester, UK. The author stresses that many of these communities are fragmented and fractured by the interplay of competitive commercial imperatives with professional obligations and loyalties. Ethnomethodology is used to suggest alternative ways to analyze the settings around situated decision making, practical reasoning and lived collaborations. Chapter 22 investigates how to manage research knowledge and perform research activities in applied sciences universities by means of communities of practice. The author explains the tools that have been developed in order to address the needs of such a CoP in a research environment. Chapter 23 presents a case study of implementation methodology in a knowledge management project, based on communities of practice in a particular type of public organization. The author also offers a guide for implementing CoPs in the Public Administration context. Chapter 24 outlines key design features that may be necessary to cultivate communities of practice in order to be successful in the area of education. In this chapter, the author provides a case study of a successful inter-institutional CoP and recommends the principal factors and the best practices. Chapter 25 describes a framework for developing and evaluating communities of practice initiated by local healthcare organizations and groups. The author also breaks down the implementation of CoP projects in medicine into manageable steps and presents an evaluation tool that could help develop an adequate evaluation process.
FINAL REMARKS This book explains very important aspects of the relevance and representativeness of the state of investigation into the concept of CoPs and their degree of acceptance and the creation of a theoretical reference frame in contemporary society and economy. This relevance becomes clear on examining the wide variety of subject areas in the contents of the twenty-five chapters in this study, organized into five sections, each with its own area of interest, used to explain the practical and theoretical reach of CoPs. With regard to this, relevance can be demonstrated by the large numbers of case studies and CoP implementations in very different types of organizations and contexts; this diversity is dealt with in many chapters, from perspectives that are in favour of CoPs, in terms of various different processes of working, learning and innovating, for which knowledge sharing is used to create value, with the dissemination of knowledge inside and outside the organization, in other words, through external or internal CoPs, in the networking processes which are characteristic of contemporary society. The book is also representative and of great interest and relevance internationally and in terms of different institutions considering the data explained below, which is a synthesis of the book’s contents and reach. Forty-six people from eleven different countries and all continents took part in the book. These investigators and experts belong to or work with twenty-eight different organizations, most of which are connected with R&D systems and technology and innovation transfer. Organizations which offer a considerable portfolio of different activities and areas of interest, representing government in-
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stitutions, public bodies, industrial firms, hospitals and health centers, universities, investigation and technological centers. In conclusion, this book analyses the current state of CoPs in a wide-ranging and rigorous manner, along with their beneficial relationships with the development and new organizational behavior of current social cooperation networks and the creation of core competences and competitive advantages, both with regard to the interest of each organization and with regard to the sustainable development of the whole of global knowledge economy.
Olga Rivera Hernáez University of Deusto - San Sebastian, Spain Eduardo Bueno Campos The Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
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Acknowledgment
The editors would like to acknowledge the help of all involved in the elaboration and review process of the handbook, without whose support the project could not have been satisfactorily completed. We wish to thank all of the authors for their insights, effort and excellent contributions to this handbook. Thanks go also to all those who provided constructive and comprehensive reviews. Most of the authors of chapters included in this handbook also served as referees for chapters written by other authors. Special mention has to be done of Aino Kianto, Igor Hawryszkiewycz, Jon Landeta, Judi Sandrock and Peter Tobin, who served also as referees in the review process. Special thanks go to the publishing team at IGI Global, whose contributions throughout the whole process from inception of the initial idea to final publication have been invaluable. In particular to Julia Mosemann, who continuously prodded via e-mail for keeping the project on schedule. And last but not least, Mari Paz Redondo, Nagore Ageitos and Laida Agote, for their unfailing support in the edition process during the months it took to give birth to this handbook.
Olga Rivera Hernáez University of Deusto - San Sebastian, Spain Eduardo Bueno Campos The Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Section 1
Conceptualising
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Chapter 1
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination Joanne Roberts Newcastle University, UK
ABSTRACT A communities of practice perspective is used to unravel the actions and activities that facilitate the dissemination of management knowledge between organizations across space and time. In so doing, the local embedded nature of knowledge is recognized, as is the manner in which interactions between the pervasive and the specific provide a creative dynamic that facilitates the widespread dissemination and a multiple creation of knowledge. Knowledge interactions are explored in terms of boundary processes involving interactions between management gurus, management consultants, business schools/management academics, managers and business media. Moreover, by making a clear distinction between management knowledge and management ideas and techniques, important differences between the groups engaged in the dissemination of management knowledge are revealed.
INTRODUCTION The community of practice, which has been identified as a mechanism through which knowledge is held, transferred and created within and between organizations (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, et al. 2002), is employed as an approach with which to DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch001
analyze the actions and interactions that facilitate the dissemination of management knowledge. A number of studies have explored the dissemination and circulation of management knowledge (Abrahamson 1996; Subbaby and Green, 2002; Sahlin Andersson and Engwall, 2002; Thrift, 2005). The purpose of this chapter is to add to this literature through an analysis of the dissemination of management knowledge from a communities of practice perspective. This analysis seeks to unravel
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A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
the actions and activities that facilitate the transfer of management knowledge between organizations across space and time. In so doing, the local embedded nature of knowledge is recognized, as is the manner in which interactions between the pervasive and the specific provide a creative dynamic that facilitates the widespread dissemination and a multiple creation of knowledge. In the current global competitive environment knowledge is the key source of competitive advantage (Drucker, 1993). By shedding light on the mechanisms that facilitate the transfer of management knowledge this chapter will contribute to the promotion of successful knowledge intensive business activity. The chapter will be of interest to managers, academics and policymakers seeking to promote knowledge creation and dissemination. The chapter begins with an overview of the management knowledge field before the communities of practice framework is explored. The concept of boundary processes is then considered as a mechanism that facilitates the dissemination of knowledge between communities and constellations of practice. The communities of practice framework is then applied to the management knowledge field with consideration given to the interactions between groups within the field. A discussion of the analysis is followed by suggestions for further research and concluding comments.
THE MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE FIELD The management knowledge field is the context within which management knowledge is produced and distributed. It is useful to begin by exploring the notion of knowledge in general terms before elaborating on the management knowledge field. Knowledge involves an awareness or understanding gained through experience, familiarity or learning; it entails cognitive structures that can assimilate information and put it into a wider context, allowing actions to be undertaken from
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it (Howells & Roberts, 2000). In discussions of knowledge a distinction is often made between tacit and codified or implicit and explicit knowledge. Knowledge is codified if it is recorded or transmitted in the form of symbols (e.g. writing or drawings) or embodied in a tangible form (e.g. machinery or tools). Through the process of codification, knowledge is reduced to information that can be transformed into knowledge by those individuals who have access to the appropriate code or framework of analysis. Tacit knowledge is non-codified knowledge that is acquired via the informal take-up of learning behaviour and procedures (Howells, 1996); it is often referred to as know-how. In their study of organizational knowledge, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) identify two dimensions of tacit knowledge: the technical dimension encompassing skills or crafts; and, the cognitive dimension consisting of schemata, mental models, and beliefs that shape the way individuals perceive the world around them. Elaborating on their idea of knowledge conversion in the context of the organization, they stress the mutual complementary nature of tacit and explicit knowledge, arguing that they ‘interact with and interchange into each other in the creative activities of human beings.’ Their dynamic model of knowledge creation ‘is anchored to a critical assumption that human knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge’ (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 61). For the purposes of analyzing the management knowledge field this chapter builds on these insights into the nature of knowledge by proposing a clear distinction between management knowledge and management ideas and techniques. Management knowledge is used here to refer to knowledge that is tacit in the sense that it is embedded into the everyday practice of management. In contrast, management ideas relate to knowledge that is disembedded from practice and embodied in a mental representation or the characterization of knowledge in general terms,
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
that is, a concept, while a management technique is a practical method applied to a particular task. The management knowledge field is similar to the context within which Abrahamson (1996) sets the management fashion process. The ideas and techniques that emerge from the management knowledge field are widely considered to be fashionable in nature (Abrahamson, 1996; Kieser, 1997). These have included, for example, Total Quality Management, Business Process Reengineering, Lean Production, Six Sigma and Balanced Score Card. According to Gill and Whittle (1993) such ideas progress through a series of discrete stages: firstly, invention, when the idea is initially created; secondly, dissemination, when the idea is first brought to the attention of its intended audience; thirdly, acceptance, when the idea becomes implemented; fourthly, disenchantment, when negative evaluations and frustrations with the idea emerge; and, finally, decline, or the abandonment of the idea. Abrahamson’s (1991, 1996) identifies a management fashion setting community consisting of management consultants, business schools, business press organizations, academic gurus, consultant gurus and hero managers. For Abrahamson managers and business practitioners are users of management knowledge rather than producers. Yet, Barley, Meyer and Gash (1988) suggest that new managerial ideas emerge among practitioners before moving into business schools. Similarly, in their discussion of carriers of management knowledge, Sahlin-Anderssen and Engwall (2002) refer to four managerial fields: business schools, consulting, media and practice, which they suggest interact such that the boundaries between these fields become blurred. While Thrift (2005) includes, management consultants, management gurus, business schools and the business media among the institutions that produce and disseminate business knowledge, and make up what he refers to as the cultural circuit of capital. Suddaby and Greenwood (2001 p. 940-1) argue that the communities of business schools,
gurus, consultants, the Big Five Professional Service Firms (PSFs) and consumers all play a critical role in the production, commodifying and consumption of management knowledge. They go on to elaborate on a four-stage cycle of knowledge production and consumption arguing that management knowledge is colonized by PSFs. Although they note that ‘events most likely occur contemporaneously’ (p. 940) they do elaborate on a sequential movement of knowledge through a cycle commencing with the legitimation of knowledge by gurus before its commodification by consultants, colonization by PSFs and finally analyzed and refined by business schools. Drawing on these earlier contributions, in this chapter the management knowledge field is conceptualized as inhabited by management gurus, management consultancies, business schools and management scholars, managers and the business media, all of which are actively concerned with the creation, commodification and dissemination of management knowledge, both within and between organizations. Interactions between these groups facilitate the transfer of ideas and techniques as well as the creation of new knowledge. A brief elaboration of these groups is provided in the remainder of this section. •
Management gurus are producers and promoters of management ideas through the writing of best-selling books, business magazine and journals articles, and the delivery of lectures and seminars. Although not entirely responsible for the management knowledge they publicize (Clark & Greatbatch, 2002), they do have an important role in promoting and legitimizing certain ideas. Three types of management guru are commonly identified: ‘academic gurus’ (e.g. Charles Handy, Gary Hamel); ‘consultant gurus’ (e.g. Peter Drucker, Tom Peters); and, ‘hero managers’ (e.g. Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch). Gurus draw on their experience working with organizations
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A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
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•
•
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to produce easily accessible and broadly applicable ideas and techniques that can be disseminated across the management knowledge field. Management consultancies are both consumers and producers of management knowledge. The larger consultancy firms have significant research capacities and systems of personal development through which they promote the development of inhouse gurus. They also draw upon the individual experience of consultants with clients for the benefit of the whole firm (Werr, 2002; Hansen, Nohria & Tierney, 1999). Knowledge is extracted from a number of sources of practice, codified and made portable in the form of management ideas and techniques so that it may be translated and reused in a broad range of situations. A number of broad principles are developed with sufficient ambiguity to ensure that they are highly adaptable and can therefore appeal to a broad range of clients. Business schools and management academics are important consumers and producers of management knowledge. The works of, for example, Hamel and Prahalad (1994), Handy (1990) and Mintzberg (1991) have been influential within the broad management community. Many successful management academics establish consultancy firms and some attained guru status. Yet, the findings of a number of studies suggest that, possibly due to the lengthy peer review process and high rejection rates of academic journals, there is a tendency for many fashionable ideas to emerge initially in the business press (Barley, et al., 1988; Gibson and Tesone, 2001; Spell, 2001). Consequently, academic theory and studies are perceived as following, rather than leading, management progress. Managers are primarily consumers of management knowledge. The consump-
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tion of management knowledge is viewed as necessary for managers to maintain both the competitiveness of their business and their individual position in the management community. The growing complexity of business activity as globalization and new technologies intensify competition and uncertainty has given rise to an increasing demand from managers for the services of management gurus, consultants and business schools. It is also important to note that managers produce management knowledge since they are activity engaged in managing in a complex and rapidly evolving environment. The hero managers who become management gurus provide the most obvious example of managers as producers of management knowledge. However, managers contribute to management knowledge more broadly through the development of the organizational practices and procedures in the companies in which they manage and through their active engagement with business schools, both in terms of contributions to collaborative research and to education through contributions to guest speaker programmes. More generally, when purchasing services from management consultants, managers are often involved in a process of co-production (Den Hertog, 2000). This process can contribute to important developments in management knowledge that the consultancy firm may utilize when serving other clients. Business media also has an important role facilitating the dissemination of management knowledge embedded in ideas and techniques (Thrift, 2005; Clark, 2004). Business media includes publishers of business books, CDs, videos, DVDs and journals and magazines like Fortune, The Economist, Business Week and the Harvard Business Review as well as newspapers
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
such as the Financial Times and others that carry business sections, and business television programmes and channels such as CNBC and Bloomberg. In addition to the mass media, in recent years there had been a growth of web-based media through which traditional media communicates but also professional and amateur management and financial specialists are able to attract an increasing audience for their ideas. In summary, following a discussion of the nature of knowledge and management knowledge broadly defined, this section has explored the various groups that comprise the management knowledge field. These groups are inter-related with the success of each group being dependent upon its ability to develop, disseminate and apply management knowledge. Even though management knowledge is embedded and invested in practice, the groups considered here are able to extract knowledge from its practice-based context through the production of management ideas and techniques. In this process they endow these ideas and techniques with characteristics that give them the ability to circulate throughout the management knowledge field. How is this achieved? Is it possible to conceive of the groups identified above as communities of practice? Can the communities of practice approach provide any insights into the interaction that take place in the management knowledge field? In particular, can it reveal the processes through which knowledge is created and disseminated throughout the field? Before considering these questions the next section provides a brief overview of the relevant communities of practice literature.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE The concept of communities of practice was originally developed by Lave and Wenger (1991) in a study of situated learning in the context of five
apprenticeships: Yucatec midwives; Vai and Gola tailors; naval quartermasters; meat cutters; and, non-drinking alcoholics. Lave and Wenger (1991, p. 98) argue that a community of practice, which they define as ‘a system of relationships between people, activities, and the world; developing with time, and in relation to other tangential and overlapping communities of practice’ is an intrinsic condition of the existence of knowledge. The idea of communities of practice was elaborated and brought to the attention of management scholars and practitioners by Brown and Duguid, (1991). Furthermore, through a study of communities of practice in an insurance claims processing office, Wenger (1998) developed a detailed understanding of the dynamic operation of communities of practice focusing on the social interactive dimensions of situated learning. Wenger (1998, pp. 72-84) identifies three dimensions of the relation by which practice is the source of coherence of a community. Firstly, members interact with one another, establishing norms and relationships through mutual engagement. Secondly, members are bound together by an understanding of a sense of joint enterprise. Finally, members produce over time a shared repertoire of communal resources, including, for example, language, routines, artefacts and stories. Furthermore, Wenger (2000, p. 227-8) distinguishes between three modes of belonging to social learning systems. Firstly, engagement is achieved through doing things together, for example, talking and producing artifacts. Secondly, imagination involves constructing an image of ourselves, of our communities, and of the world, in order to orient ourselves, to reflect on our situation, and to explore possibilities. Finally, alignment involves making sure that our local activities are sufficiently aligned with other processes so that they can be effective beyond our own engagement. Communities of practice display a number of common characteristics as detailed in Table 1. According to Wenger (1998, p.55), within communities of practice, meaning is negotiated
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Table 1. Characteristics of communities of practice Communities of Practice Sustained mutual relationships — harmonious or conflictual Shared ways of engaging in doing things together The rapid flow of information and propagation of innovation Absence of introductory preambles, as if conversations and interactions were merely the continuation of an ongoing process Very quick setup of a problem to be discussed Substantial overlap in participants’ descriptions of who belongs Knowing what others know, what they can do, and how they can contribute to an enterprise Mutually defining identities The ability to assess the appropriateness of actions and products Specific tools, representations, and other artefacts Local lore, shared stories, inside jokes, knowing laughter Jargon and shortcuts to communication as well as the ease of producing new ones Certain styles recognized as displaying membership A shared discourse reflecting a certain perspective on the world It is not necessary that all participants interact intensely with everyone else It is not necessary that every participant be accountable to a joint enterprise It is not necessary that a repertoire be completely locally produced Source: compiled from Wenger (1998, pp. 125-6)
through a process of participation and reification. Wenger (1998, p. 58) defines the concept of reification as the process of giving form to experience by producing objects. ‘Any community of practice produces abstractions, tools, symbols, stories, terms, and concepts that reify something of that practice in a congealed form’ (Wenger, 1998, p.59). Such forms take on a life of their own outside their original context where their meaning can evolve or even disappear. The concept of communities of practice is not without its critics (Fox 2000; Contu & Willmott, 2003; Mutch, 2003; Roberts, 2006; Hughes, Jewson & Unwin, 2007). Nevertheless, since its inception the approach has been applied to a wide
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variety of organizational contexts and working groups from insurance claims processing, photocopy machine repair, and corporate research to on-line communities, healthcare activities, professional communities and beyond (see for example, Wenger et al. 2002; Amin and Roberts 2008a, 2008b). The community of practice approach has a number of advantages when analyzing the creation and dissemination of management knowledge. First, it acknowledges that practice is an intrinsic condition of the existence of knowledge. In this respect it ‘recognizes the situated and “purposive” nature of knowledge as it is created by a community of individuals who have a shared practice or problem and share in its consequences’ (Carlile, 2002, p. 445). Second, communities of practice are significant arenas for the replication, development and dissemination of knowledge. Third, the community of practice framework not only provides a mechanism with which to analyze the production and dissemination of knowledge within a particular community, but also how this knowledge is disseminated across communities.
CROSSING BOUNDARIES: THE DISSEMINATION OF MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE Communities of practice may be a part of a number of constellations of communities of practice sharing a variety of characteristics (Table 2). According to Wenger (1998) when a social configuration is viewed as a constellation rather than a community of practice, the sustaining of the constellation must be maintained in terms of interactions among practices involving boundary processes. Wenger (1998, 2000) identifies a number of boundary processes through which knowledge can be transferred including brokering, boundary objects, boundary interactions and cross-disciplinary projects (Table 3).
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
Table 2. Characteristics of constellations of practice Constellations of Practice Sharing historical roots Having related enterprises Serving a cause or belonging to an institution Facing similar conditions Having members in common Sharing artefacts Having geographical relations of proximity or interaction Having overlapping styles or discourses Competing for the same resources. May or may not be named/identifies by participants May or may not have people endeavouring to keep it together May be created intentionally by boundary straddling individuals May emerge from circumstances Source: compiled from Wenger (1998, pp. 126-8)
The concept of boundary objects was originally developed by Star and Griesemer (1989) in their analysis of the work of a Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. They identified four boundary objects: repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms. These boundary objects facilitated the communication of knowledge and information between very different groups contributing to the work of the museum. The notion of boundary objects has subsequently attracted much attention from researchers of knowledge transfer. For example, in a study of the sharing of knowledge in new product development across functional boundaries within the firm, Carlile (2002) identifies three categories of boundary objects that are appropriate for three types of boundaries: syntactic; semantic and pragmatic. Establishing a shared syntax or language, which can ensure accurate communication between the sender and receiver across a boundary, can bridge syntactic boundaries. In this instance shared repositories can act as successful boundary objects. When syntax is not shared across boundaries the
issue becomes one of learning about the sources that create the semantic differences at the boundary rather than merely an issue of information processing. Individuals may use the same language but it may have very different meanings in different contexts. The types of boundary objects that are effective at a semantic boundary, such as standardized forms and methods, provide a means for individuals to specify and learn about their differences and dependencies. Finally, at a pragmatic boundary, where the importance of the consequences of differences and dependencies between functions, whether positive or negative, must be recognized, effective boundary objects, including objects, models and maps, facilitate a process through which individuals can jointly transform their knowledge. Despite the distinction between these three types of boundaries, Carlile (2002, p. 451), notes that ‘[s]ome shared syntax is an essential feature of all … boundary objects.’ In contrast, Boland and Tenkasi (1995) in a study of perspective making and perspective taking in communities of knowing explore boundary objects in terms of visible representations and narratives. Furthermore, boundary practices, overlaps, and peripheries are identified where the role of marginality becomes significant (Star & Griesemer, 1989). New members of a community may be peripheral participants only becoming full participants once they have gained knowledge and understanding of the activities of the community. Some members may retain a peripheral status and be engaged in a number of communities. Members of multiple communities can act as brokers between different communities of practice. However, as Mutch (2003, p.397.) argues: ‘multi-membership is not necessarily a resource that translates into different perspectives’ or indeed into the ability to adopt multiple perspectives. Moreover, in a study of the diffusion of knowledge management, the role of intermediary groups was seen as one of the most important factors in creating tension between diffusion and institutionalization (Scarbrough, 2003, p. 99).
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A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
Table 3. Types of boundary processes and their characteristics in general and in the management knowledge field Boundary Processes
Examples given by Wenger (2000, pp.235-238)
Examples from the Management Knowledge Field
Brokering
Boundary spanners: taking care of one specific boundary over time. Roamers: going from place to place, creating connections, moving knowledge. Outposts: bringing back news from the forefront, exploring new territories. Pairs: personal relationships between two people.
Account managers in consultancies, recruitment and programme directors in business schools. Gurus, academics and management personnel delivering training programmes Researchers in business schools and consultancies. Client relationships, academic/student relationship
Boundary Objects
Artifacts: tools, documents, or models. Discourses: common language. Processes: explicit routines and procedures.
Books, journals, magazines, business newspapers, CDs, videos, DVDs, television programmes, commonly accepted management principles, etc. Management qualifications and membership of management associations provide common discourse. Methodologies and management styles, e.g. Total Quality Management, Business Process Reengineering.
Boundary Interactions
Boundary encounters: visits, discussions and sabbaticals. Boundary practices: practices developed to facilitate the effective crossing of boundaries. Peripheries: facilities by which outsiders can connect with practice in peripheral ways – ‘frequently asked questions’, introductory events and ‘help desks’.
Secondments, and management training through, Executive Education, MBAs and DBAs. Training programmes, socialization activities. Promotional events, e.g. engaging in local and national activities and events in the wider community, open days, especially for business schools.
Cross-disciplinary Projects
Cross-functional projects and teams that combine the knowledge of multiple practices to get something done.
Project involving management consultants and their client firm’s staff, research collaboration between managers and academics.
Nevertheless, elements of styles and discourses, which include language and the way it is used, metaphors, types of narratives, ways of presenting information, manners, behaviour, and so on, can travel across boundaries. They can be imported and exported across boundaries, and reinterpreted and adapted in the process of being adopted within various practices (Wenger, 1998, p. 129). As styles and discourses spread across an entire constellation they can be shared by multiple practices and create forms of continuity that take on a universal character. But they may be integrated into these various practices in very different ways.
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The creation of easily transferable management knowledge is problematic because of its practice-based nature. Management knowledge is then invested from the outset with a number of features that potentially reduce its potential for widespread dissemination. How then is management knowledge disseminated? Knowledge is extracted from context specific practice and embedded into ideas and techniques that can be easily disseminated in the management knowledge field. In a sense, the reification of knowledge results in the development of ideas and techniques, as tacit knowledge is made explicit and codified. An important characteristic of an
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
idea or technique is that it lends itself to multiple interpretations. Fransmann (1999, p. 3), in a study of innovation, refers to the concept of ‘interpretive ambiguity’ which ‘exists when the current information set is capable of yielding inconsistent inferences regarding what should be believed’. Under conditions of interpretive ambiguity actors ‘make a “leap” from the information which they have …. to a constructed set of more sharply defined beliefs.’ Indeed, for management ideas to become popular they must be characterized by a degree of ambiguity (Kieser, 1997, p. 59). Similarly, Benders and van Veen (2001, p.38) use the term ‘interpretative viability’ to denote that a popular concept lends itself to various interpretations. Consequently, management ideas and techniques incorporate interpretive ambiguity to ensure mass appeal. Moreover, they exploit common beliefs and practices evident from the elements of shared mutual engagement, joint enterprise and repertoire that exist in the management knowledge field. In a sense, boundary processes provide the infrastructure through which management ideas and techniques disseminate through the management knowledge field. Because members share common beliefs and perspectives they are able to interpret new management ideas and techniques in a similar, yet somewhat idiosyncratic manner. Each community derives value from management ideas in its own distinctive way. In the application of ideas and techniques knowledge is reembedded or infused into the local practice of individual communities within the management knowledge field. To be able to absorb the new knowledge these communities must share elements of tacit knowledge, present in the form of common beliefs and perspectives or shared predispositions, with which they can understand and absorb the management ideas and techniques. For as Polanyi (1966, p. 7) notes, although ‘tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied’.
A COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE APPROACH TO THE DISSEMINATION OF MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE Within the constellation of practice that forms the management knowledge field a wide range of boundary processes can be identified. The groups forming the community or constellation of management practice, identified above, are members of multiple communities of practice and it is through their role as brokers and, especially, boundary spanners, that they facilitate the dissemination of management knowledge, and in particular management ideas and techniques. Management Consultants, managers and management academics/business schools all interact with one another. In a sense they can be seen as a constellation of management practice, with management gurus and the business media acting as boundary spanners or brokers facilitating the dissemination of management ideas and techniques throughout the management knowledge field. Figure 1 depicts the management knowledge field containing five sub-groups all of which are involved in the creation, legitimating and dissemination of management knowledge. Unlike Suddaby and Greenwood’s (2001, p. 941) cycle of knowledge production and consumption in which knowledge passes from one group to another in a systematic way, with certain groups having specific responsibilities in the production cycle, this representation of the management knowledge field reveals a more complex process of knowledge production and consumption in which all groups are actively involved in the processes of production, legitimating dissemination and consumption of management knowledge. The overlapping of the groups reflects the fact that members of each group often have multiple memberships. To represent the activities of these groups as distinct is to overlook significant interactions between them. Furthermore, managers, management consultants and management academics can be viewed
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A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
Figure 1. Constellations of practice and boundary spanners in the management knowledge field
as communities of practice within which there exist mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoires (Table 4). These communities interact in a constellation of practice within which a wide range of boundary processes can be identified (Table 3). Members of each group are also members of multiple communities of practice and it is through their role as brokers and boundary spanners, that they facilitate the dissemination of management ideas and techniques. These communities of practice, through a process of reification, also create boundary objects including artefacts such as books, manuals, videos, common styles and discourses and routines and procedures. For instance, consultancies develop knowledge management systems that support the generation, commodification and commercialization of management knowledge products (Heusinkveld & Benders, 2002-3).
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Boundary interactions are common between these communities of practice (Table 3), for instance, academics may take sabbaticals in business organizations or consultancy firms, while consultants and managers may study or take on teaching assignments in business schools, whilst also running private consultancy businesses. A manager may also be a consultant, and business school academics are often active in the delivery of consultancy services. Similarly boundary practices are well developed in the management knowledge field with some individuals able to transfer with relative ease between different roles in different communities of practice. The various communities that make up the constellation of practice in the management knowledge field are relatively open to outsiders having facilities that enable peripheral interaction. Finally, members of each community may participate in crossdisciplinary projects in which managers, manage-
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
Table 4. Communities of practice (CoPs) and boundary spanners (BS) in the management knowledge field Dimensions of a Community of Practice
Management consultants (COP)
Business schools & management academics (COP)
Managers (COP)
Management gurus (BS)
Publishers (BS)
Mutual engagement
1. The provision of services to clients 2. The creation, diffusion and absorption of new management knowledge
1. The diffusion of new management knowledge 2. The creation of new management knowledge
1. Management of organizations 2. Absorption of new management knowledge to sustain competitive advantage
None
None
Joint enterprise
1. Serving the needs of clients by providing the latest management techniques 2. Creating and absorbing new knowledge to maintain competitive advantage
1. Supplying management education, MBAs, DBAs etc… 2. Undertaking management research to validate existing management knowledge and to create new knowledge
1. The management of the organization 2.Building and Maintaining competitive advantage by absorbing the latest management knowledge 3. Dissemination of management knowledge through the organization, e.g. through ‘Best Practice’ initiatives
1. Creating new management knowledge 2. Disseminating new management knowledge through performance on the international lecture circuit 3. Production of boundary objects, such as books and videos, to facilitate the diffusion of management knowledge
Production and marketing of boundary objects, such as books, CDs, videos and DVDs to facilitate the diffusion of management knowledge
Shared repertoire
Language, styles, documents, narratives, identity, methodological approaches, educational backgrounds (e.g. MBAs), academic and practitioner literature, membership of consultancy associations
Business School resources (e.g. academic libraries, alumni) language, styles, documents, videos, DVDs, narratives, identity, educational backgrounds (e.g. MBAs, PhDs), academic and practitioner literature, academic and business school associations
Language, styles, documents, narratives, identity, management techniques, educational backgrounds (e.g. MBAs), practitioner literature, membership of professional management associations
Language, styles, narratives, performance techniques, identity, educational backgrounds (e.g. MBAs), academic and practitioner literature
None.
ment consultants and academics may work together to achieve a specific objective. Gurus and the business media are also present in the management knowledge field (Figure 1). However these groups cannot be conceived of as communities of management practice. While gurus may be embedded in a management, consultant or business school community, gurus themselves do not constitute a community of practice. Gurus are individuals that work with various groups, they do not generally share in a socially constructed practice with other gurus. Although they may share joint enterprise and repertoire with one another, they are not mutually engaged. Given that gurus
usually derive from management, consultancy or business schools, they are very much integrated into the constellations of management practice. Consequently, they may be conceptualized here as boundary spanners since they are an important conduit through which management knowledge, ideas and techniques flow between the key communities of practice in the field. In a sense gurus act as management knowledge brokers and boundary spanners. Similarly the business media has a boundary spanning role through the creation of boundary objects in the form of books, CDs, videos, DVDs and the transmission of management and business
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A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
information, opinion, and analysis. However, while gurus are often a part of the communities of management practice the business media merely interacts with the various communities in the management knowledge field. While there are no doubt communities of practice in the field of business media these communities are not present in the management knowledge field. Individuals working in the business media may have previously worked in communities of management practice, but they do not continue to have mutual engagement with these communities or to share a joint enterprise with them, rather, they are engaged with colleagues in the business media sector. Nevertheless, the business media group does share some elements of the communities of management practice’s repertoire (Table 4). So whilst gurus are more integrated within the various communities, the business media simply interacts with these groups, including gurus, with the aim of drawing information from them and packaging it for sale and profit. The business media more generally are then essential facilitators of the creation of boundary objects in the form of books, magazines, journals, videos and on-line databases, which circulate widely in the management knowledge field. There is an important difference between, on the one hand, managers, management consultants and business schools/management academics and, on the other, gurus and the business media. While the former gain success and profit through the dissemination and application of management knowledge embodied in ideas and techniques the latter strive merely to disseminate management ideas and techniques. Moreover, for gurus and the business media dissemination is an end in itself, hence there is no desire to retain control over the ideas and techniques beyond the sale of books or speaking engagements, and so on. For managers, management consultants and business schools retaining control over the knowledge is particularly important in terms of securing competitive advantage.
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These two groups then differ in a significant manner, as does the knowledge that they disseminate. While gurus and the business media disseminate management ideas and techniques, in addition to this, managers, management consultants and business schools disseminate knowledge about applying such ideas in idiosyncratic contexts. While the knowledge embodied in ideas and techniques may be highly mobile the knowledge about applying these ideas is less so because it is context dependent. For gurus and business media management knowledge is largely disseminated in a unidirectional manner. Books, magazines and videos for example do not involve the transfer of knowledge through a process of social interaction or practice. Rather this transfer occurs as a one-way market transaction. In contrast managers, consultants and business schools/academics are more often involved in the dissemination and application of knowledge in a social context. This is clearly the case for managers in their everyday management practice. For management consultants and business schools the transfer of knowledge occurs within the social relationship brought about as a consequence of the establishment of a contractual relationship arising from a market transaction. In a sense then, the knowledge is transferred internally and in a two-way process – within the boundaries of an ongoing relationship. Consequently, in this analysis managers, consultants and business schools/academics can be conceived of as communities of practice within which knowledge is transferred and created through practice. In contrast, gurus and the business media are brokers and boundary spanners promoting the dissemination of management ideas and techniques across the management constellation of practice. Consequently, two very different knowledge dissemination strategies exist in the management knowledge field. For gurus and business media the creation of knowledge that can easily circulate is of key importance, while for managers and consultants and in part for business schools
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
the aim is to obtain some form of proprietary control over the knowledge application process. Knowledge, captured in ideas and techniques, may circulate easily but that is not the same as it being applied and used productively. Managers and consultants will then develop distinctive methods through which they apply ideas and in the process they are able to re-embed these into practice. In so doing, they seek to establish a proprietary claim over the application method – whether formally with a trademark or copyright or informally through procedures and practices that are difficult to imitate in other contexts. For instance consultancy firms may develop specific methodological approaches when undertaking consultancy projects. McKinsey & Co’s various methodologies have collectively become known as ‘The McKinsey way’ (Rasiel, 1999). While the development of ideas and techniques is important in terms of facilitating the circulation of management knowledge at the end of the day the benefits of these ideas and techniques are only attained if the knowledge is applied and incorporated into practice. This process is something achieved by managers, consultants and business schools/academics in their various communities of practice. So while ideas may circulate with relative ease whether they are absorbed and applied is quite another matter.
DISCUSSION This section reflects on the insights provided by an application of the communities of practice approach to the dissemination of management knowledge. It is possible to make some important observations about the various constituents that make up the management knowledge field. Firstly, managers, management consultants and business school academics demonstrate the characteristics of communities of practice, while management gurus and the business media provide a valuable function in the management knowledge field as
brokers and boundary spanners in the constellation of management practice. A second important observation arises from the distinction between the dissemination of management knowledge and its application. While management gurus and the business media are primarily concerned with the dissemination of knowledge through the development of management ideas and techniques, they have no role in facilitating its application as such. Managers, management consultants and business school academics are all to a greater or lesser extent involved with facilitating the application as well as dissemination of knowledge. Indeed, the very competitiveness of managers, consultants and business schools depends on their ability to demonstrate their success at applying knowledge. In a sense, while gurus and the business media are concerned with circulating ideas and techniques, managers, consultants and business schools are involved in the embedding of such knowledge firmly into specific contexts through social practice. Although, ideas and techniques may be easily disseminated the ability to apply them successfully may remain somewhat obscure taking place in the social interaction between managers and workers, consultants and clients and business schools and students. To secure their competitive advantage managers, consultants and business schools will try to gain a proprietary claim over their ability to apply ideas and techniques. So while ideas and techniques may be disseminated throughout the management knowledge field, for knowledge to be applied it must be tailored to specific situations through the activities of managers, consultants and business schools. This process of tailoring requires the development of a relationship with the client and it is through the subsequent social interaction that knowledge can be customized and applied successfully to specific organizational contexts. Through this process knowledge is adapted, refined and developed with the result that new knowledge is created which can in turn be disembedded and
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made mobile with the potential to disseminate throughout the management knowledge field. In a sense, what occurs is a kin to what Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995, p. 70), in their study of organizational knowledge creating, refer to as the ‘knowledge spiral’. By exploring the interactions of various independent organizations that operate within the management knowledge field, the analysis presented here provides insights into the knowledge dissemination and creation process at an inter-organizational level.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH This chapter represents an initial effort to theorize inter-organization management knowledge transfer and as such it has raised many issues that require further consideration. In particular, issues of power within and between communities of practice warrant significant attention. The balance of power between community members is a factor determining which knowledge is legitimized and which is not. A deeper appreciation of power and the related issue of trust within communities of practice would further enrich our understanding of the knowledge creation and diffusion process. A number of key communities of practice have been identified within the management knowledge field. As noted, these communities interact and overlap. Understanding these interactions and overlaps and their role in the knowledge creation and diffusion process is also an area requiring further consideration. The role of communities that impinge on the management knowledge field such as management gurus and business media, which act as brokers and boundary spanners, have also been noted. In particular, the role of business media has been highlighted since it plays an important role in the commodification of management knowledge in the form of best-selling management books, CDs, videos, DVDs news reports and so on. These management products can be viewed
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as boundary objects that facilitate the widespread dissemination of management knowledge. A fuller appreciation of the role that the business media play in the dissemination of management knowledge would be useful, as would the identification and investigation of other communities that interact with the various communities of practice that constitute the management knowledge field. Exploring the differences between managers, management consultants and business schools on the one hand and gurus and business media on the other has revealed their distinctive knowledge dissemination strategies. Both strategies require consideration of issues related to the protection of intellectual property. An understanding of the methods used to protect proprietary knowledge in the management knowledge field would provide additional insights into factors promoting and restriction the dissemination of management knowledge. Much discussion of knowledge dissemination within the management field is concerned with ideas, that is, knowledge which is to some extent codified in order to allow commodification. Yet as Polanyi (1966) notes, tacit knowledge is of vital importance to the understanding of codified knowledge. Little is known of the interaction between tacit and codified knowledge in the management knowledge field. This, then, is an issue in need of further investigation. Finally, despite the expanding literature on knowledge transfer and management knowledge, little attention has so far been devoted to the transfer of management knowledge in a global context. The framework developed above may be fruitfully applied to the global diffusion of management knowledge.
CONCLUSION In this chapter the community of practice framework has proved to be a useful tool with which to analyze the interactions between groups present
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
in the management knowledge field. Through the analysis of the activities of management gurus, management consultants, management academics, managers and business media as they facilitate the dissemination of management knowledge, this chapter has gone some way towards addressing the question of how management knowledge circulates between organizations. The theorization of the dissemination of management knowledge set out in this chapter provides a framework of value to members of the management community concerned with inter-organizational knowledge transfer both at a local and global level. Moreover, several directions for further investigation have been identified. Major efforts are required to reveal the full complexities of management knowledge dissemination.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank Timothy Clark for insights into the management consultancy sector and management gurus.
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Drucker, P. (1993). Post-Capitalist Society. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemannn. Fox, S. (2000). Communities of Practice, Foucault and Actor-network Theory. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 853–867. doi:10.1111/14676486.00207 Fransman, M. (1999). Visions of Innovation: The Firm in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0198289359.001.0001 Gibson, J. W., & Tesone, D. V. (2001). Management fads: Emergence, evolution, and implications for managers. Academy of Management Review, 15(4), 122–133. Gill, J., & Whittle, S. (1993). Management by Panacea: Accounting for Transience. Journal of Management Studies, 30(2), 281–295. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.1993.tb00305.x Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C. K. (1994). Competing for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Handy, C. B. (1990). Inside organizations: 21 ideas for managers. London: BBC Books. Hansen, M. T., Nohria, N., & Tierney, T. (1999). What’s Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge. Harvard Business Review, March-April, 106-16. Heusinkveld, S. & Bender, J. (2002-3). Between professional dedication and corporate design: Exploring forms of new concept development in consultancies. International Studies of Management and Organization, 32(4), 104–122.
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Hughes, J., Jewson, N., & Unwin, L. (2007). Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Kieser, A. (1997). Rhetoric and Myth in Management Fashion. Organization, 4(1), 49–74. doi:10.1177/135050849741004 Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mintzberg, H. (1991). The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases. London: Prentice Hall. Mutch, A. (2003). Communities of Practice and Habitus: A Critique. Organization Studies, 24(3), 383–401. doi:10.1177/0170840603024003909 Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Polanyi, M. (1966). The Logic of Tacit Inference. Philosophy (London, England), 41(155), 1–18. doi:10.1017/S0031819100066110 Rasiel, E. M. (1999). The McKinsey Way. London: McGraw-Hill. Roberts, J. (2006). Limits to Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 623–639. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00618.x
A Communities of Practice Approach to Management Knowledge Dissemination
Sahlin-Andersson, K., & Engwall, L. (2002). Carriers, Flows, and Sources of Management Knowledge. In Sahlin-Andersson, K., & Engwall, L. (Eds.), The Expansion of Management Knowledge: Carriers, Flows Sources (pp. 3–32). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Scarbrough, H. (2003). The Role of Intermediary Groups in Shaping Management Fashion. International Studies of Management and Organization, 32(4), 87–103. Spell, C. (2001). Management fashions: Where do they come from, and are they old wine in new bottles? Journal of Management Inquiry, 10, 358–373. doi:10.1177/1056492601104009 Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional Ecology, “Translations” and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420. doi:10.1177/030631289019003001 Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2001). Colonizing knowledge: Commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms. Human Relations, 54(7), 933–953. doi:10.1177/0018726701547007 Thrift, N. (2005). Knowing Capitalism. London: Sage Publications. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246. doi:10.1177/135050840072002 Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Werr, A. (2002). The internal creation of management knowledge: A question of structuring experience. In Kipping, M., & Engwall, L. (Eds.), Management Consulting: The Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry (pp. 91–108). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Business Media: Includes publishers of business books, CDs, videos, DVDs, journals, magazines and websites. Business Schools: Educational organizations concerned with the delivery of management and business education. Communities of Practice: A group of people bound together by an understanding of a sense of joint enterprise who interact with one another, establishing norms and relationships through mutual engagement and who produce over time a shared repertoire of communal resources. Knowledge Dissemination: The transfer of knowledge from individual to individual and from organization to organization across time and space. Management Academics: Scholars concerned with the theoretical and empirical investigation of management and business issues and active in the delivery of management and business education. Management Consultants: Qualified individuals and organizations providing advisory services to organizations to identify management problems, analyze such problems, recommend solutions to these problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions. Management Gurus: Are producers and promoters of management ideas through the writing of best-selling books, business magazine and journals articles, and the delivery of lectures and seminars. Management Ideas and Techniques: A management idea concerns management knowledge that is disembedded from practice and embodied
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in a mental representation or the characterization of knowledge in general terms, that is, a concept, while a management technique is a practical method applied to a particular task. Management Knowledge Field: The context within which management knowledge is produced and distributed.
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Management Knowledge: In general terms this refers to knowledge about management. However, the term is used here to refer to knowledge that is tacit in the sense that it is embedded into the everyday practice of management. Managers: Individuals engaged in the management of organizations.
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Chapter 2
Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice Eduardo Bueno Campos Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Carlos Merino Moreno Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Reinaldo Plaz Landaeta Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
ABSTRACT The aim of this chapter is deepening into the concept of ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoPs) as a useful scope to share knowledge, trying to present some key issues about a practical knowledge management approach. CoPs are a main trend inside innovation strategies, including not only management, but also knowledge creation and development, a richer focus for knowledge governance. There is a wide range of strategies to improve intangible assets management but practical side around two case studies is the main added value for this chapter. For this reason, the purpose is not about a model configuration but CoPs as a useful mechanism to knowledge governance. First of all, a reality based on consultancy activity inside military sector, Isdefe, with a three years project aimed to knowledge management as a core business plan, taking into account a technological development. Secondly, a framework related to nuclear power plants in Spain through “CoPs Project” an initiative aimed to improve organizational performance linked to tacit knowledge transfer.
INTRODUCTION Communities of Practice (CoPs) concept has a formal consideration in 80s describing a group DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch002
of people naturally created inside an organization oriented towards sharing experiences about professional expertise (tacit and explicit) as a “knowledge space” developing a process about “training in working” (Orr, 1987 and 1990) or “cognition in practice” (Lave, 1988).
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice
Therefore, Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of people in organizations that form to share what they know, to learn from one another regarding some aspects of their work and to provide a social context for that work. Although the term Community of Practice is new, formally appear the last years in 80s. Such groups have been around ever since people in organizations realized they could benefit from sharing their Knowledge, insights, and experiences with others who have similar interests and goal. One important goal is to develop innovation. Last perspective represents the core of this work underpinning CoPs concept as a strategic tool for knowledge processes following a knowledge governance scope (Bueno et al, 2008). Obviously such approach is inside a business focus where knowledge creation is a key issue (Nonaka, Toyama & Kono, 2000) over all from a tacit dimension what is much more oriented towards competitive advantages creation (Nonaka, 1991; Kogut y Zander, 1996; & Wenger, 1998). In the third point CoPs role is analyzed as a bridge between working and learning in order to obtain innovations (Brown & Duguid, 1991) taking into account relationships among internal and external flows of knowledge under “open innovation” atmosphere creating a more dynamic and flexible system. CoPs is a discovering organization are not he archetype of the conventional innovating organization, one which respondsoften with great efficiency-to changes is detects in its environment. Communities of Practice (CoPs) should not be confused with teams or task forces. A task force ties to a specific assignment. Once that assignment is completed, the task force disbands. A team ties to some specific process or function. A team is structured so as to deal with the interdependencies of different roles in that functions or process. In team, roles and tasks of the way; in a COP they are generally the same (Wenger, 1998). In this sense, through an analytical methodology to support COP approach for value creation
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based on social networks as instrument for knowledge governance, fourth an fifth points present two study cases what showing empirical COP experiences. First one a case developed for an engineering organization inside Spanish public sector where CoPs play an important role for knowledge management strategy. Fifth point is about CoPs for Spanish nuclear power plants in order to support a safety culture. The project has been developed during three years around knowledge retention mainly for tacit or expert knowledge as a key organizational asset. The two business cases offer a quite significant investment in terms of today’s resources and capabilities, organizations can reap huge rewards in terms of tomorrow’s results. Finally conclusions are presented to provide main ideas about CoPs taking into account intangible assets management where people share knowledge creating an interaction between knowledge model and business focus is showing impacts inside two case studies with strategic interest.
INTANGIBLE ASSETS AS ORGANIZATIONAL DRIVERS Strategic role for intangibles is only a valid approach if organization considers knowledge as an asset, putting into practice a leadership, culture and actions to create, develop and manage it. In this context, the strategic approach of businesses in the current economy has an important part related with certain support processes linked to analysis tasks corresponding to dynamic processes of decision making, as an attempt to diminish the risks inherent to such processes. In this sense, such argument on intelligent or learning-capable organizations (Senge, 1990) gains a high value for the extraction of information and the creation of both appropriate internal and external knowledge. Then there is a focus what insisting on the importance of basic resources for strategic
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management focused on the couple informationknowledge (Itami, 1987; Vassiliadis et al., 2000) and on derived individual and organizational learning. In this case, corporative philosophy should create the necessary atmosphere to recognize the value of intangible assets, very close to the understanding of the theory of resources and abilities, which does not only take into account those resources related with the tangible field but also those linked to non-physical elements located in the organizational ‘roots’. Obviously, it arises a requirement around a model or scheme of analysis; firstly, for the identification and measurement of intangibles, and also to facilitate a structured framework of reflection and analysis, an area covered by intellectualcapital (Bontis, 1999; Bueno &Ordoñez, 2007; IADE-CIC, 2003; Ordoñez, 2001). This thematic area of intangible assets, historically tackled in organizational literature within the field of the theory of resources and capabilities (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991; Peteraf, 1993)— had already collected, in different ways, contributions which helped to the valuation of non-tangible assets. The power of knowledge is related to “movement”, that is to say, the idea of ‘knowledge in action’ (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Summing up, the intellectual capital focus is centred on a ‘photograph’ (Bontis, 1999) as a traditional balance showing the status of the basic intangible assets identified by the organization. While ‘knowledge in action’ is traditionally linked to ‘knowledge governance or management’, processes which develop intellectual capital looking for improving the results of the initial measurement scheme. In this sense, there is a basic difference between intellectual capital and knowledge governance, bearing in mind a static or dynamic perspective, respectively. Organizations consider in their strategies those factors to which they recognize significant value contributions, certainly measurable or at least as presumptions. This initial argument means
the possibility of different strategic approaches according to business orientation or awareness showed by the organization towards the relevance of the different types of assets it owns. If the organization considers knowledge as an assets there is a need based on a appropriate treatment, a responsible attitude. People and interaction play a significant role where knowledge is a resource characterized by its intangibility which is that of enriching through the exchange among the large agents owning it (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992 and 1996; Spender, 1996; Tsoukas, 1996), which implies the consideration of certain transference and exchange schemes as means supporting its advance and development. But for Von Krogh and Ross (1995), Spender (1996) and Cook and Brown (1999), among others, social knowledge is not merely the sum of individual knowledge, but something else, different from that, which is especially important for organization survival and development in the long run. Anyway knowledge transference, from this perspective, is necessarily social and conclusively outdistances from the schemes of electronic transference of data and information. Thus, taking into account the contributions done by Foss (2006), this knowledge governance is close to a double level —micro (individual) and macro (collective), where it is important to consider not just tools, but also those attitudes and motivations which come into play in this reality of behaviours. Then, organizations are increasingly giving more importance to the administration of their intangible assets and to the forms in which such assets contribute to generate business value (Bueno, 2003 & 2005). In this sense, the processes of professional learning and development are oriented at the improvement of competences for innovation, allowing their articulation in organizational models and systems which in turn become differentiating elements to achieve competitive positioning
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in markets. This knowledge approach adopts an open and systemic viewpoint of the organizational processes —in which interactions, relations and collaboration processes act as channels for newknowledge transmission and assimilation (Bueno et al. 2008; Plaz & Gonzalez, 2005). Going back to the argument on knowledge governance, such governance is obviously configured from a structure of processes acting as drivers of the business in question, assuring the exploitation of all organizational knowledge —an aspect which doubtlessly should be imbricated with a system of organizational intelligence acting as a supplier of informative inputs for the recycling and updating of the organization’s knowledge base (Vassiliadis et al., 2000; Merino, 2004). The dynamics of creation of value occur around the tasks of internal transference of tacit and explicit knowledge, as well as around those tasks of incorporation of external knowledge or that created by other agents, generating learning cycles which build up the new knowledge within a process of transformation of essential competences which generate intangible or intellectual-capital assets The approach of processes which shapes the model of knowledge governance makes clear an action loop (Bueno & Plaz, 2005; Bueno et al. 2008; Nonaka, 1991; Kogut & Zander, 1992; Blumentritt & Johnston, 1999; Shin et al., 2001; Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Staples et al., 2001; Argote et al., 2003; Zack, 2003) around the dynamics of understanding, register, storage (Walsh & Ungson, 1991; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Teece, 2000; Staples et al., 2001; McGrath & Argote, 2002), diffusion (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Szulanski, 2000), use and improvement of information and knowledge, where the organization should consider the way of putting it into practice or value, already counting on a traditional approach based on certain support departments —namely, documentation centres, system departments, training units, quality areas, etc.— whose mission is clearly positioned in relation to a knowledge loop.
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In the knowledge governance approach is clear the central position of collaboration dynamics in this matter goes further than the documental approaches which have characterized the first stages of the strategies of those companies concerned with knowledge management, in which great efforts for digitalization have also been raised. As a result, we have come to the subsequent replacement of knowledge stock by knowledge flow. Therefore, transference and exchange dynamics appear as recipes of high strategic interest from the couple collaboration-communication, where we can reflect, design and explore areas, channels and subject matters. From the field of collaboration, the main axes of action are centred, on one hand, on the creation of appropriate areas —attendance or virtual— which facilitate sharing ideas and documents, and, on the other hand, on establishing a culture prone to share, in which leadership, awareness and recognition exertion become key elements for its operation. Among all options occurring nowadays on the subject of collaboration, it is to stand out communities of practice as a concept of high strategic interest, given its linkage to an area of specific knowledge and interest for organization which includes collaboration within a process from which a result is expected.
THE FRAMEWORK FOR COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COP) In this sense, the purpose of existence of the communities of practice (Wenger, 1998; Wenger & Snyder, 2000) is oriented towards the creation of a common area for individual meeting in order to interact in benefit of the generation, exchange and assimilation of experiences around specific application areas with clearly defined objectives. Interaction that facilitates the transfer of knowledge to the creation of innovation and development
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of core competencies in the company (Almeida et al, 2003). This common area should use, on one hand, the cycle of knowledge reception, diffusion, assimilation and renovation in the organizational data base, structuring the experiences and facilitating its members’ searches and contributions. This way, we can apply to CoP, as an agent, the whole model of knowledge governance from the viewpoint of both the loop and seven strategies, i.e., technology and market watch, tacit knowledge management, communication model, individual and organizational learning, quality and R&D. On the other hand, it should also facilitate the relation among community members beyond mere information exchange, which is the only way to make non-specified knowledge appear in reports of formal nature. This exchange dynamic is only possible if mission and objective internalization occurs within the context of the community, since that internalization would facilitate the flow of the interaction cycle which will favour cohesion among its members. (See Figure 1). A consolidated CoP represents the natural place we turn to when we need to seek for advice or
raise requests linked to its field. The development of practice and attention to requests raised to the community facilitates the replication of experiences in order to dynamize and accelerate the velocity of the organizational learning cycle. CoP is grounded on three basic pillars which provide it with a management framework and the necessary support tools for its operation: •
•
•
Technology provides with the necessary tools and means to create effective collaboration areas from an operational viewpoint. The organizational environment and the necessary culture to meet the objectives and necessities of the community, the organization and its individuals, in order to achieve an identity and generate policies and appropriate management plans grounded on a solid base of training, awareness (communication) and motivation (incentives and recognitions), and The management model through which the rules of the game are established, the definition of flows and work processes, identi-
Figure 1. Community of practice cycle
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fication of actors (roles), knowledge types and their associated taxonomy. Therefore, monitoring of practice in the community is carried out through indicators linked to four dimensions —namely, people, group, organization and business— which allow measuring the impact of the results, the generated and seized know-how and, through that, establishing strategies of impulse/monitoring which contribute to the creation of improvements and the alignment of objectives and actions. CoPs are operational instruments for knowledge development at organizational level trying to support intellectual capital based on main intangible assets. Organizations needs a new space and channels to provide a scheme related to “open innovation” paradigm, where CoPs play an important role for operational and practical side developing networks based on functional knowledge. Finally, the creation of a CoP may be mainly linked to two approaches, a push one, declared by the organization, in which practices structuring the community are decided and chosen by headship, involving a previous exercise of strategic reflecFigure 2.Flows of knowledge in a community
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tion, and a pull one, whose approach is based on providing resources and support to those groups developing a certain successful collaboration labour within the organization. Obviously, success expectancy of both options may turn out to be very unequal, especially if we bear in mind the predisposition to collaboration showed by both alternatives. Horizontal value about CoPs is clear in the next examples from two different approaches creating a framework what is relevant due to its versatility as a model to propose inside other companies or institutions. Internal and external flows of knowledge are supported by a platform to active available know how following resources and capabilities theory (see Figure. 2).
SYSTEM AND DEFENSE ENGENEERING FIRM (SDE) CoPs Project for a Business Based on Knowledge Engineering and consultancy market has a clear trend towards knowledge Management consid-
Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice
eration as key processes Framework to promote quality standards and exploiting organizational know how. In this case, SDE (Systems and Defence Engineering) as Public Sector Company has a market very focused on military market where knowledge management approach is critical for competitiveness, taking into account knowledge as a core asset. Inside this viewpoint, SDE has developed a strategic action involving different business areas to create a consensus about added value from knowledge, creating four action lines project:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Organizational Intelligence, that is to say, systems to capture information about market and technology. Document Management, looking for a useful treatment of documents associated to a traditional framework for project management. Resources, Capabilities and Outputs Management, with the objective of identifying and exploiting internal services offer and obtained know how from different projects and actions lines. Experts Management, expert tacit knowledge management, through CoPs what promoting knowledge transfer among experts.
These four modules are the answers for the strategic plan about knowledge management not only from different schemes, but also taking into account an integration exercise, that is to say, creating a model to capture, register, exploitation, diffusion and sharing of knowledge. All of it inside an argument close to the business, clear results, in the sense of saves, synergies, improvements or client satisfaction. CoPs approach inside expert knowledge management scope has a set of basic requirements for SDE: •
Definition of criterions to identify experts, creating channels and incentives.
•
Participation spaces without geographical considerations. Spaces creation and agenda for experts sharing with an incentives plan.
This scheme creates a basement for a strategy planning what supporting successful CoPs development, inside key processes what are very important for the business. Project characteristics and employees geographical dispersion has technological needs what are supported by a virtual share space where CoPs have their “home” to:
• •
•
Include high value document and resources for sharing and comment. Open discussion lines about new subjects and opportunities for SDE business. Create internal documents and resources in order to evidence tacit knowledge, as way for organizational learning. Plan a useful offer (on line and physical) with offer and knowledge available in CoPs.
SDE market dynamic characterized by subjects as defence, security, transport, aerospace, ICT, etc; open a set of specific areas very wide then CoPs have to promote general scopes, that is to say, CoPs related to R&D and innovation. CoPs activity has commitments around indicators established by top managers, because CoPs are useful tools to SDE business, as technology observatories supporting “intelligence unit”, creating institutional “radar” to capture external information based on a set of keywords defined by such managers. Inputs from “intelligence unit” resources and expert knowledge provide strategic raw material to create “state of the art” reports very useful to make decision process, monitoring market information. As an example, indicators about time to prepare commercial dossiers is decreasing because experts are now providing information to create
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a database with all projects details in order to support business development plan. In this way, CoPs orientation is focused on knowledge exploitation, especially tacit one, where organizational background explicit a critical requirement based on knowledge retention around a set of “core experts”.
SPANISH NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS CoPs as a Tool to Promote “Safety Culture” Energy generation is a key issue in the last years promoting discussion about different options to obtain it. Creation and development of nuclear energy has been a difficult policy item taking into account a negative social perception. The majority of arguments are involved inside a safety framework, strategic line very important for nuclear power plants (NPP), that is to say, a key challenge for quality systems. Approach is related to “safety culture” where there are non technological factors what are located at the core of such culture. Knowledge management plays a significant role in this scheme, above all for human factor impact inside operational side of NPP. NPP in the world develop an action line very focused in networking to promote routines and best practices sharing, in many occasions to much for assimilation levels of managers. Traditional preventive scope has been positive, however, it has been created an incredible amount of document about procedures what needs order, structures and supports to access and exploitation, where there is a big pending list because non formal networks still are the way to obtain information and knowledge. This reality has in Spain a particular background related to the end of professional career for a large set of employees. They were first employees
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in the NPP, for this reason, their know how is a key asset for the mentioned “safety culture”. In this sense, all NPP in the world have “knowledge retention” as a strategic work line. This is the Spanish are after three years project for all Spanish NPP funding by UNESA, (Asociación Española dela Industria Electrica) taking into account USA “Standard Performance Model (SPM)” to identify key practices inside NPP activity. Based on SPM project scope has been non invasive, supporting existing thematic group where there was a purpose to share information and knowledge, creating a technological platform and a set of objectives to measure business impact. In this way, it has been created different CoPs related to: • • •
Organization and human factors. Quality of Plant. Suppliers Evaluation.
Such communities were running as work teams with several yearly meetings, and a virtual environment to manage resources and developments, beyond geographical approach with continuous options to share information and knowledge. Project has important considerations for the business apart of academic value about CoPs, sharing information and knowledge about real or possible incidents, taking into account negative approach to share them. However, flow of shared knowledge is enough wide to find areas with direct impact on the NPP “business”, including economical one. This is a specific case about “supplier evaluation” community where a common certified supplier’s database allows saves in the evaluation process, avoiding an evaluation per plant. Such save is complemented by technological functions to control certification deadlines, cross-section analysis, supplier incident reports, etc. CoPs approach inside nuclear sector is an International recognised tool showing its value
Sharing Knowledge through Communities of Practice
for “elicitation” process, where tacit knowledge requires a space and involved agents to create a useful flow for knowledge transfer.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS Current trends for knowledge Governance or Management have an important academic view developing models and proposals to support business decisions. Operational cycle about transition information to knowledge has been a key approach to create different strategies what are involved on organizational or technological tools. Perspective that facilitates the transformation process from a position of Knowledge Knowledge stock to another flow. Knowledge governance projects go beyond papers taking into account values, culture, background, motivations and previous experiences, above all inside a knowledge management market very damaged by expansive software solutions. In a knowledge management project technology is “free” because functional specifications
are the main value, the model, objectives and processes. In this sense, CoPs must be a useful tool inside “the whole picture”, not a trend or fashion project. CoPs need a clear purpose, preliminary it is an internal reference, later can be an international one, as expert panel, observatory or worldwide site. Figures are a requirement to justify their contribution, and then it would be useful the creation of a scorecard to identify business impacts from CoPs. CoPs should be developed by voluntary individuals, because institutional push (top-down) is generally a wrong way. Knowledge sharing requires attitudes closer to the soul of participants, and then organizations should to create a good atmosphere about “knowledge conditions”. In relation to examples, both showing CoPs approach as a way to create a formal knowledge valuation, identifying the framework for several questions, transactions and responsibilities around a thematic practice where CoPs play a significant role previously internal and possibly external (see Figure 3). This dual role, internally and externally,
Figure 3.Cycle of implementing community of practice projects
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is what justifies the importance of COPs in current developments in open innovation systems. Inside consultancy sector, CoPs are useful to create formal practices (methodology) and sharing operational experiences. Quality is on the basis of this behaviour and the main objective is about profits from knowledge management. Even more, CoPs can be important radar for organizations as an observatory around a concrete practice. In the nuclear example, CoPs are tools for safety culture, creating standards around operational experiences where last objective is about knowledge retention, the most important challenge for the next NPP generation. Finally, CoPs initiatives have a timing related to maturity level of the company, that is to say, if knowledge management is a relevant attitude, a recognized value, then CoPs could be a reality sooner than projects inside organizations where information and knowledge area considered properties and the main assets for personal development without any socialization process (Wenger, 1998). Organizational maturity what is showed through a knowledge governance model represented by CoPs in order to share knowledge and experiences among members, besides learning and collaborative working trying to support knowledge transfer based on technological platform as a best practice for innovation open systems. In conclusion, this chapter has pretended to show CoPs as an innovative scheme for organizations, promoting learning processes with two clear examples. In this sense knowledge governance model is based on CoPs in order to support innovation as a core focus for sustainable development in current economy.
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Bueno, E. (2005). Fundamentos epistemológicos de dirección del conocimiento organizativo: Desarrollo, medición y gestión de intangibles. Economía Industrial [Spanish Ministry for Industry, Tourism y Trade], 357, 13-26. Bueno, E., Merino, C., & Plaz, R. (2008). Model on Knowledge-Governance: Collaboration Focus and Communities of Practice. In Camisón, C., Devece, C., Garrigos, F., & Palacios, D. (Eds.), Connectivity in Management Virtual Organizations: Networking and Developping Interactive Communications (pp. 89–105). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Bueno, E., & Ordoñez, P. (2007). Intellectual Capital Statement: New challenges for managers. In Joia, L. A. (Ed.), Strategies for Information Technology and Intellectual Capital: Challenges and Oportunities (pp. 91–110). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Bueno, E., & Plaz, R. (2005). Desarrollo y Gobierno del Conocimiento Organizativo: Agentes y procesos. Boletín Intellectus, 8, 16–23. Bueno, E., & Salmador, M. P. (Eds.). (2000). Perspectivas sobre Dirección del Conocimiento y Capital Intelectual. Madrid: Instituto Universitario Euroforum Escorial. Cook, S. D. N., & Brown, J. S. (1999). Bridging Epistemologies: The Generative Dance between Organizational Knowledge and Organizational Knowing. Organization Science, 10(4), 381–400. doi:10.1287/orsc.10.4.381 Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working Knowledge. How Organizations What They Know. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Foss, N. (2006). The Emerging Knowledge Governance Approach: Challenges and Characteristics, DRUID Working Paper, no. 06-10.
Grant, R. M. (1991). A Resource Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation. California Management Review, 33(3), 114–135. Grant, R. M. (1996). Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 109–122. IADE-CIC. (2003). Modelo de medición y gestión del capital intelectual: Modelo Intellectus. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: CIC-IADE. Itami, H. (1987). Mobilizing Invisible Assets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (1992). Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities and the Replication of Technology. Organization Science, 3, 383–397. doi:10.1287/orsc.3.3.383 Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (1996). What firms do. Coordination, identity and Learning. Organization Science, 7(5), 502–518. doi:10.1287/orsc.7.5.502 Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511609268 Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Situated learning: Legitimate Peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merino, C. (2004). La Inteligencia Organizativa como Dinamizador del Capital Intelectual. Revista Puzzle, 3(14), 4–10. Nonaka, I. (1991). The Knowledge-creating Company. Harvard Business Review, 69, 96–104. Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. doi:10.1287/orsc.5.1.14 Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Kono, N. (2000). SECI, Ba and Leadership: A Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33, 5–34. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6 Ordoñez, P. (2001). Relevant Experiences on Measuring and Reporting Intellectual Capital in European Pioneering Firms. In N. Bontis & C. Cheng (Eds.), World Congress on Intellectual Capital Reading. New York: Butterworth-Heinemann. Orr, J. (1987). Narratives at Work: Story Telling as Cooperative Diagnostic Activity. Field Service Manager, June, 47-60. Orr, J. (1990). Sharing Nowledge, Celebrating Identity: War Stories and Communitys Memory in a Service Culture. In Middleton, D. S., & Edwards, D. (Eds.), Collective Remembering. Memory in Society. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Peteraf, M. A. (1993). The Cornerstone of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View. Strategic Management Journal, 14, 179–191. doi:10.1002/smj.4250140303 Plaz, R., & González, N. (2005). La gestión del conocimiento organizativo: dinámicas de agregación de valor en la organización. Economía Industrial, 357, 41–62. Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday Currency. Shin, M., Holden, T., & Schmidt, R. A. (2001). From Knowledge Theory to Management Practice: Towards an Integrated Approach. Information Processing & Management, 37, 335–355. doi:10.1016/S0306-4573(00)00031-5 Spender, J. C. (1996). Making Knowledge the Basis of a Dynamic Theory of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 45–62.
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Staples, D. S., Greenaway, K., & Mckeen, J. (2001). Opportunities for Research about Managing the Knowledge-based Enterprise. International Journal of Management Reviews, 3, 1–20. doi:10.1111/1468-2370.00051 Szulanski, G. (2000). The Process of Knowledge Transfer: A Diachronic Analysis of Stickiness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82, 9–27. doi:10.1006/obhd.2000.2884 Teece, D. J. (2000). Strategies for Managing Knowledge Assets: The Role of Firm Structure and Industrial Context. Long Range Planning, 33, 509–533. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00117-X Tsoukas, H. (1996). The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructionist Approach. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 11–25. Vassiliadis, S., Seufert, A., Back, A., & Von Krogh, G. (2000). Competing with Intellectual Capital: Theoretical Background. Institute for Information Management and Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen. Von Krogh, G., & Ross, J. (1995). Organizational Epistemology. New York: MacMillan and St Martin’s Press. Walsh, J. P., & Ungson, G. R. (1991). Organizational Memory. Academy of Management Review, 16, 57–91. doi:10.2307/258607 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning meaning and Identity. Boston: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–145. Wernerfelt, B. (1984). A Resource-Based View of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 5, 171–180. doi:10.1002/smj.4250050207
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Zack, M. (2003). Rethinking the KnowledgeBased Organization. MIT Sloan Management Review, summer issue, 67-71.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Communities of Practice (CoPs): Tools for knowledge governance, mainly related to sharing strategies. Knowledge Governance: Creation, development and management of knowledge.
Intangible Assets: Non physical resources what providing value to organizations. Intellectual Capital: Identification and measurement of intangible assets. Organizational Intelligence: Systems to capture external information about strategic areas. Core Competences: Sources of expert knowledge. Organizational Learning: Formal scope to improve knowledge flows inside organization.
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Chapter 3
Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management Celia Zárraga-Oberty Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
ABSTRACT In today’s competitive environment, it is widely accepted that knowledge is a key strategic resource. Nevertheless, to be a source of competitive advantage, the knowledge embedded in individuals must be transformed into organizational knowledge. This chapter defends the idea that this process can happen in work teams, but only if they have the necessary characteristics to be considered communities of practice. These characteristics are: self-managed teams whose members have individual autonomy, heterogeneous and complementary skills, a common understanding, with a leader that encourages work teams and a climate of trust which favors knowledge management.
INTRODUCTION In the last two decades, knowledge has received increasing attention in strategic management literature. In fact, some authors (e.g. Grant, 1996b; Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2001) claim that knowledge is the main source of sustainable competitive advantage. In the business context, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch003
knowledge can be defined as relevant information that is applied and based partially on experience (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998). Nevertheless, knowledge, especially its tacit dimension, is embedded in the individual, and to be a source of competitive advantage it must be transformed into organizational knowledge (e.g. Grant, 1996a, 1996b; Nonaka & Konno, 1998; Teece, 1998; Powell, 1998). This is the essence of knowledge management and to achieve this goal, organiza-
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tions must provide a context of shared identity which favours this process (Kogut & Zander, 1996; Szulanski, 1996). But, how does the firm create this context? The field of management practice shows that the past two decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of work teams (e.g. Cohen and Ledford 1994; Goodman et al, 1988; Kirkman and Rosen 1999; Kirkman and Shapiro 1997, 2001; Kirkman et al, 2001; Nicholls et al, 1999; Trist et al, 1977; Wall et al, 1996; Wellins et al, 1990). From Grant’s (1997, 2001) point of view, this new tendency of organizational design could be considered a way to access the tacit knowledge of the organizational members and thus, a way to create the appropriate context for knowledge management. However, for individual knowledge to become organizational knowledge, it is not enough to organize the firm around work teams because formal corporate structures may be insufficient for the development, application and spread of knowledge (see, for example, Cabrera and Cabrera (2002), who address social dilemmas). Thus, in recent years scholars and reflective practitioners have turned their focus to the emerging theoretical concept of communities of practice in hopes of better understanding the dynamics underlying knowledge-based work (e.g. Brown & Duguid, 1998; Ruggles, 1998; Lesser & Prusak, 1999; Asoh, Belardo & Neilson, 2002). Lave and Wenger (1991) coined the term while studying apprenticeship as a learning model. People usually think of apprenticeship as a relationship between student and master, but studies of apprenticeship reveal a more complex set of social relationships through which learning takes place mostly with journeymen and more advanced apprentices. The term community of practice was coined to refer to the community that acts as a living curriculum for the apprentice. In other words, communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they
do and learn how to do it better through regular interaction (Wenger, 2005). In essence, the community of practice is a group of people sharing know-how, since people need to work in a group for their knowledge to be put into practice. Thus, its function is the development of a shared understanding of what is done, how to do it and how to relate it to other practices (Brown & Duguid, 1998 and 2001; Ruggles, 1998). But how can a firm create communities of practice? It is difficult to build a community of practice from scratch (Callahan, 2005). In our opinion, firms must start from their work teams and define the characteristics that those should have in order to become communities of practice. These characteristics will be those that work teams need to encourage knowledge management. Consequently, it is the objective of this chapter. The rest of the chapter is structured in three sections. First, we define the process of knowledge management, which shows that the community of practice is the most appropriate context in which to create organizational knowledge. Second, from the literature on team work, we deduce the characteristics those teams need in order to become true communities of practice. Third, the conclusions are shown.
THE PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: DEVELOPING IT WITHIN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE The competitive scene that companies have faced in recent years is characterized by a high level of dynamism. The increasing speed of the changes in markets, products, technologies, competitors, regulations and even in society means significant structural variations which modify what is strategic for organizations (Teece, 1998). To survive under those new circumstances “[...] the continual renewal of competitive advantage through innovation and the development of new capacities”
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Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management
(Grant, 1996a:382) has become necessary. In this context, “innovation can be better understood as a process in which the organization creates and defines problems and then actively develops new knowledge to solve them” (Nonaka, 1994:14). In order to understand how firms achieve and sustain competitive advantage under these new circumstances, in the last ten years, it has been assumed that knowledge management is the new activity being carried out by those firms (e.g. Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2001; Grant, 1997; Miller & Shamsie, 1996). Knowledge management may be defined as doing what is needed to get the most out of knowledge resources (Armbrecht et al, 2001). It focuses on organizing and making critical knowledge available (Sabherwal & Becerra-Fernández, 2003) and from there creating organizational knowledge (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Konno, 1998). The main problem in doing this is that knowledge is a resource created within the individual (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) or as Grant (1996b) says, knowledge is embedded in the members of the organization in a specialized way. Therefore, the challenge for knowledge management is to know how to transform individual knowledge into organizational knowledge, which amounts to something more than the sum of those members’ individual knowledge and is owned by the firm1. The knowledge management process has been studied by many authors (e.g. Hedlund, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Grant, 1996a, 1996b, 1997) and in summarizing their ideas, we can say that individual knowledge, once created, has to undergo a process of transfer and integration which in turn gives rise to organizational knowledge. This process will occur on different, but linked, ontological levels. Firstly, knowledge created (creation) in the mind of each individual of a small group should be transferred to others (transfer)2, then, that shared knowledge should be assimilated among them (integration)3, thus generating group knowledge (which is now part of organizational knowledge). Afterwards, the
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knowledge born in every group will be transferred and integrated between groups in a single work place, department, area, or similar, leading to knowledge of a higher ontological level. Finally, the transfer and integration of knowledge created in other sections of the firm will give rise to organizational knowledge. The knowledge-based theory of the firm (Conner, 1991; Conner & Prahalad, 1996; Grant, 1996a, 1996b, 1997) argues that firms have the ability to integrate knowledge across individuals, because “[…] coordination and learning are developed within the organizational context of shared identities. This shared identity not only lowers the costs of communication [versus market], but establishes explicit and tacit rules of coordination and influences the direction of search and learning” (Kogut & Zander, 1996:503). In other words, the firm provides a context in which its members articulate and expand their own perspectives of the world through social interaction. The question is: how does the firm create this context? Initial efforts at managing knowledge focused on information systems with disappointing results. However, communities of practice provided a new approach, focussing on people and the social structures that enable them to learn with and from each other (Wenger, 2005). Hence, the creation of communities of practice is seen as a good way of achieving that context. Brown and Duguid (1998) stress the role of communities of practice in providing a common structure and meaning for the transfer of experience, which is, in essence, tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge; it is difficult to discern and difficult to express. According to Boisot (1999) there are three types of tacit knowledge to consider: (1) things that are not said because everyone understands them and takes them for granted; (2) things that are not said because nobody fully understands them; and (3) things that are not said because, although some people understand them, they cannot articulate them without effort. It is possible to adopt individual
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strategies to manage each type of tacit knowledge. However, a comprehensive strategy that addresses the management all three types of tacit knowledge involves the identification and nurturing of communities of practice (Callahan, 2005). Ruggles (1998:85), addressing the creation of networks of knowledge workers, argues that “the Institute for Research and Learning says it is the informal, socially constructed communities of practice that form within organizations that are the true mechanisms through which people learn and through which work gets done”. A community of practice is described as a set of relationships among people, activities, and the world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). It may also be defined as a group of individuals who share knowledge, learn together and create common practices (Wenger, 1999; McDermott, 1999). Communities of practice are not a new type of organizational unit, but rather a different “section” of the structure of the organization that emphasizes the joint learning of the individuals rather than the unit to which they are accountable, the project on which they are working or the people they know. Along those lines, Brown and Gray (1995) consider that, at a more basic level, a community of practice is a small group of people working together over a period of time. It is not a team, it is not a work force, nor is it necessarily an identified and authorized group (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). It is colleagues carrying out a “real job”. What holds them together is a common purpose and a real need to know what each of the others knows. Hence, according to Wenger (1999), a community of practice is defined more by the knowledge than by the task, and exists because participation is valuable to its members. In fact, legitimization and participation are the major aspects of a community of practice. On one hand, legitimization is the dimension that is concerned with power and authority relationships in the group. It does not necessarily have to be formal, but it is built
over time. On the other hand, participation provides the key to understanding communities of practice, because they imply participation in an activity in which all participants have a common understanding about what it is and what it means to their lives and community. More specifically, Allee (2000) points out that the community of practice is an intrinsic condition for knowledge to exist, since it cannot be separated from the group that creates it, uses it and transforms it. According to Wenger (1999), communities of practice are the “hub” for the exchange and interpretation of information. That is, since all the members have a common understanding, they know what is relevant to communicate and how to present the information in a useful fashion. As a result, a community of practice is the ideal channel for moving information about best practices, tricks of the trade, etc. within the confines of the organization. In turn, communities of practice preserve the tacit aspects of knowledge which the formal systems cannot capture, thus helping to retain the knowledge. Moreover, they can contribute competencies that keep the organization in the forefront, since the members of those groups analyze new ideas, work together to overcome problems and are always collaborating to make new discoveries because they invest their professional prestige in being part of a dynamic community. Finally, they provide an identity because they are organized according to what their members value. In sum, the community of practice may constitute the group through which know-how is shared, since people need to work in a group for their knowledge to be put into practice. Then, its function is the development of a shared understanding of what is done, how to do it and how to relate it to other practices (Brown & Duguid, 1998 and 2001; Ruggles, 1998). But how can a firm create communities of practices? In our opinion, firms must start from their work teams. The next section explains how a work team is transformed into a community of practice.
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Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management
FROM WORK-TEAM TO COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE Many organizations, in their search for structures which are focused on strengthening the individual identify with the firm, have made changes in their traditional operative structures. Thus, since the 1990s, a noticeable increase in the establishment of work teams has been evident (Cohen & Ledford 1994; Goodman et al, 1988; Kirkman & Rosen 1999; Kirkman & Shapiro 1997, 2001; Kirkman et al, 2001; Nicholls et al, 1999; Trist et al, 1977; Wall et al, 1996; Wellins et al, 1990). A work-team is a group of interdependent individuals who solve problems or complete tasks within an organizational context. Interdependence can be defined as the extent to which the individuals depend on one another or are supported by the others in carrying out their work (David, Pearce & Randolph, 1989). Alderfer (1977) believes that a work-team is a group of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, share responsibility for the results, and are seen by themselves and by others as an intact social entity belonging to a larger social system, and which manages its relationships within the confines of the organization (Galve & Ortega, 2000). In the teams, there is a coming together of people possessing complementary knowledge that is exchanged, producing a positive synergy, which, by definition, is the main benefit of that form of organization (Lazear, 1998), i.e. the output of the work-team is greater than the sum of the individual outputs of all its members. From Grant’s (1997) point of view, the organization of human resources into work-teams is a means of protecting the company’s competitive advantage. As mentioned before, knowledge that is created and stored by the individuals comprising a company is nowadays considered the company’s most important strategic resource. Organizing the work around the team philosophy makes it impossible for competitors to know which person actually possesses that resource, the source of competitive advantage, because it does not reside in
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any one person alone. In other words this resource has the property of causal ambiguity. Moreover, work-teams are specific to one company, insofar as their effectiveness depends on unique historical circumstances or on their relationships with other work-teams. Therefore, the knowledge deposited in them is characterized by its high specificity. In addition, since the group’s success depends, at least in part, on the trust and good relations that its members develop, the knowledge attains a social complexity which makes it difficult to transfer between organizations. Finally, the individuals themselves, the creators of knowledge, will not be able to specifically measure their own contributions to the results, making it impossible for them to appropriate the rents associated with their own human capital (Jones, 1984). The most widely developed type of work-team is the self-managed work-team, which has become the management practice chosen by organizations wishing to be more flexible, to place decision making in the forefront, and to use the total intellect and creativity of their employees (Wageman, 1997). The benefits of a structure based on this type of team centre on the team’s capacity to manage and lead itself, in other words, a reduced need for management along the classical hierarchical lines. In addition, initiative, the sense of responsibility, creativity and problem solving, all born within the group, as well as self-confidence are the cornerstones of the benefit of self-managed work-teams (Kirkman & Shapiro, 1997). Many studies have shown how adopting this form of management increases productivity (e.g. Cohen and Ledford, 1994; Goodman et al, 1988; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999), customer satisfaction (e.g. Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Wellins et al., 1990), security (e.g. Cohen and Ledford, 1994; Goodman et al., 1988), job satisfaction (e.g. Cordery, Mueller & Smith, 1991; Wall et al, 1996) and organizational commitment (Cordery et al., 1991). However, some authors, such as Kirkman and Rosen (1999) believe that to create true high-performance teams -which would be the
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context within which to create organizational knowledge- the managers should go beyond selfmanaged work teams to reap the true potential of their employees. In that sense, they propose the development of teams with empowerment, that is, teams which (a) believe in their own efficiency; (b) consider their tasks important and valuable, collectively sharing the significance of the tasks; (c) experience freedom, independence and discretion in their work; and finally, (d) teams whose members seek, share and collectively understand the feedback from other members of the organization. Similarly, Robbins (2001) considers that this type of team is characterized not only by self-management and individual responsibility, but also by other factors, such as their members’ skills, the possession of a common commitment, the presence of leadership and the development of mutual trust. Those contributions show the need to endow the team with certain additional characteristics for it to truly be a good context for the knowledge management process. Those additional characteristics are contained in the concept of a “community of practice”. For Hildreth, Kimble and Wright (2000) and Hutchins (1995), work-teams become communities of practice when they begin to develop informal relationships and change the sources of legitimisation. In that way, a formally built group or team may become a community of practice when its members develop their social relationships and get to know one another outside formal relationships. Moreover, a face-to-face contact and close personal relationships are the keys to building a community of practice because, when the members get to know one another and they have a sense of mutual trust, they gain legitimacy in the eyes of the others (Hildreth et al. 2000). Communities of practice become much more aligned with knowledge management and their function or purpose is described as building and exchanging knowledge, and developing the capabilities of the membership. In contrast, the purpose of a team is to accomplish a given task,
and for a work group it is to deliver a product or service (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). Subsequently, we explain the characteristics which work teams need in order to encourage knowledge management and thus, to become a community of practice.
CHARACTERISTICS OF WORK TEAMS TO FAVOUR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Self-Managed Team To determine the characteristics that a work team needs to favor knowledge management, firstly, we can focus on the concept of the self-managed team. Self-managed teams are groups of employees with all the technical skills, as well as the authority, needed to direct and manage themselves. Their members manage themselves, assign jobs, plan and schedule work, make production -or servicerelated decisions, and take action on problems (Wellins et al, 1990). Self-managed teams have become the management practice chosen by organizations wishing to be more flexible, to place decision making in the forefront, and to use the total intellect and creativity of their employees (Wageman, 1997). Initiative, the sense of responsibility, creativity and problem solving, all born within the group, along with self-confidence are the foundations of the benefit of self-managed teams (Kirkman & Shapiro, 1997). According to Nonaka (1994) self-management is the first characteristic that the team should have to become a social context in itself, within which personal knowledge can be expanded. Thus, the adoption of self-managed teams, in addition to improving various aspects pointed out by other researchers -and cited before in this chapter-, enhances knowledge management in the team.
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Individual Autonomy In self-managed teams important decisions are made and executed by the teams (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Thus, high levels of team autonomy may actually decrease individual autonomy, and responsibility is diffused rather than granted to a single individual when important decision making is shared rather than carried out alone (Uhl-Bien & Graen, 1998). This aspect is positive for the work team, because it favors group cohesion (Baron & Kreps, 1999). But, in the knowledge management literature individual autonomy is considered an important dimension for creating organizational knowledge. According to the studies of Nonaka (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2001), to be able to build organizational knowledge, all the members of the organization should be permitted to work autonomously, circumstances permitting. In this way, the probability of introducing unexpected opportunities is increased. Moreover, it will be a source of individual self-motivation, especially in knowledge creation. According to the literature on organizational learning (e.g. Cohen & Sproull, 1996; Moingeon & Edmondson, 1996), a necessary relationship between learning and the active involvement of the employee is expected. In that way, each person learns different things about the organization’s processes and the top management should provide a context where the worker (of any level) is independent, assumes responsibilities, experiments, makes mistakes and continuously learns to put in a lot of effort (Spender, 1996). Moreover, Fahey and Prusak (1998), in their work on the mistakes made in knowledge management, stress the fault of not recognizing the importance of experimenting in organizations. According to those authors experimenting means trying new approaches to analysis, beginning new projects, doing things on the basis of “trial and error” and allowing individuals to assume additional tasks and responsibilities.
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In sum, the members of a community of practice will have more individual autonomy than the members of a traditional work team.
Team Leader If with individual autonomy what is sought is a deliberate strategy of divergence of perspectives, it should be borne in mind that it is necessary to manage the profusion and richness of ideas which take place in the team (Leonard & Strauss, 1997). Communities of practice do not normally need complex organizational structures but their members do need time and space to collaborate; they do not need much management but they do need leadership. Thus, Wenger (1999) says that, in order to legitimize the community –which could be a team- as a place for sharing and creating knowledge, the figure of the team leader is necessary. The main task of the leader is to co-ordinate and focalize the different viewpoints found within the work team (Leonard & Strauss, 1997; Leonard & Sensipier, 1998). In addition, and following Eppler and Sukuowski (2000), team leaders must provide not only real and virtual spaces for communication, but also guidelines for the team. Their function is to serve as a model to the collaborators, and thus, they should be prepared to share information openly, put themselves in the others’ shoes, provide constructive feedback and show all those attitudes and behaviors associated with encouraging knowledge creation.
Heterogeneous and Complementary Skills If the members of a community of practice are distinguished by participation and the exchange of ideas (Wenger, 2005), complementary knowledge is also necessary. This could create a positive synergy (Lazear, 1998), because, when individuals with heterogeneous and complementary skills join a team, everyone can apply different structures
Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management
and mental models that produce a multifaceted dialog (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998; Robbins, 2001). This dialog can be defined as the intellectual conflict which is produced when a team includes people from different backgrounds (cultures, organizational experiences, type of education and training, etc.) who face a common challenge. Each member of the group will structure both the problem and the solution according to the mental outlines and models that s/he understands best. The result will be a cacophony of perspectives that must be channeled into new ideas and products. Provided there is a high enough level of overlapping knowledge to ensure effective communication, the interaction between individuals possessing various different knowledge structures will increase the capacity of the company to achieve innovation beyond that which any individual could achieve (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Utterbach, 1971). Along the same lines, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) explain how variety is a condition which helps the advance of the knowledge spiral that they define and which we regard as a process of the creation, transfer and integration of knowledge. Finally, Ashby (1956) also explains the importance of variety, indicating that the organization’s internal diversity must accompany the complexity of the environment in such a way that the company is prepared to face the challenges emerging from that environment. In sum, the interactions between individuals with different and diverse knowledge structures will increase the organizational capability for creating knowledge (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Hence, heterogeneous and complementary skills are another important characteristic for favoring knowledge management, which should be borne in mind when identifying work teams as communities of practices.
Common Understanding As described by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998: 253), “To the extent that people share a common
language, this facilitates their ability to gain access to people and their information. To the extent that their language and codes are different, this keeps people apart and restricts their access”. This use of common language includes, but goes beyond, languages such as English, Spanish, Japanese, etc. It also includes a common understanding of what they are doing (Lesser & Storck, 2001). Nevertheless, Grant (1996b) establishes that this need for a common understanding gives rise to the following paradox: “The benefit of knowledge integration is in meshing the different specialized knowledge of different individuals –if two people have identical knowledge there is no gain from integration- yet, if the individuals have entirely separate knowledge bases, then, integration cannot occur beyond the most primitive level” (Grant, 1996b: 116). This is true, but we must take into account that the concept of common understanding does not means that the knowledge of all the team members is exactly the same, but that there is a certain redundancy in their knowledge. As Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) argue, redundancy is especially important in developing concepts, that is, when it is necessary to create images rooted in knowledge. In other words, given a sufficient level of overlapping knowledge which ensures effective communication (common understanding), the interaction between individuals with different knowledge bases (heterogeneous and complementary skills) will increase the organization’s capacity to achieve innovation beyond that which any individual member can achieve (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Utterback, 1971; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Ashby, 1956). In sum, we consider that common understanding, which is another characteristic of work teams that are communities of practices, encourages knowledge management.
Climate of Trust Finally, a community of practice is not merely a community of interest. Members of a community of practice are practitioners (Wenger, 2005), hence,
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the members of a community of practice value participation and invest their professional prestige in the team. However, they will only do so if there is a positive atmosphere. If this atmosphere does not exist, then interpersonal co-operation, essential for the generation of true organizational knowledge, will not take place (Zárraga & Bonache, 2005). The literature on knowledge management has described this atmosphere as one of true internal collaboration among group members (Miles et al, 1998) which goes beyond mere communication and information exchange (El Sawy et al, 1997). It amounts to the ‘mental’ element of what Nonaka & Konno (1998) call a ‘shared organizational context’. Von Krogh (1998) calls it ‘high care’, and states that high care will be present in the team as long as the following premises exist: mutual trust, active empathy, access to help, clemency in judgment and courage. Mutual trust in the relationships within the work team is necessary in the sense that it is impossible to help others to grow and bring them up to date unless there is trust that the teaching and advice will be used in the best possible manner. Reciprocally, in order to accept help, the person will have to believe in the good faith of the one who is offering it as well as in their worth as a transmitter of knowledge (Szulanski, 1996; von Krogh, 1998). Active empathy, understood to be the proactive seeking to understand another person, is especially relevant to the transfer of knowledge. In other words, an arduous and distant relationship increases the barriers to knowledge transfer (Szulanski, 1996), while emotional expression may be crucial for the desired exchange to take place. Access to help in the work team is essential at the time of sharing knowledge. Help must be available to whoever needs it and whenever it is needed. This is a problem in many organizations where there is fear that the act of sharing one’s own knowledge with others will lead to the loss of one’s own potential or position of privilege or superiority (Szulanski, 1996). Clemency in judgement, understood as taking into consideration,
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when making a judgement, certain aspects such as the context of the offence, the background of the accused, his psychological state at the time of the offence, and his ignorance of the consequences, is necessary in organizations that expect their members to experiment with new solutions. Finally, courage in the members of the work team is necessary precisely to experiment with new solutions and to present the results of their experiments. Moreover, it is necessary to encourage the team members to express their opinions or to give feedback without fear, as part of the process of helping others (von Krogh, 1998). In the light of these considerations, we can establish that a climate of trust or ‘high care’ helps to create organizational knowledge and thus, it is a characteristic of the team which is truly a community of practice.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE TRENDS Community of practice is a concept that has been adopted by people in business because of the recognition that knowledge is a critical asset needs to be managed strategically (Wenger, 2005). Thus, communities of practices are groups of people working together to achieve specific goals through the creation, sharing, harvesting and leveraging of knowledge. Their focus is on exchanging knowledge and information in order to achieve the specific goals and objectives related to the work they have to execute. In this chapter, we have defined a community of practice as a work team where it is possible to create organizational knowledge –i.e. where the process of knowledge management can occur. We have defined the process of knowledge management as a process of creation, transfer and integration of individual knowledge which in turn produce organizational knowledge. Therefore, in order to achieve a community of practice, it must be more than a traditional work team. It is a team
Communities of Practice as Work Teams to Knowledge Management
with certain special characteristics: self-managed team whose members have individual autonomy, heterogeneous and complementary skills, a common understanding, a leader who encourages team work, and a climate of trust which fosters knowledge management. From our point of view, the concept of community of practice has been sufficiently studied in the academic literature. However, there are two issues which require more research. First, here we have defined the concept of community of practice from the work-team concept. But, the practitioners know that not all work teams are (nor ever could be) communities of practices. The real situation is that the communities of practice are informal groups which already exist in organizations. Thus, the first challenge for management in the organization is to identify these groups, which in itself is a difficult task and there are few academic studies on it. Second, as Wenger (1999) argues, from the perspective of communities of practice, the knowledge of an organization lives in a constellation of communities of practice each taking care of a specific aspect of the competence that the organization needs. However, some characteristics that make communities of practice a good context for knowledge management –self-managed teams, individual autonomy- are also characteristics that make them a challenge for traditional hierarchical organizations. How this challenge is going to affect these organizations remains to be seen.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Knowledge: Relevant information that is applied and that is based partially on experience. Knowledge Management: Doing what is needed to create organizational knowledge from individual knowledge. Explicit Knowledge: Knowledge which can be codified or contained in manuals, information technology, annual meetings, etc. So, it can be transferred easily among persons or units. Tacit Knowledge: Knowledge embedded in the experience and skills of the organisation’s members and is only revealed through its application. It cannot be codified or contained in manuals and can only be observed through its application. Work-Team: A group of interdependent individuals who solve problems or complete tasks within an organizational context. Interdependence can be defined as the extent to which the individuals depend on one another or are supported by the others in carrying out their work. Self-Managed Work Team: A group of employees with all the technical skills, as well as the authority, needed to direct and manage themselves. Their members manage themselves, assign jobs, plan and schedule work, make pro-
duction -or service- related decisions, and take action on problems.
ENDNOTES 1
2
3
See Grant (1996a) who says (p.111): “Lack of clear property right results in ambiguity over the ownership of knowledge. While most explicit knowledge, and all tacit knowledge, is stored within individual, much of this knowledge is created within the firm and is firm specific”. Knowledge transfer takes place through mechanisms such as socialization and externalization defined by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), the articulation and expansion of knowledge defined by Hedlund (1994) or direction and sequencing mechanisms like the ones defined by Grant (1996a, 1996b, 1997). Knowledge integration takes place through mechanisms such as internalization and combination defined by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) or organizational routines defined by Grant (1996a, 1996b, 1997).
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Chapter 4
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward Irma Mäkäräinen-Suni HAAGA-HELIA & Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Jianzhong Hong Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
ABSTRACT This chapter primarily examines the concepts of ba and communities of practice. It explores how the concepts have been used in the previous knowledge management, organizational learning, and innovation research during a decade, from the year 1999 until 2009. The reviewed studies show that both concepts have been used in various industries and in various knowledge creation and knowledge sharing situations. The similarities and differences of concepts are compared, and the concept of strategic communities is proposed as a way forward in future research and practice in terms of ba and communities of practice. The chapter includes also a comparative view of each concept, in which its major contributions, limitations and complementary nature are highlighted.
INTRODUCTION The knowledge-creating process is contextspecific in terms of time, space, and relationship with others. It needs a place where information is given meaning through interpretation to become knowledge. This chapter discusses the concept DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch004
of ba as a shared space or context to create new knowledge, innovations and to learn. It is theoretical in nature and aims to find out first how ba has been used in research (and practice) in different development and innovation projects and second what has been the major contribution of ba in knowledge management and innovation research. Ba was first used in business literature by Japanese researchers, and afterward gains its
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
significance in knowledge management research and practice worldwide. In previous literature, ba has been used in the research of sales force effectiveness, in biotechnology and industrial systems, in the development network of an urban region, how companies use ba for successful knowledge transfer, in intangible benefits of work space, in knowledge cities, and in IT and multimedia business in Japan. The major contribution of ba is that it gives a basis for developing new concepts (e.g. strategic communities) or a practical tool. Ba can serve when trying to create favourable environments for people in different organisations to work together for a common goal, or to create something new (for ex. in a case of eTampere) or to design new office buildings that simulate innovation and knowledge creation. The complimentary nature and usefulness of other relevant conceptual frameworks including the concepts of communities of practice and strategic communities are suggested and discussed. This chapter is organized in the following eight sections: first the concept of ba is being explored, second some critiques of the SECI model and ba in the literature are being reviewed. Thirdly the chapter presents how the concept of ba has been used in research. The fourth part is about the concept of communities of practice, and the fifth part is of the communities of practice in research. In the sixth part some critics of communities of practice are being discussed. Part seven is talking about similarities and differences of these two concepts. Part eight discusses the concepts ba, communities of practice and a way forward: strategic communities. Finally the future trends are being viewed and the conclusions.
BACKGROUND Since the book Knowledge-creating Company (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), the concept of knowledge creation and the significance of its social processes have become well known for
knowledge management academies and practitioners. Emphasis on the Japanese concept of ba also increasingly attracted the attention of Western researchers due to its usefulness in explaining a deeper and broader mechanism for knowledge creation, transfer and sharing. However, knowledge is very much context-specific, and what we know is often and closely associated with what we do. If ba is a useful concept in general, the concept of communities of practice leads knowledge management enterprise towards a more specific context of organizations. Communities of practice are, however, criticized for being under stable cultural conditions and suffering from inflexibility in innovation within a fixed organizational boundary (e.g. Hakkarainen et al., 2004). Strategic communities, based on ba and communities of practice, has emerged as a basis for coping with market change and innovation in unpredictable and volatile business environments.
Concept of ba Based on a concept that was originally proposed by the Japanese philosopher Nishida (1921) and was further developed by Shimizu, ba is here defined as a shared context in which knowledge is shared, created and utilized. Fayard (2003) has explained the Japanese concept of ba as a Kanji ideogram whose left part means ground, boiling water or what is rising and whose right part means to enable. One can talk about a good ba as a relational situation to energize people, making them creative, and the right part referring to the yin and yang philosophy of permanent transformation. And further, according to Fayard (2003)ba may also be thought as the recognition of the self in all, ba is not produced by the command and control model of traditional pyramid management, it is set up by voluntary membership within an energising and stimulating environment through care and mutual respect. According to Nonaka and Toyama (2003, pp. 6-7) ba should be understood as a multiple
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interacting mechanism explaining tendencies for interactions that occur at a specific time and space instead of thinking of ba in an easier way as a physical space such as a meeting room. Ba can emerge in individuals, working groups, project teams, informal circles, temporary meetings, virtual space such as e-mail groups, and at the front-line contact with the customer. Ba is an existential place where participants share their contexts and create new meanings though interactions. Participants of ba bring in their own contexts, and through interactions with others and the environment, the context of ba, participants, and the environment change. Nonaka, Toyama and Konno (2002) give an overall picture of the knowledge-creating process by explaining that for an organization to create knowledge dynamically, they propose a model of knowledge creation consisting of three elements (1) the SECI process; the process of knowledge creation through conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge; (2) ba, the shared context for knowledge creation; and (3) knowledge assets – the inputs, outputs, and moderator of the knowledge creating process. And all these three elements have to interact with each other to form the knowledge spiral that creates knowledge. Von Krogh, Ichijo, and Nonaka (2000, p. 178) argue that ba is essentially a shared space that serves as a foundation for knowledge creation, one that is often defined by a network of interactions. This context is not confined to the physical space of an office or face-to-face meetings, since interactions with people may happen through email or other virtual means of communication. Rather, the concept of ba unifies the physical spaces, virtual spaces, and mental spaces involved in knowledge creation. Nonaka and Konno (1998, p. 40) are explaining that ba can be thought of as a shared space for emerging relationships. This space can be physical (e.g. office, dispersed business space), virtual (e.g., e-mail, teleconference), mental (e.g., shared experiences, idea, ideals), or any combination of
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them. What differentiates ba from ordinary human interaction is the concept of knowledge creation. Ba provides a platform for advancing individual and/or collective knowledge. According to the theory of existentialism, ba is a context, which harbors meaning. In knowledge creation, generation and regeneration of ba is the key, as ba provides the energy, quality and place to perform the individual conversions and move along the knowledge spiral (Nonaka & Konno, 1998; Nonaka, Reinmoeller, & Senoo, 1998). Based on the SECI model of knowledge creation, Nonaka and Konno (1998) have further developed the SECI-model combining it with the concept of ba, and saying that there are four types of ba that correspond to the four stages of the SECI model. The four types of ba are: originating ba, dialoguing ba, systemizing ba, and exercising ba. Originating ba means individual face-to-face interactions. It is a place where individuals share experiences, feelings, emotions, and mental models. It mainly offers a context for socialization, since an individual face-to-face interaction is the only way to capture the full range of physical senses and psycho-emotional reactions such as ease or discomfort, which are important elements in sharing tacit knowledge. From originating ba emerge care, love, trust, and commitment, which form the basis for knowledge conversion among individuals. Dialoguing ba is a type of ba that is defined by collective face-to-face interactions. It is the place where individuals’ mental models and skills are shared, converted into common terms, and articulated as concepts. Individuals’ tacit knowledge is shared and articulated through dialogues among participants. Selecting individuals with the right mix of specific knowledge and capabilities is the key to managing knowledge creation in dialoguing ba. Systemizing ba mainly offers a context for the combination of existing explicit knowledge, because explicit knowledge can be relatively
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
easily transmitted to a large number of people in written form. Information technology, such as on-line networks, groupware, documentation and databanks, offer a virtual collaborative environment for the creation of systemizing ba. Exercising ba is defined by individual and virtual interactions, exercising ba mainly offers a context for internalisation. Here, individuals embody explicit knowledge that is communicated via virtual media, such as written manuals or simulation programs (Nonaka, Reinmoeller, & Senoo, 1998).
Critiques of SECI Model and the Concept of ba in the Literature Hakkarainen et al. (2004, p. 20) propose that there is not a single dichotomy between explicit and tacit knowledge; rather there are many varieties of tacit knowledge involving the most complex and extremely important aspect of expert cognition. According to Hakkarainen et al. (2004, p. 24) the in Nonaka & Takeuchi’s approach tacit knowledge is in danger of becoming a ‘mystic’ or ‘inexplicable’ starting point of knowledge creation. Wilson (2002) is further criticizing the SECI model saying that Nonaka and Takeuchi have misunderstood the meaning of Polanyi’s concept ‘tacit’ (Polanyi, 1967). According to Wilson (2002) the key point of Polanyi’s concept ‘tacit’ means ‘hidden’, tacit knowledge is hidden knowledge, hidden even from the consciousness of the knower. This is why Polanyi used the phrase “We know more than we can tell.” A phrase parroted even by those who misuse the idea and believe that this hidden knowledge, inaccessible to the consciousness of the knower, can somehow be ‘captured’. Wilson suggests the knowledge that is previously unexpressed but expressible knowledge could be termed as ‘implicit’ knowledge instead of ‘tacit’ knowledge which is inexpressible. Engeström (2001) criticizes the Nonaka and Takeuchi’s model by saying that a central problem is the assumption that the assignment for
knowledge creation is unproblematically given from above. He says that not only Nonaka and Takeuchi’s model but also many other models of organizational learning assumes that what is to be created and learned is a management decision. In Nonaka and Takeuchi’s model this leads to a model where the first step consists of smooth, conflict free socializing, the creation of ‘sympathized knowledge’ as they call it. According to Engeström (1987) the crucial triggering action in the expansive learning process is the conflict that makes people question the existing standard practice. Tuomi (1999, pp. 327-328) has given critiques of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s SECI-model in arguing that it is impossible to separate two different “stocks” of knowledge, one tacit and one focal. Instead, the tacit stock of knowledge is the background from which the knower attends to the focal knowledge. Also Tuomi argues that, in contrast to the view of the researchers Vygotsky and Leont’ev’s in the field of social learning, language, inter-personal conceptual world, and higher cognitive functions, are discussed extensively, whereas in Nonaka’s SECI-model, language and culture are understood as given. In addition to the critiques towards the SECImodel and separation of tacit and explicit knowledge, Tuomi (2002, pp. 134-137) also suggests that the four different types of ba should collapse into two. According to him the systemizing ba is a place where existing resources are combined and the socialization/ dialoguing/ internalization ba is the place where novel resources are created. Tuomi proposes a model called a layered ba. In this layered ba new knowledge and forms of practice are generated. In this ba, they have to be institutionalized and sedimented into the community thought style and routines. Meaning creation is based on a relatively slowly changing community layer, which provides the conventions and concepts that are needed to produce new concepts and conventions. In another words, the slowly changing layer of meaning creation can be
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
associated with community of practices, whereas the rapidly changing and dynamic layer can be associated with communication and sense-making.
Concept of ba in Research Despite the above-mentioned critiques, the concept of ba has been used widely in research and practice in different areas of business (e.g. sales, biotechnology, IT, textile industry, and health care) and in different settings of development (urban region network, knowledge cities, family business knowledge transfer) and in finding tools to manage knowledge in business. In the following table (see Table 1) 13 studies have been listed in order of the year they have been published (and by the author’s name if there are many studies at the same year), starting from the year 1999 and ending by the year 2008. Corno, Reinmoeller and Nonaka (1999) have studied knowledge creation within industrial systems. The study is trying to find ways to create organizational knowledge within districts. The case study of JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) local-to-local program between Ishikawa prefecture in Japan and Como and Varese in Italy is used to illustrate the theoretical concepts. In the case study, the Ishikawa Prefecture, where the textile industry is well represented, has used the concept of ba and district ba trying to find ways to develop the industry. Among many things that have been used according to the ba concept, they have started a utilization of foreign ba as a way to expand the knowledge processes of companies. The companies of Ishikawa have already visited fairs in France and Italy annually for years, but now they have started a deeper interaction building with Como and Varese in Italy. Como is one of Italy’s most important centers for textile manufacturing, silk printing and dyeing. So JETRO and MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) have organized a project (Local to Local –project) where companies of Ishikawa have visited the companies of Como and Varese.
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For example an Italian fashion designer has given a product development course for the Japanese entrepreneurs. The curriculum of the project is designed to enable participants to acquire explicit and tacit knowledge on the characteristics of Italian district ba and industry ba in lectures, courses and dialogue with Italian entrepreneurs. Two years later in 2001 a research of ba as determinant of salesforce effectiveness (Bennett, 2001) is conducted. In the study heads of 113 large companies (London, UK) completed a mail questionnaire designed to investigate the role of social and other informal gatherings in the exchange of salespeople’s knowledge. In the study a medium company size was 16 800 employees and medium size salesforce 24 persons. The salespeople’s knowledge consisted of specific customers, selling methods, sales leads, lessons learned from past activities etc. The study was based on eight hypotheses when were tested. The results of the study included that tacit knowledge represents an important asset that informal exchanges are a common device for transmitting critical information and that ba was found in the study as a determinant of salesforce effectiveness. In a study of Kostiainen (2002) the concept of ba is used in trying to find ways for an urban region to learn and develop. The urban region in this case is the region of Tampere, Finland. Kostiainen says that, since the development of an urban region is so complex, with regional and local development policies, and all actors having their own strategies and goals, it is more networklike activity. He says the concept of development network refers to the actors who through their own activities and mutual cooperation have a strong influence on the development of an urban region. The network is organized usually in different constellations related to different projects and other activities. The main group of actors in the development network in Tampere are research and education institutes, local and regional administration, state agencies, specialized developers, business asso-
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
Table 1. How ba has been used in the field of research (in yearly order) Researcher and Year of the Study
Area of study
Research question/project (Town and/ or Country)
Results/Conclusions
Corno, Reinmoeller, & Nonaka (1999)
Dynamics of industrial systems
Knowledge creation within industrial systems district, ba is used to analyze knowledge creation dynamics within and between district, and identify possible strategies for district governance (Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan and Como and Varese, Italy).
Case of Ishikawa Prefecture shows dominance of transactional relationships with key markets outside district, with focus on isolated ba. Cross-boundary linkages to best practices in foreign districts and customized programs have provided dynamic contexts for knowledge processes.
Bennett (2001)
Sales force effectiveness, business-to-business (b-to-b) selling
Ba as a determinant of salesforce effectiveness; an empirical assessment of the applicability of the Nonaka-Takeuchi model to the management of the selling function (London, UK)
All four of the ba categories associated with the Nonaka/ Takeuchi cycle (SECI) exerted a significant impact on one or more key dimension of salesforce management
Kostiainen (2002)
Development network of urban region
Learning and the ‘Ba’ in the Development Network of an Urban Region, development project of eTampere (Tampere, Finland)
Concept of ba can be applied to the development network and it provides a clear way to develop and systemize learning and activity of network. Action at the early stages of the SECI process is important, especially in originating ba for the needed social capital and trust to emerge.
Brännback (2003)
R & D collaboration in biotechnology
R&D collaboration between universities and business. Examples: new drug development, feasibility of the formation of a pre-clinical service network and establishment of a research center (Finland)
Within biotechnology ba plays a major role for successful knowledge creation through R&D collaboration between university and business
Fayard (2003)
Health care and pharmaceutics
A Western equivalent for ba, proposing a strategic knowledge community (SKC) for knowledge creation (Japan)
In human health care –case ba is used for creating a place for knowledge sharing and creation in learning more about illnesses for the pharmaceutical companies’ needs
Baqir & Kathawala (2004)
Constructing knowledge homes
How to develop a knowledge city model by constructing knowledge home using futuristic technology building blocks in implementing the concept of virtual ba to share, manage, and create knowledge
According to the researchers knowledge home can be an effective way to achieve ba in knowledge cities
Dvir & Pasher (2004)
Knowledge city/Innovation engines
Describing the concept of the “urban innovation engine”, and providing historical and contemporary examples and suggests a set of guidelines for turning ordinary urban institutions into innovation engines. Some cities that identify themselves as knowledge cities are: Barcelona (Spain), Calgary (Canada), Delft (The Netherlands), Melbourne (Australia) and Monterrey City (Mexico).
Study states that innovation engine is ba. Physically these can be the café, the big event, the library, the museum, the gate, the university, the future outlook tower, the capital market, the digital infrastructure, the industrial district and science park.
Nenonen (2004)
Intangible benefits of work space
A test to analyze the work environment as physical, social and virtual spaces in different phases of knowledge creation; emphasis on illustrating the user’s experience of the quality of the existing physical, social and virtual space (Finland)
Types of ba has been used to profile and categorize the experiences of the work environment (this case students and teachers and how their perception of space differ from each other)
continued on following page
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
Table 1. continued Researcher and Year of the Study
Area of study
Research question/project (Town and/ or Country)
Results/Conclusions
Kodama (2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c)
Networking in IT and multimedia business
Community leaders can develop a concept of a business community comprised of diverse types of business and processes to achieve business innovation (Japan)
Community leaders serve an important function in creating networked strategic communities. How community leaders have created networked strategic communities in which the central government, regional governments, universities, hospitals, private businesses and non-profit organizations take part in the advancement of regional electronic networking.
Aramburu, Sáenz, & Rivera (2006)
Manufacturing industry
Seek to measure the emphasis given by manufacturing industry in the field of innovation and to study how the management adapts to Nonaka’s “middleup-down-model” to promote effective knowledge creation process (Basque Region, Spain)
Manufacturing companies from the Basque Region have improved their innovatory capacity, but lack an organizational structure that favours knowledge sharing (including ba)
Hansson (2007)
Science parks
Contribute to the understanding of the failure of science parks to become a central actor in the knowledge economy and, with the help of new organizational theory, to propose new solutions.
Use of new organizational theory on knowledge management, illustrated by Nonaka’s concept of ba, presents a new solution to overcome the traditional thinking on how to organize science parks
Raij (2007)
Higher education example
Applying the idea of a meeting place (ba) to welfare meeting place, Welfare ba (Well Life Center), Living Lab and further who should be meeting in ba
In the welfare ba should meet welfare doers, researchers, clients and service processes who come from the public, private and the third sector (for ex. voluntary organizations) and educational institutions.
Brännback, Carlrud, & Schulte (2008)
Role of ba in family business context
Analyze family business succession process using ba to enhance understanding of managerial challenges in family business succession
Nonaka’s theory is a highly valid framework for analysing and supporting the family business succession process
ciations and key companies. These actors in the group of development network are working quite closely together and Kostiainen mentions that even projects like eTampere has been created. Some initiatives for promoting learning and knowledge creation like the City-Web and Tampere - Learning City Programme have been made. Kostiainen (2002, pp. 621-626) has used the four types of ba -framework for the urban development network of Tampere (originating ba, interacting ba, cyber ba and exercising ba). In originating ba common sports and cultural events are organized, in interacting ba, the discussion forums, plays and stories are used. In cyber ba the researchers report and virtual communities like City Web are used and in exercising ba the mentored projects and learning by doing are the methods to be used. Kostiainen argues that the
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concept of ba can be applied to the development network and it provides a clear way to develop and systemize the learning and activity of the development network. It is also important according to the study that action at the early stages of the SECI process are taken to create originating ba to develop and help the needed social capital and trust to emerge. In the research of best-practice companies in knowledge transfer (Nomura & Ogiwara, 2002), the focus is on the concepts of vital individuals and dynamic ba. Vital individuals mean the people who take initiatives to innovation. According to the research dynamic ba provides opportunities for individuals to create new value and leverage the quality of their knowledge work. For the research 11 companies (e.g. World Bank, BP, PwC, and Toyota Motor) were chosen according to the
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
criteria of successfully applying not just IT but also concepts of ba and community. Nomura and Ogiwara state that each best-practice company has developed a corporate culture in which crossfunctional interaction and knowledge sharing are common and even customary. For each strategy there is a way of using ba to enable the knowledge strategy objectives to be met. A vision driven KM-strategy in the example case is the company’s headquarters, the center is the call center, which receives inquiries and complaints from customers. The whole company’s space layout symbolizes the company’s customercentric approach to business. In a study of the R&D collaboration within the biotechnology sector (Brännback, 2003) ba plays a major role for successful knowledge creation through R&D collaboration between university and business. The biopharmaceutical industry has challenges with exceptionally long and expensive R&D processes. The processes take an average of 15 years to generate with total costs estimated to be approximately 800 million euros. According to the study of Brännback the absence of a ba is a significant barrier to success, but building a ba takes collaborative time and effort. The entire pharmaceutical industry has changed since 1980, due to increasing knowledge intensity and complexity. The industry has moved from a more or less fully integrated industry with large corporations dominating the field, towards becoming a networked industry where large corporations and small start-up companies collaborate for mutual success. The types of firms and units participating in a biopharmaceutical network, collaborating within and across firm and industry boundaries are academic research centers, biotech companies, venture capital organizations, service providers such as contract research organizations (CROs), information technology companies, research based pharmaceutical companies and other pharmaceutical companies. Brännback argues that each organization forms a ba, there are multiple ontological
dimensions within each ba and together these form a networked biopharmaceutical ba, which in its simplest form can be seen as a community, but which for the purpose of new knowledge creation should become a ba. In a study of Human Health Care (HHC) and pharmaceutical industry –case (Fayard, 2003) ba has been used in the knowledge creation process. The pharmaceutical group Eisai considered it did not have enough competences and knowledge in R&D, management, administration, and business for the HHC’s goal for the society at large. To be able to attain such competences and knowledge, it had to be sought from within the environment of ill persons themselves: their families and the ones who cared for them (e.g. in this case patients with Alzheimer’s disease). According to Fayard, the apprehension by them of their illnesses represented a major source of information and knowledge and that as a pharmaceutical company its isolated and cut scientific knowledge was not sufficient. The knowledge of ill persons, from their relatives, and their nurses was essential. And to create the appropriate conditions to externalize it, a ba or strategic knowledge community unified the company and patients inside a common integrated effort. In order to develop a model for a knowledge city (Baqir & Kathawala, 2004) the researchers have constructed knowledge homes with implementation of the concept of virtual ba. They state that the knowledge city model consists of a basic unit referred to as a knowledge home. Pillars of this home use new technologies to support the computational needs of knowledge systems for knowledge sharing and management system. These technologies are intelligent agents, semantic web, Web services, ontologies and global computational grid. The roof of this home is resting upon the knowledge pillars which demonstrates the provision of the shared context, ba. According to Baqir and Kathawala the model also fulfills the needs of community computing, community networking, collaborative work, digital meeting places, electronic education, social
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
informatics, spatial information processing, virtual communities, virtualization and visualization. They say, that therefore a knowledge home can be an effective way to achieve ba in knowledge cities. In research concerning an innovation engine for knowledge cities (Dvir & Pasher, 2004) the researchers have used ba in describing characters of the innovation engine, claiming that the innovation engine is a ba. According to them an urban innovation engine is a system which can trigger, generate, foster, and catalyze innovation in the city. Dvir and Pasher (2004) find 11 generic innovation engines: the café (e.g. 19th century cafés of Wien and Paris), the big event (e.g. Paris Exposition Universelle de 1900), the library (e.g. the Great Library of Alexandria), the gate (e.g. airport, Barcelona port, “all roads lead to Rome”), the museum (e.g. Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao), the future outlook tower (e.g. Ericsson Foresight), the university (e.g. University of California, Berkeley), the capital market place (e.g. stock exchange), knowledge intensive industrial district and science parks (e.g. University of Groningen and Zernike Science Park NL), Brownfield sites (e.g. the Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam NL), and the digital infrastructure (e.g. research project of City of Knowledge). In the areas of work space and work environment the concept of ba has been used in a study of the effect of the work space into knowledge production (Nenonen, 2004). There is a table of high quality ba in the study, where the characters of ba have been listed according to the following elements: power of place, prototyping, relational place, spheres, purpose, co-creation, imaginative seeing, dialogue, self-transcendence, and synthesizing. She further categorizes the elements of work space into three layers: physical, social and virtual layers of spaces for knowledge creation. The concept of ba has been used as a base concept in the studies of Japanese ICT industry and its new product development (Kodama, 2003; 2005a; 2005b & 2005c). Kodama argues that “for various large, leading edge businesses whose core
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competences are in the software, information and communication technologies that form the foundation of multimedia and broadband networks, as well as for numerous venture companies, the past several years have brought increasingly intense competition to leverage strategic communities (SC) through deep partnership-based inter-organizational collaboration for the purpose of developing strategic enterprises, expanding the market shares of their products and services and creating new businesses”. According to Kodama the concept of strategic communities is based on the two concepts of ba and community of practice (Kodama, 2005b). In a strategic community members (also customers) consciously and strategically create a ba in a shared context that is always changing, and further, that strategic community is applied in cases where enterprises are surrounded by numerous uncertainties and predictions are difficult. Aramburu, Sáenz and Rivera (2006) have done research on the manufacturing industry in the Basque Region of Spain. In the research they have a double objective: to measure the effort of the manufacturing companies to develop a greater innovation capacity and to detect if the companies, with emphasis on the innovation, have adapted a management context consistently. In the study carried out three aspects are considered which are crucial for the “middle-up-down” –model (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995; Nonaka et al., 2003), the existence of a vision of knowledge, the construction and dynamization of the “Bas”, and the exchange of knowledge assets. In the conclusions of the study it is said that Basque manufacturing companies have improved their innovatory capacity to a great extent, however they have failed to adapt their organizational structures on a general level in order to foster knowledge generation and innovation processes. In Hansson’s study (2007) of science parks, research was made to find out if the science park had a positive effect on the survival rate of the new start-ups and were the new organizational
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
theories (e.g. creating, managing, organizing, and transferring knowledge in distributed networks) used in the science parks. One conclusion of the study states that the knowledge organization is a child of the knowledge society and the science parks is jus as much a child of the late industrial society with its focus on linearity and material products and not on the intangible knowledge. The study raises the question of whether a science park could be a provider of ba for knowledge creation the start-up companies, but the findings show little evidence of the science parks’ ability to implement or recognize the many new organizational features necessary for creative knowledge production and exchange as expressed in ba. The study states that parks must become active in organizing its partners a ba in networks between knowledge organizations and the park. In the constantly changing world crossing the boundaries between different firms and adapting to the changing world is a necessity. Raij (2007) has used the concept of ba in higher education teaching environment (Well Life Center). She calls the education environment a Welfare Ba where the first question to ask was who should meet? In the welfare ba should meet welfare doers, researchers, clients and service processes who come from the public, private and the third sector (for ex. voluntary organizations) and educational institutions. In a welfare ba welfare doers, with their clients, activities, and welfare researchers, create new professional knowledge by sharing, improving, and duplicating knowledge. In the study of Brännback, Carlrud, and Schulte (2008) the role of ba in the family business succession process has been explored. The study also emphasises that usually the knowledge management studies usually are done on the larger companies, rather than small and medium sized companies, which are not studied as much. The challenge within a family firm is to ensure that the process is continuous and can be repeated in the future and that knowledge is shared and created across generations and involves both the individual
and family involvement contexts. The study posits that family firms with effective ba should have more successful succession or survival strategies than those firms that do not have a ba.
CONCEPT OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE The concept of communities of practice was pioneered by copy machine repair men and women of Xerox (Orr, J. 1996). The repair workers exchanged ideas and practices of their work and experience when repairing the copy machines. The theory of community of practice has roots in learning theories (Lave & Wenger 1991), in which the researchers characterize learning as and legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. They say that participation is at first legitimately peripheral but that increases gradually in engagement and complexity. They also use the term situated learning connected to communities of practice. According to Jewson (2007, p. 68) communities of practice has made a strong impact on the understanding of learning processes. It played a leading role in shifting metaphors of learning, from passive acquisition of knowledge to active participation in practices. Brown and Duguid (1991) argue that the traditional learning theory tends to endorse the valuation of abstract knowledge over actual practice as a result to separate learning from working and, more significantly, learners from workers, and further that the composite concept of “learning-in-working” best represents the fluid evolution of learning through practice. From this practice-based standpoint we view learning as the bridge between working and innovating. According to Wenger and Snyder (2000) communities of practice are groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise. They explain about communities of practice which can be, for example, engineers engaged in deep-water drill-
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
ing, consultants who specialize in strategic marketing, or frontline managers in charge of check processing at a large commercial bank. Some communities of practice meet regularly, others are connected by e-mail network. According to them communities of practice share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems.
Communities of Practice in Research The first study presented here is Wasko and Faraj’s (2000) research on three electronic communities of practice. The study explores why people are reluctant to exchange knowledge with others in organizations. Their findings suggest that successful communities have members who act out of community interest rather than self-interest and the ones that participate in electronic communities have a strong desire to engage in intellectual exchange with a community of practice. Lesser and Storck (2001) studied seven organizations (e.g. multinational lending institution, pharmaceutical firm, software development company) where communities of practice are acknowledged to be creating value. They say, that to build an understanding of how communities of practice create organizational value, they suggest thinking of a community as an engine for the development of social capital. According to their study they identify four specific performance outcomes associated with communities of practice. These include connections among practitioners who may or may not be collocated, relationships that build a sense of trust, mutual obligation, common language and contexts that can be shared by community members. In a study of management of innovation and construction of communities of practice (Swan, Scarborough & Robertson 2002) the case highlights the shifting practices of managers when confronted by the demands of a radical networked innovation process. Lacking the power to direct such a process they adapted the role of ‘systems
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builder’, worked in an improvisational way across professional and organizational boundaries. Acting this way they were able to achieve a level of influence within the radical innovation process which might have been unattainable through more conventional means. Pan and Leidner (2003) explore the use of information technology to support knowledge sharing within and between communities of practice. They have a case of a multi-national organization and its efforts to implement an organizational knowledge management system. Implementation of KM and KMS requires a change in organizational culture and the values and culture of an organization have a great impact on the learning process. Some of the findings were that it may be easier to communicate with each other globally if the employees share common knowledge. And some future research is needed on what are the processes and mechanisms needed in order for employees to share their common knowledge with their peers worldwide. Hakkarainen, Palonen, Paavola and Lehtinen (2004) have made an investigation on communities of networked expertise. The investigation is a part of larger project called the Innovation Networks Program intended to facilitate the Finnish national innovation system. Survey was done in nine organizations, with 200 assessments of expertise at individual, communal, and organizational levels. The research explores the subject at hand through the communities of expertise, networks of knowledge sharing and organizational intelligence views. Hakkarainen et al. (2004) are suggesting that a new concept called innovative knowledge communities as a special type of community of practice is suited for the demands of dynamic culture of the knowledge society. The research of Meeuwesen and Berends (2007) describes and evaluates the launch of four communities of practice within Rolls-Royce. Four communities were observed that were purposefully created and were subsequently ‘managed’. Their findings are that communities of practice are
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
a valuable structure for technology and knowledge management. A community of practice provided clear benefits to the technologists making up these communities. The research also acknowledges that the structure of communities of practice is never fully under managerial control. And that focusing on local issues increases the direct benefits for community members and therewith their commitment to the communities of practice. In the research of Probst and Borzillo (2008) 57 communities of practice were studied from major European and US companies. Through their investigation 10 “commandments” of best practices and five main reasons for failure of communities of practice were found. Ten successful governance mechanisms are: (1) stick to strategic objectives, (2) divide objectives into sub-topics, (3) form governance committees with sponsors and community of practice leaders, (4) have a sponsor and a CoP leader who are “best practice control agents”, (5) regularly feed the CoP with external expertise, (6) promote access to other intra- and interorganizational networks, (7) the CoP leader must have a driver and promoter role, (8) overcome hierarchy-related pressures, (9) provide a sponsor with measurable performance, and finally (10) illustrate results for community of practice members. Main reasons for failure of communities of practice according to the study (Probst & Borzillo, 2008) are: lack of a core group, low level of oneto-one interaction between members, rigidity of competences, a lack of identification with the community of practice, and practice intangibility. Wang, Yang and Chou (2008) have studied knowledge sharing characteristics and roles of communities of practice. According to them understanding the processes and mechanisms that enable members to share knowledge with their peers in CoPs is very important, since knowledge cannot be easily separated from its context and its owner. According to the researchers information technology plays an important role in CoP activities, including email, listservs, electronic bulletin
boards, electronic forums and electronic chat rooms. They have developed a peer-to-peer knowledge sharing tool called KTella. KTella matches the behavioral characteristics of the members of the CoPs and enables a community’s members to voluntarily share and retrieve knowledge. In a study of a multimillion construction project (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) the relationship between communities of practice and performance was being measured. The findings of the research mention that three communities of practice that operated under stable conditions were found to show improved performance. The community of practice that had changes in its communication channels due to physical move, was not able to regain its earlier performance or improve. The three CoPs in stable conditions spend considerable time building the community’s memory through informal face-to-face interactions. In the nursing academics in UK (Andrew, Ferguson, Wilkie, Corcoran & Simpson 2009) an experimental international online communities of practice (iCoP) was created for novice educators, focusing on the development of professional identity in teaching. The concept of communities of practice was a way to help develop the professional identity in education of nurses, since the idea of academic agenda is seen with reluctance within nursing, feeling that interpersonal skills and practice could be overlooked. Accordingly as for the research on ba in the following table (see Table 2) 10 studies of communities of practice have been listed in order of the year they have been published (and by the author’s name if there are many studies in the same year), starting from the year 2000 and ending by the year 2009..
Critiques of Communities of Practice Since communities of practice are mainly formed voluntarily they are never under full managerial control (Probst & Borzillo, 2008), some characteristics for success or failure of communities of
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
Table 2. How the concept communities of practice has been used in research (in yearly order) Researcher and year of the study
Area of study
Research question/project
Results/conclusions
Wasko & Faraj (2000)
Electronic CoPs
Why members of organizations are reluctant to exchange knowledge with others?
People participate primarily out of community interest, generalized reciprocity and prosocial behavior
Lesser & Storck (2001)
CoPs and organizational performance
CoPs and organizational performance
CoPs provide value to organizations through social capital
Swan, Scarborough, & Robertson (2002)
Medical company
Construction of new CoP and its role in the radical innovation process
Faced with powerful professions, and limited organizational support, communities using CoP as a concept, were created that focused on the disease (rather than product). CoPs concept helped to enroll key professional and to mobilize changes in work practice.
Pan & Leidner (2003)
Chemical industry
Use of information technology to support knowledge sharing within and between CoPs globally
There is an imbalance between the uses of knowledge management systems and managing global COPs
Hakkarainen, Palonen, Paavola, & Lehtinen (2004)
Communities of networked expertise
Examine new skills and competences requirements emerging from the knowledge society
Innovative knowledge communities (IKC), from stable to dynamically changing communities
Meeuwesen & Berends (2007)
Automobile industry
Is it possible to purposefully create CoPs? Four CoPs within Rolls-Royce were studied
It is possible to purposefully create CoPs.
Probst & Borzillo (2008)
57 CoPs from major European and US companies
What are the most salient reasons for the success and failure of CoPs?
10 guidelines for success and 5 reasons for failure. Structures of CoPs have to be guided by strategic objectives, guiding a CoP successfully, requires a sponsor presence, and the best practices or innovations from CoP should be delivered to the CoP leader regularly
Schenkel & Teigland (2008)
Multimillion dollar construction project
Relationship between CoPs and performance
CoPs that operated under stable conditions exhibited improved performance, CoP with changes in communication channels could not improve, this indicates relationship between communication channels and performance
Wang, Yang & Chou (2008)
Peer-to-peer technology for knowledge sharing
Examine knowledge sharing characteristics and roles of CoPs
Peer-to-peer knowledge sharing tool KTella, that enables community’s members to share and retrieve knowledge effectively
Andrew, Ferguson, Wilkie, Corcoran, & Simpson (2009)
Nursing academics
How to develop the professional identity in nursing academics?
Use of experiential innovations such as International CoP (iCoP) can support transference by promoting collaboration and peer support
practice can be derived from this fact. For example, failures are due to the lack of core group or low level of one-to-one interaction between members. One study explored if it were possible to purposefully create communities of practice (Meeuwesen & Berends, 2007). The findings revealed that when communities of practice are purposefully created, they need balancing of design and emergence,
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and also when communities of practice focus on local issues instead of global ones, the community members benefit directly from the community of practice and are more committed. The need for a common context is talked about also in another CoP related study of knowledge sharing globally (Pan & Leidner; 2003). In the summary of the study it is said that not all global
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
employees think the same; it may be easier to communicate with each other globally, if the employees share common knowledge. The same problem is referred to in the study of Schenkel and Teigland (2008) of construction projects, when talking about online communities of practice the importance of efforts needed for supporting the cognitive processes for individuals to collaborate and contribute to the development of a collective memory. Communities of practice need to function in stable conditions in order to be able to improve organizational performance (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008). Ahonen et al. (2000) criticizes the concept of communities of practice for being developed in a relatively stable culture. Another critique is presented by Hakkarainen et al. (2004, p 135) on the same issue.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE TWO CONCEPTS Ba and communities of practice share some characteristics. Both of the concepts are useful in bringing together people who are different in many ways but who share a common interest and are willing to share that interest including knowledge and practices (Wenger & Snyder, 2000; Nonaka & Toyama, 2003). This includes people who are sharing interests and are being a part of the community or group or a shared space (Wenger & Snyder, 2000; Nonaka & Toyama, 2003). In the studies of ba by Brännback (2003) and Kostiainen (2002) and a study of communities of practice by Swan et al. (2002), the concepts are used as a helping tool to be able to bring together people from different organizations in order to develop something new together. A community, or a group, or a shared space, can also be virtual in nature in both concepts; ba can be virtual in nature (Nonaka & Toyama 2003, p. 6), so can be communities of practice (Wasko & Faraj,. 2000; Wang,, Yang & Chou, 2008).
But the need for some face-to-face interaction is emphasized in both concepts when a virtual ba and communities of practice are in question. According to (Nonaka et. al., 2002, p. 51) ba can be divided into four types. One of them is called originating ba, which is defined by individual and face-to-face interactions and being a starting type of interaction in knowledge creating process. Kostiainen (2000, p. 626) has used this originating ba for example in bringing people together in common sports, cultural or sauna evenings. The findings of Schenkel and Teigland (2008) state that managers interested in replicating communities of practice online, need to ensure that they do not over-rely on the technology, efforts need to be made to support the cognitive processes of the communities of practice. Accordingly in the study of reasons why communities of practice succeed or fail (Probst & Borzillo, 2008, p. 343) the lack of a core group which actively participates in meetings is one of the reasons for failure. Both concepts are favourable for sharing knowledge that is not easy to put in verbal form, or has no formal text books written about the subject, which could be also referred to as tacit knowledge or practical knowledge (Nonaka & Toyama, 2003; Love & Wenger, 1990). Voluntary participation, interest toward the subject at hand, and little control are both characteristics of ba and communities of practice. According to Fayard (2003)ba may also be thought of as the recognition of the self in all, ba is not produced by the command and control model of traditional pyramid management. It is set up by voluntary membership within an energising and stimulating environment through care and mutual respect. According to Wenger & Snyder (2000, p.142) the members of communities of practice select themselves, meaning that the participation is voluntary. Nonaka and Toyama (2003) state that although the concept of ba has some similarities to the concept of communities of practice there are important differences; while communities of practice
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are places where the members learn knowledge that is embedded in the community, ba is a place where new knowledge is created. While a community of practice has an identity and its boundary is firmly set by the task, culture, and history of the community; the boundary of ba is fluid and can be changed quickly. Also the membership of a community of practice is fairly stable: where as participants in ba can come and go.
Ba, COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AND A WAY FORWARD: STRATEGIC COMMUNITIES Strategic communities (SCs) are based on the concepts of ba and communities of practice (Kodama, 2005). As introduced, the concept of ba is a shared space for emerging relationships that serves as a foundation for knowledge creation. The second concept, communities of practice, promotes mutual learning within the community by providing an understanding of shared contexts and values among members in generating new knowledge. However, SCs with its emphasis on networking with both internal and external partners in hectic business environments, may provide a broader context in several aspects of collaborative innovation. Strategic communities is discussed here as a way forward for the concepts of ba and communities of practice. The concept of strategic communities is defined as “both emergent and strategic, a collaborative, inter-organizational relationship that is associated with creative yet strategic thinking and action in an ongoing process, as in arrangements such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, consortia, associations, and roundtables …” (Kodama, 2005, p. 23). What has been described in the definition is much evident in practice, but rarely researched on. Kodama is perhaps one of a few researchers who write about strategic communities. For him, strategic communities are strongly leadershipbased (Kodama, 2000a) and customer-oriented
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(2002a). Strategic communities can exist within a global organization (Storch & Hill, 2000) and between organizations (Kodama, 2005). Kodama (2005b) considers it important to incorporate boundaries and networks into the conceptualizing of strategic communities. He proposes that SCs provide pragmatic boundaries, allowing actors with different contexts to transform existing knowledge. For the principle of networks (ideas based on Newman, Barabasi, & Watts, 2006), Kodama emphasizes the role of actors, whom he regards as hubs or connectors in an organization, bridging multiple different SCs and form networks among strategic communities. The concept of communities of practice focuses on individual-level learning, no matter if it is formal or informal. The Japanese concept of ba opens a dynamic process that surpasses individual limits and it comes to reality through a platform where common language is used to achieve community aims and goals (Fayard, 2003). It boosts a complimentary nature of theory building in a broader sense from individual learning to community knowledge development. Adding also to strategic knowledge communities, the concept of ba offers the advantage of stressing the pre-eminence of relational frameworks so that information and communication technologies contribute in a dynamic way. The scope of experimentation is not just wide but imperative (Fayard, 2003). While Kodama lays stress more on interorganization relationships and interactions with external partners like customers, Storck and Hill (2000) seem to emphasize more internal collaboration within the corporation. Adding value of SCs to an organization and its internal collaboration and learning, based on their study of Xerox Corporation, Storck and Hill (2000) propose some specific ways of developing new knowledge management capacity in a SC. They include high quality knowledge creation (diversity in membership, limited requirement for formal reporting and reflection process of learning), fewer
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
surprises and revisions in plans (broad participation and openness), greater capacity to deal with unstructured problems, more effective knowledge sharing among business units and corporate staff units, improved likelihood of implementing joint goal and more effective individual development and learning. The concept of strategic communities emphasizes organizational level learning and knowledge creation rather than individual resource and knowledge. In this sense, the concept of strategic communities resembles other terms such as the concept of ba (Nonaka & Konno, 1998), communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Brown & Duguid, 1991), networks of collaborating organizations (Powell & Brantley, 1992), communities of creation (Sawhney & Prandelli, 2000), work communities in the competence laboratory (Ahonen, Engeström, & Virkkunen, 2000), innovative knowledge communities (Hakkarainen et al., 2004) and communities of competence (Smith, 2005). As Kodama writes, “… the strategic communities is applied in cases where predictions are difficult and where the management is surrounded by numerous uncertainties and searching for valid strategies …” (Kodama, 2002b, p. 349). The task of strategic communities is to form and implement business concepts and ideas, and it takes a stance that a strategy will emerge from the collaborative actions (Kodama, 2005). Kodama (2005) argues that innovative companies that seek a competitive advantage must not retain full control over innovative processes using conventional hierarchical mechanisms and closed autonomous systems. Companies will increasingly require a management that can, from a variety of viewpoints, use networked strategic communities to synthesize superior knowledge available inside and outside the company, including from customers. Fast innovation is critical to today’s globalizing organizations, in particular to those focusing on ICT and multimedia business. Strategic communities work as a practical method of
accelerating innovation in a corporation. To rapidly obtain diverse knowledge of high value, managers from various levels, both inside and outside the corporation, can form strategic communities with internal and external actors (Kodama, 2005b). The strategic community is a response to the rigidity of the canonical organization and bureaucracy, which stifles meaningful innovation, and it is a recognition of the need for companies to become part of a wide community within which knowledge can be transferred and shared (Innovating business strategies through SCs, 2002). This comes from the advantages of strategic communities that are not subject to the same restrictions as existing formal organizations (Kodama, 2005b, p. 40). Such an advantage has been empirically tested and found it to be useful (Kodama, 2005b). Kodama claims that companies will from now on increasingly require a management that can use networked strategic communities to synthesize superior knowledge that is open and spread out both inside and outside the organization, including customers. An often used example of strategic communities is from Kodama’s case study of NTT Phoenix’s creation of new business venture on multipoint services (NTT is a short form of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation - Japan’s largest telecommunication company, and NTT Phoenix Network Communications, Inc. is a joint venture established by a strategic alliance between the United States and Japan). NTT Phoenix formed strategic partnership-based business communities with various customers, and by promoting customer value creation-type businesses through the innovation of knowledge with customers created a new market for video network services (Kodama, 2002). Kodama employs strategic communities as an analytic tool for discussing and analyzing innovative type of business ventures and alliances in the frontier of Japanese technological innovation. Based on their case study of the success of the Transition Alliance at Xerox, Storck and Hill
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(2000) suggest six principles to achieve effective strategic communities: 1. to design an interaction format that promotes openness and allows for serendipity, 2. to build upon a common organizational culture, 3. to demonstrate the existence of mutual interests after initial success at resolving issues and achieving corporate goals, 4. to leverage those aspects of the organizational culture that respect the value of collective learning, 5. to embed knowledge-sharing practices into the work processes of the group, and 6. establish an environment in which knowledge sharing is based on processes and cultural norms defined by the community rather than other parts of the organization. As it is seen by Kodama, strategic community management is an effective methodology aimed at strategic innovation by major enterprises (Kodama, 2002). To promote community innovation, the essential embodiment of strategic community management is to deploy the innovation process of community knowledge and community competencies (Kodama, 2000). Strategic communities are an important way of the effective creation and use of organizational knowledge (Storck & Hill, 2000). Strategic knowledge communities tend to loosen and dissolve physical limits of organizations, fostering collaborative projects that include potentialities from abroad. Partners and even competitors, customers and users, complementary sources of knowledge and competences … are engaged synergistically toward operational knowledge fronts” (Fayard, 2003, p.29). One unique contribution of strategic communities is that it is in a way a Western proposal for the Japanese concept of ba (Fayard, 2003). In this way, the meaning of Japanese ba and its connec-
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tion with broader knowledge contexts are better understood by the Western audience.
FUTURE TRENDS One future trend is the various different information and communication technology (ICT) solutions designed to facilitate the communities to share information. In our review the following research represent this trend: the portal of eTampere (Kostiainen, 2002), knowledge home (Baqir & Kathawala, 2004), electronic communities of practice (Wasko & Faraj 2000) with the example being KTella (Wang, Yang, & Chou, 2008), international electronic communities of practice (Pan & Leidner, 2003) with the example of iCop (Andrew et al., 2009). Another future trend is how cities are trying to become innovative places. In the studies of knowledge city (Baqir & Kathawala, 2004), development network of urban region (Kostiainen, 2002) and future center (Dvir, et al., 2006) this is being explored. In the study of knowledge city (Baqir & Kathawala, 2004), the knowledge home is described as a model that fulfills the needs of community computing, community networking, collaborative work, digital meeting places, electronic education, social informatics, spatial information processing, virtual communities, virtualization and visualization. According to Baqir and Kathawala, a knowledge home can be an effective way to achieve ba in knowledge cities. A third future trend found in our research is a need for concepts that are useful in unstable, rapidly changing environments (e.g. changes in the market, technology, participating actors), uncertainties seem to become evident and inevitable in future organizations. In our research two interesting concepts have been discussed, i.e., strategic communities and innovative knowledge communities, which we believe have strong
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potential for coping with change and innovative learning in organizations. It would be very interesting to study further strategic communities in the future research of ba and communities of practice, particularly in cases where enterprises are surrounded by numerous uncertainties and where predictions are difficult to make. We found SCs a very useful concept, however, the pity is that it seems to not yet have received adequate attention and recognition from the research side - perhaps this is one of our contributions if we have this book chapter reviewed and published together with other important concepts like Japanese ba and communities of practice in knowledge management studies and conceptualization. The other interesting concept to study further is the innovative knowledge communities presented by Hakkarainen et al. (2004). Because the concept of communities of practice is being criticized for being grown to a relatively stable culture, Hakkarainen et al. (2004) are suggesting that innovative knowledge communities are a special form of communities of practice, which are often deliberately designed to create new knowledge. The innovative knowledge communities could be research teams, product development teams or marketing teams within knowledge intensive organizations. According to Hakkarainen et al. (2004) innovative knowledge communities are organized around shared objectives. Shared objectives rise from disturbances, or contradictions
in current practices, as it has been emphasized in activity theory (e.g., Ahonen, et al., 2000).
CONCLUSION The concepts of ba and communities of practice have not laid stress on change and uncertain market situations as strategic communities do. The three reviewed concepts or frameworks are different also in several other aspects important to collaborative innovation and market development. They include formal and informal governance mechanisms, internal and external collaboration and customer involvement, and incremental and radical innovation processes. For instance, in discussing learning and knowledge development, the concept of ba is concerned more with the informal way of actualization, and communities of practice are formal, at least within a boundary of formal and structured organizations. Strategic communities, the third concept we discuss here, are more like between the formal and informal. Comparatively, communities of practice focus on learning within an organization, and strategic communities emphasize more inter-organizational learning and knowledge creation. The latter is in a more rapidly changing environment, quite often for the purpose of rapid and more dramatic type of innovation. The environment of activity in communities of practice is, however, with relatively stable and fixed conditions (Hakkarainen et al.,
Table 3. Comparing distinct features of the three reviewed concepts Features
Ba
Communities of Practice
Strategic Communities
Formal and informal mechanisms
informal
formal (& informal)
between formal & informal
Internal and external collaboration & customer involvement
Internal & external
internal
internal & external, networked communities are emphasized
Stable and dynamic market & technological environments
stable & dynamic
stable
dynamic
Incremental and radical innovation processes
incremental
incremental & radical
radical
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Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
2004). Such a comparative view of the three reviewed concepts can be summarized in Table 3. Communities of practice is a well developed and recognized concept in the academic world, forming a cornerstone for building learning theories, while the SCs are an emerging and useful concept but not yet well elaborated on, or widely used. This is connected more with what people are currently doing in organization, but a concept less used and less paid attention to in research. Although we think communities of practice are more formal and strategic communities are informal, strategic communities are more deliberate, in which community development is more on the table of management. In this regard, perhaps it is appropriate for Kodama (2002b) to say communities of practice are ‘informal’ and ‘self-organised’ – “its organizational structure promotes improvements in the business process of daily operations, although in reality, it has difficulty obtaining personnel and capital support from within the enterprise.” (p. 351). Ba is a shared space that favorites knowledge sharing and creation. The major contributions and limitations of ba can be seen as follows, from which we can see better why we need at the same time the concepts of communities of practice and strategic communities. Deriving from the literature reviewed in this chapter, the major contributions lies in the following aspects of knowledge creation and innovation. First, ba serves as a good base for developing new knowledge management concept such as the strategic communities (Fayard, 2003; Kodama 2003; 2005a; 2005b; and 2005c). Second, it has emphasized the shared space as well as emerging relationships and commitments of different groups of people working together for creation of something new. Ba, for instance, has been used in helping to bring people from different organizations, locations and with different drives to work together for designing knowledge sharing activities of different network-like partners such as municipal government, research and education institutes, state agencies, specialized developers,
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business associations and key companies (Kostiainen, 2002). R&D collaboration in biotechnology between universities and businesses is another example in this case (Brännback, 2003). Third, ba works as both an analytical and practical tool for creating favourable work environments in knowledge sharing and innovation. It is, for instance, the study on the effect of the work space into knowledge production (Nenonen, 2004) and district ba as an analytical tool for industry innovation and knowledge sharing (Corno et al., 1999). Knowledge sharing and transfer from one region to another becomes especially difficult when involving a lot of tacit knowledge, so is knowledge creation without the presence of rich and physical ba. Geographical closeness and innovation cluster for fashion in cases of Como and Varese and Ishikawa Prefecture demonstrate how ba could be used for regional development and innovation. Contextual nature of knowledge construction has been taken into account when district ba is applied in the case of learning and knowledge sharing across the national boundaries between Italy and Japan. Fourth, ba is regarded as a further step in developing knowledge creation enterprises after Nonaka and Takeuchi’s first initiative in the conceptualization of knowledge creation. It provides a more concrete way with multi-dimensional platforms (e.g., physical, virtual and mental) for knowledge creation and innovation. Ba has been used as a mental tool for designing knowledge sharing and learning activities in development network (Kostiainen, 2002), the research of best practice companies in knowledge transfer (Nomura & Ogiwara, 2002), and virtual ba for constructing a knowledge home for knowledge sharing and creation (Baqir & Kathawala, 2004). Fifth, ba has been used in finding innovation engines for knowledge cities (Dvir & Pasher, 2004). Finally, ba works as a successful factor in knowledge-intensive business on a large scale from R&D collaboration in high technology business (Brännback, 2003) to sales force effectiveness
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
in exchanging specialized marketing knowledge (Corno et al., 1999). Our major critique of ba is that it remains too broad and too general as a concept or tool to hold and focus on work practice itself and to uncover deeper mechanisms behind it. That is perhaps why the concepts of communities of practice and strategic communities are called for when discussing the limitation of the ba concept and the way to transcend it. What the concept of strategic communities may bring about to the concept of ba, might be related in that (1) it goes beyond the local concept as Japanese to a broader academic world and makes it easier for Westerners to understand the concept better (Fayard, 2003); (2) it brings in the concept of communities of practice which is well known in a broad business and management learning scope, with this regard, it is concerned with some driving forces behind our learning and doing which include, for instance, professional interest and expertise, professional and organizational identity, formal and informal workplace learning; (3) as reviewed, strategic communities emphasize interorganizational collaboration and joint knowledge creation including broader communities, like the one of customers in rapidly changing markets, this brings us closer to business and knowledge fronts, providing an impetus for applying complementary concepts in a profound and meaningful way.
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Sawhney, M., & Prandelli, E. (2000). Communities of creation: Managing distributed innovation in turbulent markets. California Management Review, 42, 24-54. Schenkel, A. & Teigland, R. (2008). Imporved organizational performance through communities of practice. Journal of Knowledge Management, 12(1), 106–118. Smith, E. A. (2005). Communities of competence: New resources in the workplace. The Journal of Workplace Learning, 17(1/2), 7-23. Storck, J. & Hill, P.A. (2000). Knowledge diffusion through “strategic communities”. Sloan Management Review, 41, 63–74. Swan, J., Scarbrough, H., & Robertson, M. (2002). The Contruction of ‘Communities of Practice’ in the Management of Innovation. Management Learning, 33(4), 477–496. doi:10.1177/1350507602334005 Tuomi, I. (1999). Corporate Knowledge Theory and Practice of Intelligent Organizations. Helsinki: Metaxis. Tuomi, I. (2002). Networks of Innovation. Change and Meaning in the Age of the Internet. New York: Oxford University Press. Von Krogh, G. Ichijo, K. & Nonaka, I. (2000). Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier. Harvard Business Review, (Jan-Feb): 139–145. Wilson, T. (2002).The Nonsense of Knowledge Management. Information Research, 8(1).
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ba: Ba should be understood as a multiple interacting mechanism explaining tendencies for interactions that occur at a specific time and space instead of thinking of ba in an easier way as a physical space such as a meeting room. Ba can emerge in individuals, working groups, project teams, informal circles, temporary meetings, virtual space such as e-mail groups, and at the front-line contact with the customer. Ba is an existential place where participants share their contexts and create new meanings though interactions. Participants of ba bring in their own contexts, and through interactions with others and the environment, the context of ba, participants, and the environment change. Communities of Practice: Groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise. Communities of practice can be, for example, engineers engaged in deep-water drilling, consultants who specialize in strategic marketing, or frontline managers in charge of check processing at a large commercial bank.
Ba and Communities of Practice in Research and Strategic Communities as a Way Forward
Strategic Communities (SCs): Are based on the concepts of ba and communities of practice The concept can be defined as ”both emergent and strategic, a collaborative, inter-organizational relationship that is associated with creative yet strategic thinking and action in an ongoing process, as in arrangements such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, consortia, associations, and roundtables …”. Strategic communities can exist within a global organization and/or between organizations for fast and collaborative innovation in an environment beset with uncertainties, where predictions are difficult to make and management is searching for valid strategies. Knowledge Sharing: Sharing knowledge with other people, exchanging knowledge. Knowledge sharing can happen through face-to-face interaction (tacit knowledge) or through codified knowledge exchange (explicit knowledge). Also systems and tools to facilitate knowledge sharing are being created.
Knowledge Creation: The formation of new knowledge and ideas through interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge. See also SECI model. SECI model: Explains the process of knowledge creation through conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge. The model consists of four stages, namely Socialization (from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge), Externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), Combination (from explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge), and Internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge). Tacit Knowledge: Is described as knowledge that cannot be codified. Tacit knowledge is knowledge that comprises experience and work knowledge that resides only with the individual. Explicit Knowledge: Is codified knowledge, and can be codified, documented, transferred, shared, and communicated between people.
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Chapter 5
Unraveling Power Dynamics in Communities of Practice Marcel Veenswijk Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands Cristina Chisalita Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT This chapter concentrates on the question how does power dynamics relate to the development of Communities of Practice within the organizational context of European public-private Megaprojects. The notion of power seems to be one of the underdeveloped fields in current CoP theory (Veenswijk & Chisalita, 2007). After a theoretical evaluation of the CoP concept, a Dutch Community of Practice case ‘Partners in Business’ is presented. In this community, actors of four leading Dutch construction firms and the Ministry of Public Works participate in an informal and unofficial setting. This community was established in 2005 and is still active as innovative platform in the infrastructural field. The researchers act as catalyst and project reflector during the different stages of community building. After presentation and analysis of the case, we discuss the results of the case study while reflecting back on the theory, and we illustrate the advantages of considering the blind spots relating to power dynamics in CoP theory.
INTRODUCTION In this chapter we explore the role of power dynamics in the development of Communities of Practice (CoP). Although the process of community building has been described extensively in current CoP literature, power dynamics seem to DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch005
be an underdeveloped field in CoP theory (Contu & Wilmott, 2003; Veenswijk & Chisalita, 2007). We have chosen to explore this topic in the context of innovative projects (so-called Megaprojects) as research shows a strong connection between CoPs and innovative contexts (e.g. Hislop, 2003). Megaprojects refer to large-scale construction building interventions planned at the institutional (public sector) level (for example the construction
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Unraveling Power Dynamics in Communities of Practice
of a High Speed Train rail). However, the lack of success of these interventions have pushed towards alternative types of interventions in which the construction sector itself (private construction companies) is made responsible for improvements through a process of community building. Therefore, Megaprojects offer a rich context in which public and private sector come together (despite their differences), develop a CoP and works towards innovative solutions. After a theoretical evaluation of the CoP concept, a Dutch community of practice case ‘Partners in Business’ is presented. In this community actors of four leading Dutch construction firms and the Department of Public Works and Water Management participate in an informal and unofficial setting. This community was established in 2005 and is active as innovative platform in the infrastructural field. The researchers act as catalysts and project reflectors during the different stages of community building (Wenger, 2000). After the presentation and analysis of the case we discuss the results of the case study, we reflect back on the theory and we illustrate the advantages of considering the blind spots in CoP theory.
Background of the CoP Concept The notion of CoPs is eclectic in the sense that it connects a functional perspective on social relations, culture, and identity to an interpretive view that takes the subjective (and dynamic) construction of meaning for granted. These dual roots also emerge in normative discussions surrounding the use of communities of practice in processes of organizational change (see also Veenswijk & Chisalita, 2007). The notion of community as a connecting entity for organizational practice is widespread in theories of culture, identity, and knowledge accumulation. In recent years, many studies have been conducted on culture as an integrating force and as a fundament of organizational communities in which (various kinds of) knowledge is developed and learning processes are
organized (Martin, 2002). Following the American bestsellers by Senge (1994) and Argyris and Schon (1996) organizational theorists have worked out this approach and have applied it to a wide range of organizational learning and change projects. In addition to their capacity for iterative learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) identify three main aspects that characterize communities of practice: meaning, identity and practice. Meaning refers to the fact that community experiences and learning processes are linked to the praxis and sense-making processes of community members. Objects and events are useful to community actors only if they can ascribe meaning to them and can place them within their own frames of reference. Webs of significance impart a certain order to reality, and this system subsequently achieves certain legitimacy. Sense-making can be described as the number of assumptions concerning reality that are held by an actor and valued in a certain way (Veenswijk, 2001: 55). Identity is essential to understanding the evolution of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). By creating their own discourses (i.e. languages with specific symbols, rituals, and codes) communities are able to operate as recognizable entities within a program of change. Parker (2000) states that identity can be differentiated in terms of “higher and lower” order constellations. Alternative definitions of reality can develop within the various constellations of discourses that may compete with each other. As a result, the situation determines the definition of reality that the actors use when communicating. In patterns of continuous interaction each actor is constantly included in more than one social context. These other contexts are always in the background. An actor can bring definitions of reality that have been developed in a certain configuration into other configurations of which he is a part. The construction and reconstruction of realities are influenced by the inclusion of actors in multiple configurations. The concept of multiple identification can also be found in Tajfel’s (1981)
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work with the concept of social identity. Social identity refers to the self-concept that actors have based on their membership in one or more social groups combined with the emotional value that is attributed to this membership. Actual practice. Practice refers to the idea that members must be able to make the connection between the change discourses in the community and their own everyday praxis. Although these aspects serve as a basic framework for the analysis of CoPs, the variety of contexts in which CoPs evolve as well as the internal dynamics which result from this variety are underdeveloped in the current debate (e.g. Roberts, 2006; Handley et al., 2006). Contu and Willmott (2003) show that, in their original conceptualization of communities of practice, Lave and Wenger (1991) mention the wider context as “political economical structuring”, suggesting a need for further research on how such communities develop and are reproduced within wider contexts that include politico-economic relationships and institutions. Moreover, the theory proposes that concepts such as power relations, ideology, and conflict are important for understanding situated learning. Moreover, the theory proposes that concepts such as power relations, ideology, and conflict are important for understanding situated learning. In order to support this proposition Contu and Wilmott (2003) use Orr’s ethnographic study, which illustrates the importance of considering the broader context (historical, cultural, and social) when attempting to understand the learning and working practices of a community. Other researchers propose to look at context that influence CoP development in terms of different socio-cultural environments such as USA and China (Roberts, 2006).
Research Approach Methodology. In this contribution, we study a community of practice that has developed within the power context of public sector pressure to
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come with results for organizational innovation and collaboration. In order to capture the power dynamics in communities of practice we use an ethnographic qualitative approach. The choice for this research approach is based on the assumption that in a highly ambiguous and complex research field such as public private collaboration, an emic, research mode would be the most natural ‘solution’ to get access to adequate research data and to get a sound understanding of the related power processes (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). More specific, our approach relates to what Alexander (2005) refers to as ‘performance ethnography.’The research setting which we studied, is dominated by aspirations of community members in terms of ‘future perfect’ related concepts of praxis, such as innovation in collaboration and efficiency improvement. Performance ethnography calls a dialogical understanding in which ‘the act of performance fosters identification between dissimilar ways of being without reducing the other to bland sameness, a projection of the performing self (Conquergood, 1986, p.30, see also Alexander, 2005, 411). Performance Ethnography reconstructs cultural performance in three ways: (1) it relates to observable and replicable behavior of cultural members in a particular context. (2) it depends on integrity of relational and ethical acts of ethnographer who describes culture and performer who embodies cultural experience and (3) it calls for a reflexive engagement on the part of participants-actors/audiences to question what they accept as truth and to examine how their truths in and of performance are shaped (Johnson, 2002). The reconstruction of cultural performance can be established in term of a wide variety of themes and issues. Alexander suggests three areas of emphasis, which will also be used in this contribution: content, form and impact (Alexander, 2005). Content relates to the substantive dimension of meaning production and relates to issues regarding core visions, ideas and logic on a specific performance related issue, especially which of the actors from the community serve
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as prime producers of meaning. Form concerns the ways in which the substantive logic is processed and articulated through discursive codes and symbols, as well as the ways in which these symbols are addressed (or denied), while impact concentrates on the question how the community dialogues as such influence the praxis as is represented by partners in the wider context of the PIB community. Related to these areas of emphasis, we concentrate on three (pre-defined) key aspects to cover the power dynamics of community development: (1) narrative capacity (content), (2) interaction resources (form), (3) diffusion possibilities (impact) (see Table 1). While narrative capacity relates to the abilities to influence the meaning production within the community through stories of purpose, relevance and scope, the theme of interaction resources focuses on the ‘gatekeeper’ potential in terms of inclusion and exclusion influencing capacity of community members. Diffusion possibilities relate to the possibilities for anchoring community practices within the broader context. These themes have been explored in a small scale pilot study on power and communities (see Veenswijk & Chisalita, 2007). Data collection. Three methodological instruments to guarantee the reliability of the research instruments and the internal validity have been used. Firstly, various forms of triangulation were applied, including data-, researcher-, and methodological. The methodological triangulation included interviews, observation, participant observation, group interviews, and desk research. Researcher triangulation was used as all interviews and workshops were conducted by at least two researchers, one taking notes, the other doing interviews. All researchers have (long-term) experiences in the infrastructure sector and have occasionally been hired by project managers to work as consultant-researchers. The mixed background of the researchers in engineering, public administration, anthropology and consultancy helped to meet corporate demands, and to collect
Table 1. Schematic overview key aspects power dynamics in CoPs Area of emphasis
Key aspect
Definition
Content
Narrative capacity
Substance for influencing meaning production
Form
Interaction resources
Instruments(s) for influencing community results
Impact
Diffusion possibilities
Possibilities for anchoring new community practices within a broader context
the ethnographic data needed for the study. Data triangulation was applied through the collection of data at different phases, times and amongst different people. In the period from spring 2005 to spring 2008 two rounds of interviews with members of the board of directors from actororganizations were held. Also a series of round tables was conducted at a neutral conference setting located centrally in the Netherlands. A seminar of the community of practitioners on cultural change in the construction industry was attended in 2007. Five interviews were held with project managers, coaches, trainers about their experiences with simulations and gaming in projects. Desk research resulted in the study of internal documents of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and material of the Dutch construction and engineering firms. Secondly, field data was systematically handled and analyzed. During the research, four kinds of field notes were made: observational, theoretical, methodological, and reflective notes. The notes were directly worked out in interview reports.
Introducing the Case This study concentrates on the ‘Partners in Business’ group, a Dutch community of practice that
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was initiated in the aftermath of a parliamentary inquiry on public private collaboration in the construction sector. Parliamentary inquiries and investigations have made it clear that cultural change in the infrastructural chain is imperative (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003). Political and social developments such as privatization and liberalization which lead to the separation of the management and exploitation of infrastructure facilities (Veld et al., 1998) and a focus on public-private forms of collaboration (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003; Klijn & Teisman, 2000; Van Marrewijk & Veenswijk, 2006) coincide with a lack of mutual trust between the government and businesses in the construction sector and confusion about the culture on which this collaboration should be based (Clegg et al., 2002). Essential for this case is the significance of the government in the construction industry, in particular the infrastructure sector (see Construction Industry Review Committee, 2001). In the Netherlands, the government accounts for 90% of all the infrastructural works and is therefore an important (dominant) buyer that can exert great influence on the criteria for granting public work (Priemus, 2004). The present study is an integral part of the larger Next Generation Infrastructure (NGI) research program. The scientific mission of NGI is to develop a generic framework for understanding and steering infrastructure development, enabling systematic cross-sector learning.
Entering the Partners in Business Community The establishment of the Partners in Business (PIB) group was initiated in 2005 by a board member of the department of Public Works and Water Management, in collaboration with two members of the research team. Board members of five private partner-organizations (two construction companies, two engineering companies and a consultant) were asked to participate on an informal basis and contribute to the group development. All of the parties were supposed to make a
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financial contribution in order ‘to be able to make this really happen’. The administrative aspects (such as agenda handling) were in hands of the research team. During the ‘pre’ community stage the current problems in the construction sector were discussed and possibilities for new working practices were explored. The discussions resulted in an initial ‘content aim’ of the group. Community members agreed on a plan to explore new types of collaboration during the tendering of contracts. In this sense a sharp distinction was defined between the ‘insufficient’ actual tendering regime, which resulted from the institutional interventions during the past years, and the espoused ‘future perfect’ situation. In a future perfect strategy actions are perceived as if the ideal situation has already been accomplished (Pitsis et al., 2003). After an extensive group discussion, the ‘current’ situation was summarized as “problematic” in four aspects (see Table 2). The future perfect image was not predefined but should provide an answer to what several group members described as ‘the current culture of distrust’ and result in an innovate tendering routine. One of the potential ‘new’ tendering systems, the so called Design, Build, Finance, Maintain (DBFM) system was brought up by the public actor. In this concept, market parties have integral responsibility for a (mega) project, while public parties limit their involvement to evaluation of specific outcome criteria (such as requested levels of mobility). Although discussion basically concentrated on ‘content aims’, conversations were mingled with notions of who should (Jeannot, 2006) be member of the PIB group. Table 2. Issues in the current situation A lack of overall vision on tendering approach A lack of thrust relation between public sector ‘’client’ organization and private companies Procedural unclearness in the various tendering stages Insufficient insights in necessary public versus market competences
Unraveling Power Dynamics in Communities of Practice
Initially, two potential additional public sector organizations were initiated as candidate members. For numeric arguments (the community may become too large and lose its flexibility) these members were not selected. The case description will be organized in term of four stages ‘storyline’. (1) ‘initiating the core’: description of initial meetings and interaction modes, (2) struggling over ‘meaning and methods’: description of community issues, (3) exploring by gaming: description of alternative collaboration initiatives (4) reattachment and detachment: description of power dynamics in the PIB group..
STAGES IN COMMUNITY BUILDING: (1) INITIATING THE CORE, (2) EXPLORING BY GAMING AND (3) SENSE MAKING BY BUILDING ALTERNATIVES Stage 1: Initiating the Core The first meeting of the PIB group took place in June 2005. Object of the first meeting was to discuss current practices and make sense of experienced problems. The university reflection team was invited to act as moderator and present ‘state of the art’ results of current public-private partnership research. During the first meetings, the participants in the PIB community experienced the need for a safe environment to re-establish trust and reflect upon new cultural practices. One of the participants stated: New initiatives are difficult to start. Both commissioner and contractor point at each other, but are caught in a situation in which both wait for the other to take an initiative. The government delegates tasks to private business, but doesn’t exactly know what the added value of this is. There is a risk that they fall back on earlier methods and practices. The private business has difficulties understanding the government. The definition of
own interest of the public commissioner is not clear and one can’t expect the private companies to define public values. A bridge function between these two distinct worlds is therefore needed. During the first discussions, much emphasis was put on the concept of equality. Equality between commissioner and contractor ‘is needed’ according to most of the participants. Several group members suggested new cooperation images by introduction of alternative metaphors: I think of two metaphors on the rules of the game. The first one is that of an orchestra leaded by the conductor. The other perceives the rules of the game a football match with rules on off-side and positions. (participant of Partners in Business). Or, as another participant quotes: As the execution of contracts has become very litigious a feeling of inequality [between commissioner and contractor] has arisen. (participant of Partners in Business) Also the ways the public sector organization ‘deals’ with private firms was identified as a significant issue. Participants of the private firms stressed the exclusive focus of Dutch government on price. One group member argued that in current situation ‘innovation is being killed because we are being held responsible solely on price’. According to another (private) actor There is a large misunderstanding between the two parties because of misinterpretation of market and political responsibility. Firms need cash flow to survive. The difference with the government is especially in the perception of time and risks. (participant of Partners of Business) Outcome of the first discussions was the joint, leading follow-up question: Can we create a learning environment in which ‘we’(public and private
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partners) can reflect upon our collaboration in a truly open debate? This question guided as focus for the next stage of the community process.
Stage 2: Exploring by Gaming Developing a Virtual 3-D Simulation During the second stage, the quest for ‘practical and workable’ learning formats became emergent. Alternative learning tracks were defined, varying from (a) evaluation of an accomplished Megaproject, which had been executed in the past by community members, to (b) the experimentation of ‘new’ projects. After extensive discussions on potential outcome of these ‘learning tracks’, both alternatives were dismissed by a majority of the group. A ‘third learning track’ was defined by one of the private actors. His main argument was that ‘cutting edge’ learning could only be accomplished by use of unorthodox, new instruments and formats. After extensive discussions, the community members agreed that third track should be developed in an ‘out of the box’ context. In the earlier days the world was perfectly divided: exploration, plan studies, selection, execution. But this doesn’t work anymore. Innovative tendering. Nobody has experience with this, we activate the wrong half of the brain; it doesn’t work. One of the other actors added: In the construction of terminal 5 at the London Airport, the constructors have put money together for risks and organised a simulation to practice the process of cooperation. Why isn’t this happening in the Netherlands? The discussions evolved into a researchers suggestion for creation of a large-scale virtual environment, in which different kinds of ‘new’ concepts could be tested and evaluated. Some of the private sector participants were not enthusiastic about the idea of an extensive virtual
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3-D simulation. One participant wondered ‘if the outcomes of the processes will be different or is just the process different’. He was overruled by the public sector actor, which stated that learning from virtual simulations would have the advantage of substantial time and space creation: I think that one can accelerate decision making procedures. When someone has objections, he can directly show these objections and emotions can be removed. (participant of Partners in Business) Another participant added: This simulation environment should pay attention to the culture of cooperation. Prior to the start of the project the different partners should open their hidden agenda’s and negotiate a shared focus on the project. An independent consultant can help to open these hidden agenda’s. What do the partners want, what are their fears, what mutual images exists? By sharing these topics and reflecting upon the most difficult themes, a culture of cooperation can be established that is full of trust and very productive. Outcome of this stage was that the research team was asked to ‘design’ a virtual multi-actor tendering game, in which future perfect images could be programmed and ‘real life’ lessons could be learned. The researchers accepted the invitation and chose Second Life as a platform for the simulation game.
Stage 3: Sense Making by Building for Builders During the third stage, the ‘second life’ concept was literally transformed into a future perfect collaboration mode. Participants agreed upon the practicality of a simulation game. The game had to result in the development of a procedure, which can be applied in new innovative mega projects.
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But we have apply it somewhere. Otherwise it remains in academic. We have to earn money. Important is to tell that it should lead … to a new kind of tool that really will be used. Otherwise we are lost in space. (participant of Partners in Business) The program has to lead to concrete goals. There is no use to start another discussion board that won’t get anywhere, as there are so many already. (participant in Partners in Business) By now, all community participants were convinced that this ‘track’ contained a ‘true’ promise of creativity and innovation in order to reinvent organizational practice in mega projects. The reason for this was partly located in the fact that actors had to convince members of their own ‘home’ organization, which resulted in additional arguments for the ‘path’ that had to be walked. The concept of Second Life more and more became a ‘mantra’ for the community ‘believers’ and generated a strong sense of emotion and shared exclusiveness. By mid-2007, the researchers had designed a virtual ‘dealing dome’, to which the community partners got exclusive access (every community member got a virtual avatar). The dealing dome is a virtual platform where dialogues (through avatars)
regarding new forms of collaborations are concentrated. The dealing dome was presented in the ‘home organizations’ of the community members, and although the ‘dealing dome’ was designed to serve as functional virtual meeting place for public and private partners, it more and more became a substantial token for the community members and the symbol for new collaboration. By the end of 2007 the public actor and the research team defined a fictional assignment for a new Megaproject that should serve as basis for the simulation, called ‘Zuidas’. Although Zuidas is a real life area in Amsterdam city, the problems in the assignment (mobility, drainage and the quality of subsoil) are fictional. A video film with the assignment was inserted in the dealing dome and six rounds of two hours (see Table 3) were related to this assignment.
Stage 4: Redefining the CoP in an Institutionalized Frame: The Competence Centre After the joint gaming experience, a discussion between the partners started on ‘how the bring the leaning experience to a next level’. There was a shared understanding that the gaming ‘lessons’ should be preserved and become available for a larger group of infrastructural actors. During an
Table 3. Key aspects power dynamics in Partners in Business CoP €Public sector actor
Private sector actors
Research support team
Narrative capacity
Explicit: Main producer innovative CoP concept Initiator DBFM system
Diffuse: Followers of Cop concept (the group of public and private actors who believe that community building is the only way to establish new forms of collaboration) Neutral to DBFM system
Explicit: Co-producer CoP narrative Neutral to DBFM system
Interaction resources
Explicit initiator ‘initial’ group
Explicit: argumentation against group expansion
Neutral
Diffusion possibilities
Explicit: Activation minister and department of Public Works
Explicit: Activation ‘home’ organizations and branch
Diffuse
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informal meeting, the concept of a infrastructural ‘Competence Centre for Cutting Edge Simulation’ was brought up by the public sector actor. For the private sector actors a major dilemma occurred: on the one hand they were keen to share new practices with colleagues from potential alliance partners in a more structural way. On the other hand these potential partners at the same time were possible competitors in other tendering procedures. Consequence was that they felt deadlocked to come up with new initiatives to support this initiative. It was clear that it was the Public sector actor was empowered to take the initiative for a ‘next move’, although all private parties declared they were willing to operate as ‘founding fathers’ of the New Centre. The parties agreed that The Public Sector Actor and the university team should make a ‘broad’ consultation among the main Dutch construction firms to explore which of these firms were to be were included. By the end of 2008 eight private actors actively declared their support to the new competence centre. By spring 2009 an integrative learning program is supposed to be available.
Power dynamics Partners in Business The PIB case shows a process in which the community members are struggling for new forms of meaning by a joint search for future perfect concepts of public-private collaboration. Although meaning production takes place within a broader context of ‘disturbed sector relations’ and definitions of distrust, the group members experience the community as a positive ‘out of the box’ opportunity for new ideas. Indeed, excessive control in organizational networks hinders the development of cooperation and commitment between the partners (Josserand, 2004). The introduction of ‘new’ metaphors such as the orchestra and football match are examples of this process of integrative search for meaning. Evident is that the researchers are part of the meaning process as
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facilitator and ‘constructor’ of (virtual) interaction vehicles. During the process identity is created through a variety of cultural artefacts. The claim of equality is reflected in the definition of the group as being partners, instead of legal public sector representative - versus contractor. This identity is reconfirmed in the different stages of the community process by a series of tokens, such as (equal) financial contributions, the agreement among the partners to take responsibility for one group meeting, joint presentations to the ‘home’ organizations of the second life concept and a shared decision not to include new members to the group. In terms of practice, group members are ‘acting the talk’ by active storytelling in the sector’s networks on the innovative capacity of the PIB group and producing ‘evidence’ by means of inviting the researchers for presentations and workshops on the ‘virtual projects’. At first sight, the integrative capacity of the group goes along with a sense of egalitarian relationships within the PIB community. However, additional analysis implies multiple dimensions of ambiguity, which emerge in the interaction dynamics between the partners. First, while active participation in the community may be interpreted as a sign of ‘true’ involvement, at the same time it provides a strategic opportunity for the private actors to interact on ‘ins and outs’ of current and future public sector assignments. The access to ‘backstage’ information may serve as an important driver for active connection to the group, especially to the public sector actor. This also counts for the ‘gatekeeper’ role, which narrows down the possibilities for external players to become part of the PIB team. Second, from the perspective of the public actor, the idea of a small scale ‘frontline’ innovation community’ seem to be an attractive option. It refers to the idea that the selected private partners are reflections of ‘the’ construction sector while at the same time - ‘the chosen’ - may represent a small elitist group of followers, whose opinions are tied by current daily life contract dependencies. Third, from a
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researchers point of view the PIB community process is a unique possibility to gain insights in the community dynamics in a specific sector. At the same time, the researchers should be sensitive not to be ‘used’ as source of ‘external’ legitimacy to group prescriptions, which are the product of specific sets of group think. This brings us back to the question of this chapter: how does power dynamics relate to the development of public-private communities of practice within the changing organizational context of Megaprojects. In terms of the narrative capacity, we can conclude that all of the community members have specific empowerment potentials, although the vehicles for this are not always explicit. Most obvious is the public sector actor who not only acts as main initiator of the ‘innovative community concept’, but also ‘claims’ that new innovative tendering systems in which complete project responsibilities are outsourced to private sector organizations through DesignBuild-Finance and Maintain (DBFM) contract might be the best innovative future option. The private partners appear to develop as ‘followers’ of the CoP concept. The research team acts as co-producers of the CoP idea by supporting the group process. In terms of interaction resources the public sector actor has a significant role in the initial formulation of ‘potential partners.’ In the process, this is followed by a strong argument by private partners not to expand the size of the group. It is remarkable that in terms of development of a new collaborative culture none of the actors has a clear vision on substantial outcome. For the researchers, espoused outcomes are defined in scientific terms and the vehicles for this are basically situated in the exclusive know how for building the 3D-simulation. In terms of diffusion possibilities the options are explicit, varying from activating political actors by the public sector actor to the inclusion of relevant actors within the home organization. In Table 3 we use the key power dynamics aspects in CoP framework (see Table 1) in order to model the findings of the case.
CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have explored the development process of the ‘innovative’ PIB community in a context of disturbed public-private relationships in the construction industries of Megaprojects. The research shows that power dynamics plays an important role in the various defined aspects of empowerment. This starts with the initial invitation and selection of the participating private sector ‘parners’ by the the Public sector actor and his judgement that these partners can contribute to an innovation process. This ‘act’ of inclusion not only defines the status of the group members, but also enforces them to think of criteria for being a ‘successful’ member of the community. The findings of this study further suggest that during the process of community building, community members may use project narratives as a means to engage individual organization members in a dialogue that recognises the validity of different experiences, rather than as a means to create closed and fixed templates for future work practices. If we accept the view that reform strategies and narratives are scripts against which organizational members improvise, the dominant narrative of change should not be regarded as a framework that has to be implemented, but rather as a sensitizing or steering concept that initiates dialogues and helps to develop new practices (see also Veenswijk & Berendse, 2008). In this light, competing narratives are sense-making efforts, rather than implementation gaps. Exchanging competing narratives encourages organization members to reflect upon the possibilities and challenges of change, precisely because of their differences. Our study also shows that there is also a strong pressure to institutionalize rather ambiguous processes surrounding Community building in more or less ‘objectified’ constructs like Competence Centre(s) in which new power related orders are reflected. Reflecting back on Wenger’s (1998) theory of CoP, these aspects resemble, at least to some extent, the concepts of (internal and exter-
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nal) re-configuration of a community. Wenger, however, does not develop these concepts further, as we do in this research. The case study we have presented indicates the relevance of considering such concepts as power dynamics to CoP theory. Enriched in this way, CoP theory can account for both the internal and external development of communities (in terms of empowerment), as well as the conditions that constitute a favourable context for such development. It can also explain how the bottom-up process of change that was induced by the PIB community took place within the organizational life-world. Although these findings do not represent generalizations, they still give a valuable insight in the relevance of the phenomena investigated in a particular situation. The results of this research illustrate how a community of practice can take advantage of certain external conditions and engage in a process of internal and external development, thus changing its position and identity within the organizational life-world. In this sense, insights provided by this research may open new directions to the body of knowledge surrounding CoP theory.
REFERENCES
Clegg, S. R., Pitsis, T. S., Rura-Polley, T., & Marosszeky, M. (2002). Governmentality Matters: Designing an Alliance Culture of Inter-organizational Collaboration for Managing Projects. Organization Studies, 23(3), 317–338. doi:10.1177/0170840602233001 Conquergood, D. (1986). Performance and Dialogical Understanding. In Palmber, J. L. (Ed.), Communication as Performance. Temple. Construction Industry Review Committee. (2001). Construct for Excellence. Hong Kong: Construction Industry Review Committee. Contu, A., & Willmott, H. (2003). Re-Embedding Situatedness: The Importance of Power Relations in Learning Theory. Organization Science, 14(3), 283–296. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.3.283.15167 Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., & Rothengatter, W. (2003). Megaprojects and Risk. An anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge University Press. Handley, K., Sturdy, A., Fincham, R., & Clarck, T. (2006). Within and Beyond Communities of Practice: Making Sense of Learning Through Participation, Identity and Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 641–653. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00605.x
Alexander, B. K. (2005). Performance Ethnography, the Reenacting and Inciting of Culture. In Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 411–441). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hislop, D. (2003). The complex relations between communities of practice and the implementation of technological innovations. International Journal of Innovation Management, 7(2), 163–188. doi:10.1142/S1363919603000775
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity Regulation as Organization Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619–644. doi:10.1111/14676486.00305
Jeannot, G. (2006). Diffusing values or adjusting practices? A review of research on French public utilities. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 19(6), 598–608. doi:10.1108/09513550610686005
Argyris, C., & Schon, D. A. (1996). Organizational Learning II: theory, method and practice. Amsterdam: Addison Wesley.
Josserand, E., Clegg, S. R., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. S. (2004). Friends or foes? Practicing collaboration - an introduction. Management, 7(3), 37–45.
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Klijn, E. H., & Teisman, G. R. (2000). Governing Public-Private Partnerships: Analysing and Managing the Processes and Institutional Characteristics of Public-Private Partnerships. In Osborne, S. P. (Ed.), Public Private Partnerships: Theory and Practice in International Perspective. London: Routledge. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate perigheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, J. (2002). Organizational culture: mapping the terrain (2nd print ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Orr, J. E. (1996). Talking about machines: an etnography of a modern job. London: Cornell University Press. Parker, M. (2000). Organizational Culture and Identity. London: Sage. Pitsis, T., Clegg, S. R., Marosszeky, M., & Rura-Polley, T. (2003). Constructing the Olympic Dream: A Future Perfect Strategy of Project Management. Organization Science, 14(5), 574–590. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.5.574.16762
Van Marrewijk, A. H. (2005). Strategies of Cooperation. Commitment and Control in a Megaproject. Management, 8(4), 89–104. Veenswijk, M. (2001). The dynamics of cultural change in public organisations. Amsterdam: Rozenberg. Veenswijk, M., & Berendse, M. (2008). Constructing new working practices through project narratives. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 1, 68–86. doi:10.1504/ IJPOM.2008.020029 Veenswijk, M., & Chisalita, C. M. (2007). The importance of power and ideology in communities of practice. The case of a de-marginalized user interface design team in a failing multi-national design company. Information Technology & People, 20(1), 32–52. doi:10.1108/09593840710730545 Veld, R. I., T., Heuvelhof, E., T. & Bruijn, H. D. (1998). Procesmanagement: over procesontwerp en besluitvorming. Schoonhoven: Academic Service. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Priemus, H. (2004). Dutch contracting fraud and governance issues. Building Research and Information, 32(4), 306–312. doi:10.1080/0961321042000221089
Wenger, E., & Snyder, W., M. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier. Harvard Business Review, 139–145.
Roberts, J. (2006). Limits of Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 624–639. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00618.x
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Senge, P. M. (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: strategies and toold for building and learning organization. New York: Doubleday. Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories. London: Cambridge University Press. Van Marrewijk, A., & Veenswijk, M. (2006). The Culture of Project Management. Understanding Daily Life in Complex Megaprojects. London: Prentence Hall Publishers / Financial Times.
Narratives of Change: Discourses about change in organization containing the vision on change of a certain actor, they are meta-stories which define regimes of truth. Narratives of change regulate the process of cultural change, are constructed by different organizational actors and can be competitive. Community Development: Refers to the process in which a Community of practice develops
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and grow by building on shared meanings, identity and practice. Identity Formation: Refers to the process of identity construction through a variety of cultural artifacts. Interorganizational Collaboration: Refers to the process of collaboration between different organizations (in our case: organizations from Public en Private sector).
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Virtual Simulation: Refers to the process by which a certain aspect of reality is simulated in an virtual world/environment in such a way that participants can explore it and perform tests on that aspect as this it would be in the real world.
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Chapter 6
Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures Sandra Sanz Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain Mario Pérez-Montoro University of Barcelona, Spain
ABSTRACT In recent years, the interest in and development of communities of practice (CoPs) has undergone exponential growth. However, this uncontrolled expansion has, to a large extent, led to the name of community of practice being attributed to working groups or communities that are not communities of practice. The aim of this work is to shed a little light on this confusion and identify and characterise communities of practice compared with other types of groups or organizational structures. To achieve this aim, first of all, we are going to introduce an intuitive and agreed definition of community of practice. In a second movement, we will identify and define the principal groups or organizational structures that are used, besides communities of practice, by organizations to improve their strategies when meeting these aims that they are pursuing. We will then present a comparison between these organizational structures or groups and communities of practice. The chapter ends by offering a number of conclusions and providing some guidelines on the future development of communities of practice.
INTRODUCTION In recent years, we have been witnessing the appearance of a new scenario in organizations in which information and knowledge have become benchmark economic assets. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch006
There are many interpretative proposals that attempt to identify the reasons that justify this new situation. In any event, and even though the whole is very wide, there are two variables, one of a technological nature and the other of a more directly economic nature, that may justify these changes.
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On the one hand, a series of new information and communication technologies have permitted the access, management and intensive use of information and knowledge to previously unknown levels. Furthermore, we find that the evolution of the market of these technologies has ended up allowing their costs now to be accessible to the majority of medium and small companies. On the other hand, a new economic panorama, presided over by the globalization of markets and a new culture of competitiveness, has also been consolidated. In this new economic scenario, companies design new policies of alliances and of organizational culture that may serve as a strategy of adaptation to this new and changing environment. The intangible – and not just the material – assets of companies begin to be understood as that added value that can ensure their correct operation and survival in globalized markets. Within this economic perspective, and motivated in part by the need to look for new organizational strategies to tackle and survive the phenomenon of the globalization of markets, a new discipline is emerging: Knowledge Management. This new management strategy can be understood as the discipline responsible for designing and implementing systems aimed at systematically identifying, capturing and sharing the knowledge involved in an organization so that it can be converted into a value for the organization. In this new organizational context, the interest in and development of communities of practice (CoPs) has undergone exponential growth caused in many cases – although not all – by knowledge management itself. The need to manage that part of the professional experiences and practices of the members of an organization where conventional knowledge management systems do not reach has led to its spreading like wildfire. The words of Richard McDermott, “the key to driving change towards sharing knowledge probably lies in communities of practice” (McDermott 1999), have in some way become the abracadabra of many entrepreneurs who have seen in communities of
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practice the solution to many of their problems. From being a term very much restricted to university spheres and just a few organizations, it has spread unstoppably to all environments: professional or otherwise. This uncontrolled expansion has, to a large extent, led to the name of community of practice being attributed to working groups or communities that are not. The aim of this work is to shed a little light on this confusion and identify and characterise communities of practice compared with other working teams or groups, and compared with other types of communities such as communities of learning and communities of interest. In order to achieve these aims, we will be pursuing the following strategy. We are first of all going to introduce an intuitive, and to some extent agreed, definition of community of practice. This definition will enable us to be aware of the principal characteristics that describe this type of community. In a second movement, we will identify and define the principal organizational groups that, besides communities of practice, are used by organizations to improve their strategies when meeting the aims that they are pursuing. We will then present a comparison between these organizational structures or groups and communities of practice. The chapter ends by offering a number of conclusions and providing some guidelines on the future development of communities of practice.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE No one now doubts that the subject of communities of practice arouses increasingly more interest in the academic field and in that of professional consultancy. However, this widespread interest is simultaneously bringing about a curious and, to some extent, perverse phenomenon. As occurred with the term “information” in the 1980s and 1990s, in recent years the expression “Community of Practice” has become a clear example of a buzz
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word. In other words, it has become an expression that more and more people are using but which, sadly, very few people know exactly what they are referring to when they use it. Endless companies, consultants, e-learning specialists, Human Resources department managers, among many others, state that they are currently working with this type of strategy. None of them, each with their particular focus, has the slightest hesitation in declaring their unconditional submission to this new enterprise when, often regrettably, they are not at all certain of what it consists or the extent of this type of community. Amid this sea of confusion, the term Communities of Practice ends up being continuously applied to other types of groups or communities or even work activities that very often have nothing to do with them. Probably one of the reasons that led Wenger and Snyder, two of the most prestigious authors who have theorized about the universe of this special type of community, to write their article “Communities of practice: the organizational frontier” (Wenger and Snyder, 2000) was the desire to try to put an end to this. However, the confusion and the application of the concept continues to rise. The more known the term becomes, the worse the use that is made of it in the non-specialist environments. Despite the fact that in the scientific literature, the authors coincide in defining communities of practice in very similar terms (although always with small nuances), when transferred to organizational environments or seminars, and even more so to the Internet, we have been able to detect that the application of the concept of community of practice is very often incorrect. In this sense, it should be no surprise that, for example, in many of the workshops on communities of practice that are given to those in charge of knowledge management in companies, cases that are very far from being CoPs may be presented as examples to illustrate the sessions. Or that in talks or lectures, participants can hurry to identify initiatives for the creation of working groups of a different nature
in their companies as genuine Communities of Practice. Or that texts appear on the Internet on supposed experiences that are christened as CoPs without they really being so. Yet, what really is a community of practice? Ever since Etienne Wenger coined the term in the book published with Jane Lave entitled Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation (Cambridge University Press, 1991), many authors have defined the concept. Consequently, for example, Wenger himself, along with Snyder (2000), later defined it as “a group of people who meet informally to share their experience and passion for a common enterprise.” In 2002, he extended and improved this definition in the book that he published with McDermott and Snyder (Cultivating Communities of practice) as follows: “groups of people that share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” According to Sergio Vásquez (2002) “a community of practice is a group of people linked by a common, recurring and stable practice whereby they learn in this common practice.” Also, Lesser and Storck (2003) defined it as follows: “a community of practice is a group whose members regularly engage in sharing and learning, based on their common interests.” While John Seely Brown (2003) in the 5th Annual Braintrust Knowledge Management Summit in San Francisco defined CoPs as “a group of people with different functions and viewpoints, committed to joint work over a significant period of time during which they construct objects, solve problems, learn, invent and negotiate meanings and develop a way of reading mutually.” We could extend this list of definitions and ascertain that they can reach considerable dimensions. In any event, it is clear that two defining aspects concur in all of them: commitment and common interest. In short, communities of practice are a group of people who carry out the same professional activity or responsibility and who, concerned with a common problem or moved by
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a common interest, expand their knowledge and expertise in this matter through ongoing interaction (Sanz, 2008). However, despite the best efforts of these authors to offer a comprehensive definition of them, it is clear that CoPs continue to be confused with other types of communities such as learning communities or interest and with other organisation-related groups such as formal or informal groups and working teams: problemsolving, multidisciplinary or virtual.
OTHER ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES In the context of organisations, it is often the custom to create and develop small groups or communities (in short, organisational structures) to improve internal operations and so meet the desired aims more adequately. Communities of Practice constitute a special type of these organisational structures. However, if we put this type of community to one side and take another look at the different strategies commonly implemented in organisations, we can identify three large types of groupings or organisational structures: groups, working groups and communities. Broadly speaking, and in intuitive terms and for any context, communities can be defined as sets, groupings or congregations of people who live together under certain constitutions and rules. However, if we are talking about groups and teams, we need to understand them as groups of people brought together for specific research or a specific service. The element that certainly most clearly differentiates groups and teams from communities is that the former work to achieve an aim, which is what binds them together and is their raison d’être. However, in communities the fact of sharing is what defines them. They share things: zones, services or interests. For example, in the case of a
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community of owners, this is the common use of the shared building; and in an educational community, the services and interests of the training centre. There is no specific aim other than that they form part of something that is common to others or that is of interest to everyone. You may be chosen to become part of a group or team, but not to become part of a community. You will be part of a community simply by being in it, by sharing things with it, by being governed by its more or less explicit rules. If we now turn our attention to the context of organisations, we can identify a series of different types of groups, working teams and communities. Among the main group types, we can identify formal and informal working groups. Among the working teams, we can identify problem-solving working teams, self-managed teams, multidisciplinary teams and virtual teams. However, for communities we can identify communities of interest, learning communities and communities of practice.
Groups In most cases, communities of practice develop at the very heart of the organisation. It is not difficult therefore to confuse them with the groups that are deployed within this context. In the context of organisations, groups should be seen as organisational structures that comprise two or more individuals, who interact, are inter-dependent and who have combined to meet specific aims. In this type of context, groups are usually allocated a series of functions and are used to carry out certain organisational strategies. As a result, they are particularly suited to modifying behaviour, attitudes and values and to disciplining their members. They can in fact be used to exert pressure on members who fail to comply with the rules to make them do so. In addition to this, they are also useful in decision-making and negotiation. Members with different back-
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grounds can contribute different perspectives to the decision-making process. However, this does not mean that group decisions are always better than individual decisions. There is a nucleus of common characteristics that, in part at least, define the groups in organisational contexts. These include the fact that they tend to present certain internal communication patterns. This communication can be channelled through a key member or flow freely among all the members of a group. On the other hand, another typical characteristic is that when group interactions are efficient they can influence motivation. If, for example, the members of a group take part in establishing objectives, they will probably make a greater commitment to meeting group goals. Leadership also plays an important role in the context of group processes. Understanding the concepts that refer to groups helps understand the interactions between leaders and followers and also the interactions between all group members. Finally, groups also offer clear advantages to the individuals that comprise them. They offer social satisfaction to their members, the same as a sense of belonging and support for the needs of individuals, they promote communication and they provide security. We should stress that a wide variety of groups, whose composition, functions and other properties differ significantly, coexist within the organisational context. In this sense, groups in organisational contexts can be classified in many ways and according to different criteria. The general criteria (that are not exclusive in nature) that are most commonly used to classify them are temporality, purpose, hierarchy and activity. According to the time criterion, two different types of groups can be identified based on the type of stability in the relationships that bind their members together: permanent and temporary groups. Permanent groups are seen as being stable in time and are responsible for the everyday operating and maintenance tasks of the organisation. The time permanency of these groups does not prevent
changes being made to their composition. A good example of this is the different departments that make up a company. However, temporary groups (created ad hoc) are designed to carry out transitory tasks, projects or activities. The group has a limited duration and breaks up once its function is complete or it has achieved its aim. This could be a research and development group, a study commission, an advisory committee, etc. In addition, according to the purpose criterion, and based on the aims to be achieved, four different types of groups can be identified in these contexts: production groups, problem-solving groups, conflict-resolution groups and organisational change and development groups. In production groups, their members undertake specific work together. These are the departments and units of the organisation. Problem-solving groups focus on specific problems of the organisation. Quality circles or project study groups are clear examples of these types of groups. Conflict-resolution groups tackle situations of confrontation between the different parts of the organisation or the organisation with the outside world. Essentially, they are negotiation groups. Finally, organisational change and development groups include different groups and group techniques. These include training groups, team development groups and awareness groups. According to a hierarchical criterion, two different types of groups can also be identified based on the location within the organisational structure: vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation groups. Vertical differentiation groups comprise members, who, in turn, belong to different organisation structures ranging from senior management (“strategic apex”), through middle management groups (“middle line”) to non-managerial groups (“operating core”). Horizontal differentiation groups, however, coincide with the different functional groups. These are groups that provide specialist services (in terms of production, research, etc.), based on specific skills, and temporary committees, created with
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different missions, which are essentially to advise and take decisions. Finally, according to the activity, two different types of working groups can be identified: group activity groups and individual activity groups. Group activity groups are team groups with interdependent tasks, group aims and incentives, stable relationships, etc. However, individual activity groups are dominated by individual activity and values. Members are linked together by little more than sharing a space, a task, professional speciality or reporting to the same boss. A “sales team” in which, among other conditions, individual commissions are awarded (which generates competition among its members), could be seen as a clear example of this final type. Putting these general criteria of temporality, purpose, hierarchy and activities to one side, the specialist literature contains a certain consensus for accepting and arranging organisational groups according to the degree of formality that characterises them. This classification has been suggested by Robbins (2008) and also coincides with the classification also suggested by authors Hellriegel and Slocum (2008). According to this classification, groups can be arranged by two large categories: formal and informal groups. Formal groups are defined by the organisational structure, with a number of work allocations designed that establish tasks. In these groups, the behaviour that members should commit to is stipulated by and aimed at organisational goals. The six members of a flight crew are an example of a formal group. These groups are defined and planned to achieve the aims of the organisation. Departments or commissions, for example, irrespective of other criteria, share their formal character. Command and task groups are stipulated in these departments or commissions. Command groups are determined by the company organisation chart. This comprises subordinates who report directly to an appointed manager. Task groups are also determined by the organisation and represent
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employees who carry out specific types of work. These are also known as functional groups. In contrast, informal groups are presented as alliances that are not formally structured, nor are they determined by the organisation. These groups are natural formations within the work environment that appear in response to the need for social contact. Three employees from different departments who almost always have lunch together are an example of an informal group. Spontaneous relationships occur between the members of the organisation and are geared towards meeting the personal and social needs of its components. Groups that are created through friendship or attraction, groups of people who share the same problem, can be examples of this type. Interest groups and friends groups can be identified in informal groups. Interest groups are members of the organisation who may join together to achieve a specific aim of common interest (such as exchanging holidays or improving their salary conditions). In friends groups, however, their members share specific characteristics, such as similar age or origins, and they frequently go beyond the work context.
Working Teams Stephen P. Robbins (2004) places special interest on differentiating working teams from working groups. According to this author, a working group is one where its members primarily interrelate to share information and to take decisions in such a way as to be able to help each member to develop in their area of responsibility. Its performance is merely the sum of the contribution of each member of the group. There is not the necessary positive synergy to create a general level of performance greater than that of the sum of its contributions. However, in the case of teams, this positive synergy is created through a coordinated effort, whereby the sum of its individual efforts is greater. Management seeks this positive synergy that will enable their organisations to increase performance. The
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extensive use of teams creates the potential for an organisation to generate greater results without an increase in contributions. Teams can be classed on the basis of their objectives. The three most common forms of team that are found in an organisation are problem-solving teams, self-managed teams and multidisciplinary teams. In problem-solving teams, members share ideas or offer suggestions on how to improve work processes and methods. Rarely, however, do they have the authority to put any of their suggested actions into practice. One example of problem-solving teams are quality circles. Self-managed teams, in contrast, are groups of employees (normally between 10 and 15) who take on the responsibilities of their former supervisors. Generally speaking, this includes work planning and scheduling, collective control over work pace, taking operational decisions and the execution of the actions on the problems. Completely selfmanaged working teams even select their own members and make them assess each other’s performance. Finally, multidisciplinary teams are made up of employees of the same hierarchical level but from different work divisions, who meet to carry out a task. Multidisciplinary teams are an efficient means of allowing people from different divisions in an organisation (or even between organisations) to exchange information, develop new ideas and solve problems, and coordinate complex projects. It is also important to point out that Robbins (2004) distinguishes a fourth a kind of team that he calls virtual teams, which use computational technology to bring together physically dispersed members with the aim of achieving a common objective. These teams may do the same as the other teams, such as exchange information, take decisions, complete tasks and also include other members from the same organisation or connect them with employees from other organisations, e.g. suppliers or partners. They may meet for a
few days to solve a problem, for a few months to complete a project or they may exist permanently.
Communities As we mentioned, communities can be identified as the third type of organisational structure, along with working groups and working teams, which are usually developed to improve the correct operation of organisations. If we leave communities of practice to one side, we can distinguish two large types of community: learning communities and communities of interest. We will begin by describing learning communities. Learning communities are contexts in which the students learn thanks to their participation and involvement, in collaboration with other students, the teacher and other adults, in genuine processes of research and collective construction of knowledge on personal and socially relevant questions (Onrubia, 2004). The premise on which the idea of classrooms as learning communities is based is the consideration that individual learning is, to a large extent, inseparable from the collective construction of knowledge, and that this collective construction constitutes the context, the platform and the basic support so that each student can advance in their own knowledge. In line with this, the activity of the classrooms that are structured as learning communities is not organised, as in traditional classrooms, around the teacher conveying specific pre-established content, but around research processes on specific subjects previously agreed between teacher and students, and which teacher and students tackle jointly and collaboratively. These processes can take diverse specific forms, such as the creation of projects, case analysis, situation-problem solving or preparing products which will be presented in public. The true and relevant nature of the situations, activities and tasks based on collaborative knowledgeconstruction processes that are carried out in the classrooms that are structured as learning
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communities are specified in a whole series of traits that radically define the traits that typically characterise the activity in traditional classrooms (Onrubia, 2004). Consequently, in a classroom organised as a learning community, teacher and students commonly tackle global and complex tasks, the resolution of which demands the combined use of knowledge and skills of various types. Considering within this framework the diversity of the students as an essential resource for favouring learning and benefitting somewhat, traditional teaching could never enable students to acquire the same knowledge in the same way and at the same time. This way, for example, students in a subject such as physics learn to resolve the exercises together and share the way of understanding the concepts in such a way that the ones who find it more difficult to reason and understand the process of how to solve a problem can solve them by listening to their classmates. And this way, they all learn at the same time. Within this educational context, it is also important to note that it is not possible to obviate the influence of e-learning on the growing interest in communities. In training platform classrooms conceived by some large companies or on the forums of some intranets it is relatively frequent to share the process of assimilation of new skills or new knowledge. In the sphere of secondary education, the use of learning communities as a training resource is becoming increasingly more frequent. To conclude this characterisation, we should make it clear that learning communities are not reserved exclusively for teaching classrooms and education but can clearly be exported to organisational contexts. However, we should not forget that in these contexts too, the knowledge that is conveyed continues to be linked to concepts or subjects and not to “ways of doing”. For example, the case may arise that a learning community emerges around a new IT tool that an organisation has acquired, and that a number of colleagues
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decide to help each other to learn how it works more quickly. It is clear that we are not speaking of communities of practice because there is not the desire to share experience or to tackle or solve some task or other, but the process of learning how to use new software. The learning community will end when all the members know how to use the new tool. If we remember the Wenger and Snyder article (2000), communities of practice are not bound to the end of a project or specific objective. We will now go on to describe communities of interest. Just as the learning communities are largely linked to e-learning, the communities of interest are part of the heart of the Internet. Scientists were the first to use the Internet to share data, cooperate in research and exchange information. However, as of the second half of the 1990s, this use has extended to other interests. Certainly, without looking any further, the “fan” phenomenon has also been one of its greatest driving forces: rock fans, film buffs, avid readers, and so on. Today, the casuistries are infinite. From cancer patients who share how to face the effects of chemotherapy (the Hospital Clínico in Barcelona, Spain) is running an initiative that is as brilliant as it is valuable in this sense) to mothers’ groups who share breastfeeding and ante-natal preparation techniques or information about nurseries and schools (as is the case, for example, on the forum of the Crianza Natural Spanish website), besides being able to buy childcare, breastfeeding, etc. products online. Communities of interest share a common interest or passion. The interests may be as varied as the hobbies or casuistries of people. However, the common interest is not the professional practice and although they share techniques or ways of doing things, the common focus does not revolve around learning a specific aspect. Another of their distinctive characteristics, as defended by Amstrong, A. and Hagel, J. (2000), is the mutual lack of acquaintance between their members. Although face-to-face meetings of small groups between members belonging to the community are relatively frequent, it is more common for a
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member not to know the majority of their colleagues personally. It is even highly probable that they do not know any of them.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE COMPARED WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES Up to now, we have introduced a general and intuitive definition of communities of practice and we have made a characterisation of some of the principal structures or groups, besides communities of practice, that are used by organisations to improve their strategies when meeting the objectives that they are pursuing. We will now make a comparative analysis between some of these organisational structures and communities of practice. However, we are not going to make a comparative analysis between every single one of the structures described and communities of practice, but we are going to limit ourselves to comparing only those groups that, due to their special nature, may be confused with communities of practice: formal task groups, problem-solving teams, multidisciplinary teams, virtual teams, learning communities and communities of interest. In order to complete this analysis, we are first going to extract a series of characterisation elements that will allow us to make a synthetic characterisation of all the organisational structures chosen and then present, in a more experiential form, a comparative analysis. The characterisation elements that we will be using can be classed in two large general groups or categories: organisational elements (type of leadership, connection with the organisation’s processes and cohesion factor) and practical implementation elements (size, virtuality, calendar of meetings, time limitation). All of these elements, with the occasional aid of some illustrative cases, will allow us later to identify clearly the differ-
ences and similarities between each one and so complete our comparative analysis.
Synthetic Characterisation of Some Organisational Structures We will begin by defining the formal group. These groups need conventional, recognised and active leadership. The task to be carried out is what keeps them together. It is one of the most numerous of the working groups, with between 13 and 16 people, because it is felt that the more members the better and the quicker they can complete the task if each member specialises in one thing. Virtuality is minimal in these groups and the pace of meetings is frequent. The groups will be kept together until the next company reorganisation. On the other hand, the problem-solving team works more autonomously, and the leader delegates in the team or a team member. The team works until the problem is solved. To ensure its ability to solve and its agility, it is a good idea for these groups not to exceed 12 people, although 10 or fewer members is advised. Virtuality may be partial, yet at the same time it will be necessary to meet frequently, at least twice a week. In the multidisciplinary team, as in the case of the problem-solving team, leadership is delegated in the actual team. The desirable number of members should be around 10 people. They can work virtually although they will need the faceto-face characteristic to meet frequently. And the achievement of the proposed objective, to solve a process, will be the end of the team. On the other hand, in the virtual team, the project commissioned is the cohesion factor of its members, which they themselves lead. Virtuality enables communication with a larger number of people, overcoming space-time limitations, so virtual teams are usually bigger. Although it is probable that they need to meet from time to time, they can operate almost exclusively virtually. Its members will be affected by the next reorganisa-
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tion, although virtuality fosters long-lasting work relationships. For a learning community to work, by contrast, it is suitable to have the figure of an animator or moderator, as in the case of the communities of practice. What keeps its members together is the learning object and this disappears when they have learned what they were seeking to learn. The ideal number of members is between 20 and 25, which ensures that the contents are assimilated at more or less the same pace. It is not necessary to meet, as the community can work perfectly without the need for meetings By contrast, communities of interest do not need any type of leadership, as it is the interest that moves their members. Each one gets out what they have come looking for, exchanges information, acquires the articles they need, etc. Moderation/ animation makes no sense in this context. This type of community is very big in terms of number of members, they work entirely virtually and their members are a part of it for as long as they find a reason to be connected with it. Finally, within this same synthetic layout, in communities of practice the role of the moderator/animator is vital to ensure their success. It is necessary for a member respected by the rest to control the interventions and the subjects proposed and to urge all the members to participate. In addition, in virtual communities of practice, moderators have an even more valuable role as they are responsible for organising the knowledge that is exchanged, saving the files that have been provided, summarising the contributions made, etc. It is a very similar mission to that of the moderator of learning communities. The cohesion factor is the desire to share professional practice, share their experience with other colleagues and benefit from the expertise of the others. This interest can last a lifetime because there will always be new things to learn and share, and the commitment of their members is too strong a bond. In order for the exchange of knowledge to be sufficiently rich, it is desirable for the number of participants
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to be considerable, between a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 80. Neither is it desirable for the number to be too big as it would then become an unmanageable community. If the CoPs are virtual, and it is desirable for them to be so – although we should not forget that there are also face-toface communities of practice that are absolutely valid – they do not need face-to-face meetings at all. Table 1 offers a synthesis of the characterisation of all the organisational structures analysed.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Once the synthetic characterisation of the organisational structures is complete, we are going to offer a comparative analysis of all of them and the communities of practice. We will start with the similarities and differences between the formal task group and the communities of practice. As we have already said, these groups have an assigned fixed, highly specific task that they have to carry out. For example, a company’s Human Resources Department will probably have more than one formal task group in operation: selection, hiring, payrolls, risk prevention, training. This very specific factor which may probably lead to a high level of specialisation is at the heart of a possible confusion between these groups and communities of practice, perhaps due to the level of skill that they may achieve. But not even these teams’ own synergy, which will perhaps lead to confusion that is more difficult to untangle with regard to CoPs, occurs in this type of groups. This is because they are simply a group of people who work together every day on a set of continuous and interdependent tasks. Their duration as a team is totally dependent on the coming reorganisation and there is no commitment among them. We will now compare problem-solving groups with communities of practice. One of the most common applications for problem-solving teams during the 1980s was quality circles. These are
Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures
Table 1. Synthetic characterisation of some organisational structures Type of leadership
Cohesion factor
Size
Virtuality
Calendar of meetings
Time limitation
Formal Task Group (or functional team)
Formal
Task to carry out
13-16 per.
Minimal
Frequent
Until the next reorganisation
Problem-Solving Team
Delegated
Problem to solve
8-12 per.
Partial
Very frequent
Until the problem is solved
Multidisciplinary Team
Delegated
Processes to improve
8-12 per.
Partial
Very frequent
Until the process is improved
Virtual Team
Delegated
Task to carry out
15-30 per.
Total
Practically non-existent
Until the next reorganisation
Learning Community
Moderator/animator
Learning
20- 25 per.
Total
Non-existent
Until the knowledge has been acquired
Community of Interest
________
Interest
100500 per.
Total
Non-existent
While the interest lasts
Community of Practice
Moderator/animator
Sharing professional practice
50-80 per.
Total
Non-existent
While the interest and the commitment of its members last
teams of 8 to 10 employees and supervisors who have a shared area of responsibility and who meet regularly to discuss problems, recommend solutions and take corrective actions. Described like this, many would consider this a CoP, as their respective definitions seem to coincide. But that is not the case. There are a number of clear characteristics, which we have described above that at first glance would not fit in: they have fewer members than CoPs, there is no clear leader which, unlike the communities of practice, these teams do not need and the time limitation that depends on problems being solved. However, the clearest element that sets them apart is the cohesion factor: the aim of the team is to solve one or more problems, in short, to achieve their aim. To do this, they meet as many times as necessary, but there is no desire to share their expertise nor is there any commitment with regard to other members of the group. The group’s purpose is to solve the problem posed to them and once solved they will not maintain contact nor will they exchange information until there is a new problem to solve.
We will now look at the comparison between multidisciplinary teams and communities of practice. Many companies have used horizontal teams without frontiers for decades. For example, IBM created a huge temporary multidisciplinary team in the 1960s, which included employees from the different departments in the company to develop its highly successful 360 System. Similarly, committees made up of members from all departmental lines are another example of a multidisciplinary team. These teams are clearly distinguished from communities of practice – as well as from the key factor of being a team they are motivated by a specific aim – in that their members do not belong to the same area of speciality. This makes it impossible to share their professional practice and, therefore in this sense, for an exchange of expertise to occur. The similarities and differences between learning communities and communities of practice, although fewer, are also clear. The frontier between communities of practice and learning communities is diffuse, but we feel that there is a factor that distinguishes them clearly. The former occur and
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are understood in the context of organisations or professions. In other words, they belong to everyday work, to everyday professional practice, hence the name community of practice. However, learning communities are confined to the teaching profession and the process of assimilating concepts and subjects, but there are a number of additional features that help us differentiate between them. As a result, for example, the difference in the number of members in learning communities is less than for CoPs and also, unlike communities of practice, learning communities come to an end when the target knowledge of the learning process has been acquired. Besides this, they coincide fully in the possibility of a total virtuality should there be a preference for face-to-face and also the need for a moderator/animator. As in the case of CoPs, this figure is vitally important to ensure the functioning of learning communities. We will conclude this analysis by comparing communities of interest and communities of practice. Communities of interest share information and experiences and these may or may not be connected with professional practice. For example, at http://cnx.org professionals associated with education collaborate to share open educational resources and share news information concerning these resources. Also, http://eprints.reclis.org contains the first open content repository, specifically for libraries. These two examples are closely associated with the profession, but at no point do they go deeply into its knowledge or skill, but they do share information, news and resources. As we said above, communities of interest are clearly an Internet-derived product. This type of community only exists in a virtual sense and what usually occurs is that a members does not personally know the majority of their colleagues. It is even highly likely that they do not know any of them. This is in contrast to learning communities and communities of practice, where their members do know each other prior to the start of the community. However, one characteristic that communities of interest and communities of practice have in com-
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mon is that the time limitation of these two types of community constitutes the end of the interest. Although these characteristics are long-lasting in the case of communities of interest, and interest is renewed. When one member stops connecting, it is very easy for a new member to appear.
Some Illustrative Cases Our exposition would be incomplete were we not to offer some cases that illustrate the ideas set out so far. To meet this objective, we are going to give a brief presentation of two Spanish cases that we feel to be paradigmatic with regard to the promotion and development of a community of practice: the cases of La Caixa and of Repsol YPF. As we will see below, the case of “La Caixa” and the case of Repsol YPF are very different. In one, CoPs appear completely spontaneously from a good melting pot while in the other they are implemented in a much more guided way under a controlled system of objectives and associated incentives. It is clear that both cases are a success as we are speaking of two of the most powerful companies in Spain. However, in the case of Repsol YPF, we run the risk that by working by objectives we are losing sight of one of the principles that define communities of practice. What happens when these objectives have been attained? Does the CoP disappear? Should this be the case, we would surely no longer be speaking of a community of practice. It would be something else, perfectly valid and useful – just look at the results – but if we take into account all of the arguments that we have been defending throughout this chapter, the examples of communities shown by Repsol YPF are on a rather diffuse border.
La Caixa The “Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona” bank, known as “La Caixa”, has undergone exponential growth over the last ten years, making it Spain’s third largest bank.
Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures
In 2000, this bank found itself in the position of having to train a large number of employees to replace workers who had retired and to ensure expansion. To carry out this training, it commissioned an expert e-learning company to create a virtual training platform. As a result, VirtaulaCaixa began offering training, with two trial virtual classrooms and 25 new employees. The model proved so successful that in 2004 more than 5,800 recent employees had received training through this new e-learning model. As well as pedagogical innovation and participatory design methods, a determining factor of the success of the VirtaulaCaixa was the student support system, which was implemented using different media that had been specifically designed for the different communities taking part in VirtaulaCaixa: new employees, service managers, trainers and many more. Students are, in fact, arranged into communities. New employees have two levels of participation in the community: their virtual classroom and the total community of new employees. In their virtual classroom, they have the support of two trainers, who are in charge of guiding them through the learning process. These new employees, however, also participate socially in VirtaulaCaixa enabling them to communicate with other work colleagues at the bank who are in the same situation (e.g. they have recently joined) and to share problems, opportunities and worries. In other words, participation in VirtaulaCaixa creates a community of new employees. On many occasions, this community of new employees functions as a learning community depending on which point in the training they have reached. This outstanding custom of sharing the learning process, and overcoming difficulties together, creates an excellent melting pot from where future communities of practice can originate. By this, we do not mean that these learning communities become CoPs once these new employees are working to full capacity. Nowadays,
this is impossible because once they have completed their training, they stop being part of the community of new employees and their reference framework becomes the area of business to which they belong. However, they retain that spirit of sharing and of community which favoured the growth of incipient communities of practice, as we shall explain below. VirtaulaCaixa currently comprises four communities: Virtaula (the permanent training community for all “la Caixa” employees), New Employees (the online training environment for first-year employees), Trainers (the community of practice and learning for all “la Caixa” trainers) and Financial Services Manager (the training environment associated with the professional development programme for Financial Services Advisors). The first community, Virtaula, is divided into different DANs (Business Area Management). Each DAN brings together a group of branches that belong to the same zone (county, district, neighbourhood, etc.). In each DAN there may be between 60 and 80 workers. Each business area manager has available the training actions that their employees receive. These actions are carried out through a forum where the different topics for discussion are proposed. A number of initiatives are created here by the area managers – in this particular case, women managers – who choose to promote and encourage employees to share their experiences. This is the case of the HortalezaCanillas DAN and the Aljarafe I DAN, where, under the slogan “we all learn from everyone”, incipient CoPs have come into being. Alongside the DANs are the E-groups. These are groups that do not correspond directly to a DAN and where knowledge about specialist subjects is exchanged. Both the DAN and the e-groups comment and discuss concepts related to professional banking practice. These concepts originate from small deliveries of teaching material called “pills” which are specific doses of training content. All employees have access to these pills
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through the library. This is a highly useful formula that is closer to the learning community than the community of practice. Whatever shape it takes, what is clear is that the spirit of mixing with others and of sharing, so creating a true social fabric of knowledge, flows through the Virtaula.
Repsol YPF Repsol YPF is an oil company that is on the list of the world’s 100 biggest companies. After the two original companies, Repsol and YPF, merged, its growth and expansion has been unstoppable, which has led to an exponential increase in workers who need to be trained and integrated. A lot of employees working on the same things on opposite sides of the world. The oil company also has an award that is hard to achieve: that of recognition of the transparency of its website. For the third year running, the Repsol YPF website, www.repsolypf.com, has been the most valued of the Spanish Ibex-35 companies thanks to its transparency in the management of the contents of its European corporate website. It is evident that this points to a clear desire to systematise and standardise processes to the utmost. On it, one can find a huge amount of information about the company’s structure, organisation and results. Part of this desire to systematise and standardise is shown in the Knowledge Management model with the aim of knowing who does what and how they do it. Benefitting from the experience of so many employees and sharing it with the others. Combining both efforts and criteria. All of this is achieved through the communities of practice that they implement. The Knowledge Management Model has two basic components: the human and organisational component (introduction of new organisational structures such as the Communities of Practice where objectives, indicators, Knowledge Maps, etc. are associated) and the processes / technology component (introduction of processes and technol-
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ogy that aid collaboration, enabling knowledge management). The Knowledge Management programme is based on the operation of Communities of Practice. The main objective of the Communities of Practice is to generate mechanisms to share and collaborate in the acquisition, publication, search, retrieval and reuse of knowledge, improving the company’s operating and general results. Each of these communities brings together the specialists and people interested in a specific subject, based on a site in the company intranet, where they have information about the subjects relating to their activity. The Communities of Practice belonging to this knowledge management system are: Geosciences, Acquisition, quality control and log evaluation. (E-log), Safety and Environment (SyMA), Drilling and workover (Drilling), Well Stimulation (EP), Surface facilities (ISUP), Production, Maintenance of facilities (Maintenance) and Reservoirs Each community is coordinated by a Manager, who is responsible for the community being formed, developing and continuing. They would be the equivalent of the moderator/animator. They lead the definition of objectives and organise and lead the general activities. Working with them is a Motor Team (which would be the equivalent of what we call animator/moderator), which helps the manager in defining the objectives and plans, and assumes the leadership in various functions of the community: communication, organisation of workshops, updating the site, leading teams in specific subjects or initiatives, etc. The remaining members participate as the Active Community, contributing their knowledge and reusing that of the others. The sponsor of the community is a management-level person, who keeps the community’s initiatives in line with the interest of the business. They also have face-to-face activities in the form of workshops, which bring together the active community, the motor group and the managers with the aim of sharing experiences, knowledge,
Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures
problems solved and good practices, based on a predetermined subject area / problem. There is a team in the Systems Department devoted exclusively to the requirements of the managers of the Communities of Practice and of the Knowledge Management Team. The Knowledge Management Team is interdisciplinary in nature, comprised of technology, humanistic careers and specific business professionals. Besides this, Repsol YPF has a programme called Management by Commitment, which regulates the commitments undertaken by the employees, monitors their fulfilment and awards recognition. Knowledge Management is integrated with the Management by Commitment Programme, annually defining objectives related to knowledge management. This integration offers the opportunity to the people in charge of the communities of practice of being able to devote more time to them, empowering the results currently obtained. The members of the communities (motors and managers) take part and undertake commitments with their day-to-day work voluntarily, becoming clear benchmarks of the behaviours of collaboration, cooperation, proactivity and excellence fostered and rewarded by Repsol YPF through Management by Commitment. They even receive recommendations on the percentage of time to devote to the CoP (15%) and to the motor teams (10%). Participation and collaboration in the knowledge management initiatives are rewarded by the management through its Annual Recognitions Plan. In this plan, the behaviours that are rewarded are as follows: (1) Active participation in the community. (2) The contribution of experts and benchmarks. (3) Innovation and excellence in professional practice. Actions to communicate the recognition to the whole of the company are carried out through letters to directors, publications on the intranet, newsletters and Technical Information Newsletter. The prizes range from attendance at congresses
or on courses, suitcases up to objects of tangible value.
CONCLUSION Throughout this chapter, our aim has been to achieve two main objectives. On the one hand, to characterise communities of practice. And, on the other, highlight and pinpoint what they have in common and what differentiates them from other groups or structures used as strategies for improving the internal functioning or organisations. And, on the basis of these aims, we are able to reach a number of interesting conclusions and indicate certain directions regarding the future evolution of this type of organisational structure. The first conclusion is obvious and follows on from the content of this chapter: communities of practice can be characterised so that we do not confuse them or assimilate them into other groups or organisational structures. This characterisation may help us establish at all times whether we have a genuine community of practice or, to the contrary, whether what is being undertaken is another type of group strategy. The second conclusion focuses on the possibility of being able to identify the elements that they may share and, in turn, those that may differentiate communities of practice from the other organisational structures or groups analysed. The third conclusion centres on the fact that, probably due to the confusion that the term itself entails, promoting communities of practice as a strategy for introducing improvements to the internal functioning of organisations is not that widespread and generalised. However, there are other reasons, apart from the confusion that the term itself involves, that may justify the low level of integration of this type of strategies in company processes. Of these, we would like to highlight the significant difficulty of comfortably allocating organisation costs for these types of projects, the lack of indicators that enable their efficiency to
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Conceptual Foundations of Communities of Practice as Organizational Structures
be assessed, low investment to accompany their development or the limited involvement of senior management in this type of project. However, in terms of the future short- and medium-term scenario, the consolidation and expansion of the creation of communities of practice in organisational contexts may depend on a range of factors. It is therefore important to associate and secure the managerial support of the organisations to accompany projects of this type. Without this support, these projects are heading for failure. One example of this type of support could be translated into a context where Human Resources Departments included the promotion of communities of practice in their training programmes as an additional action. A clear case of this strategy could be the communities of practice that are being developed at the RACC (Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia), where communities of practice are used to train new workers. Due to the huge expansion experienced over the last 6 years, it is a quick and efficient system for beginners to get up to speed reliably and without delay in their work post. Besides this, development of the communities should also be accompanied by training strategies for their members. Training needs to be given in animation and group management techniques for the moderator and in informational literacy so that all participants can enjoy the benefits and flexibility of the online implementation of the communities. No less important is the creation of a stable and open circuit in which to disseminate the successful developments, and also the failures, of the experiences related to the communities of practice. This would allow the refinement and improvement of the strategies to foster and accompany the implementation of these organisational structures. In short: fostering with this stable circuit a form of “metacommunity” of practices on the subject of the development of the communities of practice themselves.
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Finally, in the technological sphere, the challenges are also important. The expansion and consolidation of this type of strategy necessarily involves, in the first place, correcting this false dominant perception that fostering and accompanying a community of practice is summarised solely and exclusively in a technological implementation. Having corrected this perception, it is also critical to develop adequate software that meets the following conditions: that meets the needs of the community of practice (easy-to-use tools as near as possible to the usual work interface of the members of the CoP), that becomes a technological standard in the field of the implementation and that is open source, so its development does not depend on the investment of an IT multinational. Without the development of this kind of software, the future of the communities and their potential benefits become significantly gloomy.
REFERENCES Amstrong, A., & Hagel, J. (2000). The real value of online communities. In Lesser, E. L., Fontaine, M. A., & Slusher, J. A. (Eds.), Knowledge and communities (pp. 85–98). Boston: ButterworthHeinemann. doi:10.1016/B978-0-7506-72931.50009-3 Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities of practice: Towards a Unified View of working, learning and innovation. [from http://www.slofi.com/Organizatinal_learning.htm]. Organization Science, 2(1), 40–57. Retrieved February 2, 2009. doi:10.1287/orsc.2.1.40 Coll, C. (2001). Las comunidades de aprendizaje y el futuro de la educación: el punto de vista del forum universal de las culturas. Simposio Internacional Sobre Comunidades de Aprendizaje, Barcelona, October, 2001
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Coll, C. (2004). Una experiencia educativa con futuro. Trabajadores de la enseñanza, 249, enero 2004, 12-13. Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http://www.fe.ccoo.es/publicaciones/ TE/249/249pdf Else, S. (2003). Practicing Knowledge Communities. Knowledge Management. Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http://www.destinationkm.com/ articles/default.asp?ArticleID= 1044
Onrubia, J. (2004). Las aulas como comunidades de aprendizaje. Trabajadores de la enseñanza, 249, 14-15. Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http:// www.fe.ccoo.es/publicaciones/TE/249/249pdf Robbins, S. P. (2008). Organizational Behavior (13th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Sanz, S. (2009). Comunitats de pràctica o l’aprenentatge compartit. Revista Guix. Vásquez Bronfman, S. (2002). Comunidades de práctica, workshop. GEC S.A., Barcelona.
Fisher, G. (2001). Communities of interest: learning through the Interaction of Multiple Knowledge Systems. In Proceedings of the 24thIRIS Conference. Ulvik, Department of Information Science, Bergen.
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Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitime Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lesser, E. L., & Storck, J. (2001). Communities of practice and organizational performance. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4). Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/ sj/404lesser.html Mc Dermott, R. (1999). Nurturing Three Dimensional communities of Practice: How to get the most out of human networks. Knowledge management Review, Fall. Retrieved February 2, 2009, from http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledgegarden/cop/dimensional.shtml McDermott, R. (1999). Why Information Technology Inspired But Cannot Deliver Knowledge Management. California Management Review, 41(3), 103–117.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Communities of Practice: Group of people who perform the same professional activity or responsibility who, concerned with a common problem or moved by a common interest, expand their knowledge and expertise in this subject through ongoing interaction. Communities of Interest: Group of people who share a common interest or passion and exchange information, news and products with regard to it. Learning Communities: Contexts in which the students learn thanks to their participation and involvement, in collaboration with other students, the teacher and other adults, in genuine processes of research and collective construction of knowledge on personal and socially relevant questions.
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Formal Task Group: Group formed by workers responsible for a specific work task. Problem-Solving Team: Organisational structure formed by workers who share ideas or offer suggestions on how to improve working processes and methods. Multidisciplinary Team: Organisational structure formed by employees of the same hier-
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archical level but from different work divisions, who meet to carry out a task. Virtual Team: Organisational structure formed by employees who use computational technology to bring together physically dispersed members with the aim of achieving a common objective.
Section 2
Contextualising
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Chapter 7
Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice Jennifer Adelstein University of Technology, Australia & International College of Management, Australia
ABSTRACT The chapter proposes that emerging management strategies that prescribe and try to measure the activities of a community of practice (CoP) may have unexpected and negative outcomes, at least for organizations. The chapter suggests that voluntary participation in CoPs may cease or knowledge transfer may be minimized rather than optimized, as knowledge practitioners rebel against the command and control strategies of management. This may severely impinge on the viability and sustainability of CoPs as a means of ‘situated learning’ theorized by Lave & Wenger (1991) and knowledge sharing expressed by Brown & Duguid (1991; 1998). The chapter conceptualizes that an impasse may arise between management and knowledge practitioners in divulging the quantity and quality of knowledge made available for organizational use. Rather than facilitating the flow of information from knowledge practitioners to the organization, CoPs may become another conflicted terrain of unequal power relationships. While laying out these possibilities, the chapter also suggests that there could be a different outcome, one that rebalances the pendulum of power relationships for the mutual benefit and interests of both management and knowledge practitioners. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch007
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Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice
INTRODUCTION The chapter engages with a prevailing managerial notion that organization knowledge is the successful result of transferring knowledge from the minds and practices of knowledge practitioners to the organization, which, in turn, only requires establishment of communities of practice (CoPs). One such cohort of management and organizational scholars argues that implementation of CoPs has resolved the debates about whether knowledge practitioners are willing to share their knowledge (Brown & Duguid, 1991, 1998; Davenport & Hall, 2002; Horibe, 1999; Lave & Wenger, 1991; van Baalen et al, 2005; Wenger, 1998). CoPs provide the socialized spheres that encourage knowledge sharing within organizational contexts. Such discourses dominate management and organizational literature, and have become widely accepted as de rigueur organizational practice by management and business consultants (such as global consultants Accenture, Gartner Group, International Data Corporation, Meta Group, and more). Other theorists suggest that in idealizing such organizational practices as CoPs, three problems are illuminated. The first problem is that knowledge practitioners – or knowledge workers as they are also known – may be unwilling to share their knowledge (Davenport et al, 1998; Kärreman & Alvesson, 2004; Scarbrough, 1999). The second is that knowledge sharing may be contested and conflicted, and traversed by discourses of power (Adelstein, 2007; Clegg & Palmer, 1996; Deetz 1994; Garrick & Clegg, 2000). Indeed, resistance may be such that knowledge workers may actively work against a management-desired smooth transition of knowledge from themselves to the organization in order to protect their roles within the organization and balance the position of power between management and knowledge practitioners (Adelstein & Clegg, 2011; Clegg, 1997; Orr, 1991; Scarbrough, 1999). A third problem is that the extent of success of CoPs in their present form is uncertain because
such success cannot be predicted or measured. Herein lay the twin problems for management: first, are CoPs productive in relation to how much knowledge is being transferred; and, second, how can the quality of that knowledge for organizational innovation be assessed? In recognition of these problems, management is beginning to impose stringent measurement schemata on CoP interactions (Kaplan & Norton, 2007; Wiig, 1999a) to create a “technologified” view of knowledge. This view extends far beyond the traditional knowledge management strategies of capturing explicit knowledge to make it organizationally accessible, and shifts towards the capture and measurement of implicit knowledge described by Polanyi (1962) as hidden in the heads of the ‘knowers’. At the same time, the problems of an imposed regime of power and its contestation, which are implicated in such management schemata for knowledge transfer, are denied. Through subtle shifts in the discourses of communities of practice and organizational knowledge, CoPs have emerged as a salve for knowledge-based organizational strategies. The theory presents us with a view that management has secured, or at least begun to secure, the knowledge territory: an organization can access what employees know by applying technologies of knowledge management to CoPs. Although the application of technologies to the intangibility of CoPs may be seen as successful in terms of their management by organizations, this view is under researched in terms of the viability and sustainability of CoPs occasioned by management/practitioner power relations, and has yet to be developed in any meaningful way in the literature. The chapter proposes to theorize the problematics of securing the CoP territory within a management/knowledge practitioner power relationship. The view may be problematized as a pincer movement involving two sequences. First, the pivotal position of knowledge practitioners in the discourses of organizational knowledge is being marginalized; and second, that tools of produc-
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tivity measurement are being applied to evaluate outcomes of CoPs. The former implicitly reduces the value of knowledge worker contributions and the latter explicitly confounds existing definitions of a CoP. Both relegate the potential usefulness of willing participation that has been roused in the CoP technology to the trash. It may be seen through the first sequence that the status of knowledge practitioners is jeopardized, weakening their power relationships within organizations (see, also Adelstein, 2007). This benefits management in its dealings with knowledge practitioners, whereby asymmetrical power relationships have tipped firmly in favor of management and the organizations they manage. A drift towards managerial occupation of the knowledge territory diminishes willingness as central to the practice of knowledge sharing, which is problematized as the second sequence. Through the second movement, which follows from the first, the chapter presents the view that voluntary participation in CoPs necessitates a territorial stake: willingness to share comes with the liberty of territorial ownership – the right and the choice to share. The chapter argues that Lave and Wenger’s (1991) original conceptualization of self-managed CoPs increases participant knowledge sharing because CoPs are self managed. Management’s intent to ‘normalize’ CoPs with technologies of organizational territorial colonization – hierarchy and closely-defined roles and practices – brings the fruitfulness of willing CoP participation to an end; such technologies minimize rather than optimize knowledge transfer to the organization. In short, stymieing the territory incites knowledge practitioners to rebel against the command and control strategies of management. This may severely impinge on the viability and sustainability of CoPs as a means of situated learning and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the problematics of this discourse transition into a question about the very definition of a CoP. Such management activity is likely to negate the voluntary nature of CoPs and, as the chapter
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suggests, may ultimately destroy the viability of these communities. Therefore, the chapter proposes to specifically attend to the research gap and explore conceptually: 1. What sort of knowledge can be transferred through CoPs? 2. How is management trying to gain greater control over CoPs? 3. What are the consequences of management’s enhanced control of CoPs, for management and for knowledge practitioners? 4. Is the viability of CoPs at risk and what can management do about it?
A Different History of CoPs Discourses of CoPs are well established; however, their formalization within organizations was first expressed through ‘situated learning’ practices as an apprenticeship model for on-the-job training (Lave & Wenger, 1991) highlighting the extent to which learning occurs through organization work practices (Swan et al, 2002, pp. 477). CoPs are seen as critical to sharing knowledge within organizations (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998). From a management perspective, organizational innovation through knowledge sharing is crucial, so much so, that workplace environments are constructed to encourage knowledge sharing by emulating situations for social interaction that reflect broader communal and social aspects in a work environment (Brown, 2001; Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998; Horibe, 1999). CoPs are said to emerge spontaneously via networks of individuals with similar work-related interests (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Informal chats between or among colleagues are recognized as potentially viable/productive organizational activities that may offer peer exposure to problems and solutions in an informal, social and ad hoc way (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998; Horibe, 1999). However, participation in a CoP is voluntary, since communities have no specific
Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice
deliverables, cannot be created by fiat, tend to be independent of organizations, and are responsible only to their own sense of their constituency of interests (Horibe, 1999, pp. 156). Frequently, the ‘water cooler’ metaphor is used to describe such informal, ad hoc, agendaless, spontaneous and voluntary discussions among organization members (Liebowitz, 2003; Millen et al, 2002; Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2002) as if it were the holy grail of CoPs from which knowledge trickles forth. Such metaphoric imagery is taken seriously in many organizations, where management, supported by consultants, seeks to legitimize these activities – thereby controlling them – by providing normalized environments where such socialorganizational interactions can occur (Brown & Duguid, 1991). They can be seen in many ‘modern’ organizations that purposively design the work environment as a ‘natural’ setting for socialized human interaction by constructing and supporting CoPs (Swan et al, 2002) or ‘structuring spontaneity’ (Brown & Duguid, 2001). In recent decades, the significance of knowledge to organizations has increased (Boisot, 1998; Constant et al, 1994; Morris, 2001), giving rise to new types of organizations – knowledge intensive firms (KIFs) – that are reliant on a market for knowledge as a product/service (Alvesson, 1995; 2001; Starbuck, 1992; Tsoukas, 1996). In these environments, knowledge practitioners have become veritable organizational Samsons; their strength and status is imbued by the knowledge they create and use (Alvesson, 2001; Blackler, 1995). Knowledge work is highly valued economically, socially and politically (Brown & Duguid, 1991Drucker, 1959; 1969; Reich, 1991; Swan et al, 2002) and inextricably linked to professional status and progress of knowledge workers (Drucker, 1959; Freidson, 1986; Macdonald, 1985; 1995; Reich, 1991). Organizations need knowledge workers and they need organizations (Drucker, 1959; 1969; Nonaka, 1994). While, the mutual advantage for both organizational management and knowledge practitioners
continues, there is also a power struggle. In order that organizations can gain benefit from knowledge practitioners, organizations need to capture and retain the knowledge that practitioners create in their daily activities, to be used and re-used in different ways. In order to do this, an organization needs ownership of knowledge. However, knowledge practitioners may see this as a threat to job security, in a sort of ‘suck them dry and spit them out’ strategy. Knowledge practitioners may hold on to their Samson-like powers to maintain control over their knowledge, thereby engendering their own sustainability within organizations. Thus, knowledge transfer is not unproblematic (Macdonald, 1984; 1995), neither is it so fraught that knowledge cannot ‘stick’ – in Szulanski’s (1996)oeuvre – due to the active machinations of disenfranchised knowledge workers trying to retain their knowledge power base (Scarbrough, 1999). Enter CoPs, a seductive Delilah that appeals to the socializing orientation of knowledge practitioners to communicate and work with other like-minded professionals (Freidson, 1986; Macdonald, 1984; 1995). Like Delilah who seduces Samson into giving up the secret of his strength, CoPs have eased the way for knowledge practitioners to share their knowledge (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Horibe, 1999; Lave & Wenger, 1991; 1998; Swan et al, 2002), and in the case of organizational CoPs, they have enabled knowledge activities and ruminations to be captured and retained within organizational knowledge management systems (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Small & Dickie, 2000). Management has been effective in linking CoP discourses to those of organizational knowledge as a method of control (Brown & Duguid, 1991, 1998; Drucker, 1969; 1993; 1999; Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Such linkage supports ownership of knowledge by organizations (Boisot, 1998; Constant et al, 1994; Morris, 2001; Scarbrough, 1999; Teece, 1998), securing it through intellectual property rights (Boisot, 1998; Horibe, 1999; Morris, 2001; Teece, 1998; Wiig,
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1999a), and organizational knowledge databases (Davenport et al, 1998; Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Small & Dickie, 2000; Teece, 1998). Through CoPs, organizational knowledge transfer becomes a communicative process that is constructed and maintained through social interactions (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Latour, 1987; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Tsoukas, 1996). Even if communicative processes within organizational contexts are instilled through CoPs (Brown & Duguid, 1991, 1998) with organizational control (Hildreth & Kimble, 2004) of the “situated learning” space (Lave & Wenger, 1991), it does not imply that all of those who could meaningfully participate in the CoP actually do so, or do so in a way that is consequential to an organization in terms of outcomes, that is organizational knowledge. Even so, the link between voluntary participation in the activities of any community and willingness by members to share their knowledge and experiences remains tenuous. An individual will freely participate in community activities only so long as the community or its activities fulfil some specified or unspecified need for that individual; with such needs varying from individual to individual (Benson, 1996; Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Orr, 1990). Such participation does not automatically or necessarily imply that knowledge will be shared among individuals – although frequently it does – nor is the quantity or quality of sharing consistent at all times and among all members of a community, as Lave & Wenger (1991) observed. The variability in frequency, content and quality of interactions is recognized by management as a potential flaw in the openness and ad hoc nature of CoPs (Brown & Duguid, 1998; Drucker, 1969; 1993; 1999; Frenkel et al, 1999; Hargadon, 1998; Nonaka, 1994) and cannot be left to chance or remain uncertain. Knowledge that circulates among participants in a CoP must be channelled to support organizational goals.
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WHAT SORT OF KNOWLEDGE CAN BE TRANSFERRED THROUGH CoPs? Before we examine how management perceives CoPs and what it is doing to assert greater control over them, we need to consider the nature of how knowledge is enacted in organizations; whether knowledge can be fixed as an organizational asset or whether it is a communicative process in which the network of interactions creates the knowledge. Looking at knowledge as a fixed asset infers first, that it can be commoditized and compared with other assets of value (Szulanski, 1996; Teece, 1998). Second, it may be viewed as projectoriented which can be measured in terms of success of outcomes (Davenport et al, 1998). Third, fixing knowledge as an asset may also require defining stages in the processes of knowledge creation and transference among CoP participants (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) in order to systematize knowledge and manage its availability. However, to value knowledge by fixing it as an asset or through its outcomes or to limit its availability through knowledge management systems, not only dehumanizes knowledge and delimits its free circulation, but it may also be seen as an act of management desperation to gain control (Alvesson et al, 2002; Fuller, 2002; Kärreman & Alvesson, 2004; Wilson, 2002). The measurement and management of knowledge as an asset or success of its outcomes through a CoP contradict the concept of the fluidity of knowledge (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2001; Fuller, 2002; Schultze & Stabell, 2004) as well as the voluntary participation in a CoP (Brown & Duguid, 1991, 1998; Lave & Wengner, 1991). Conceptually, by applying measurement to resolve the question about how much knowledge is transferred to organizational knowledge management systems through CoPs could provide a way for management and organizations to maximize capital investment returns in both people and material assets (Kaplan & Norton, 1996, pp. 61).
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Developing the capacity to measure something as intangible as knowledge enables it to function more easily at a quantitative, ‘more scientific’ and ‘objective’ level, rather than adopting a more difficult-to-assess qualitative and interpretative approach. At the same time, legitimizing measurement of knowledge flows in CoPs also requires the human creators of knowledge to submit to the power relations constituted through knowledge management practices and discourses of utility and organizational objectives. The notion of knowledge as an organizational asset is exemplified in Davenport et al (1998, pp. 44), who contend that ‘successful’ knowledge management projects accomplish organizational objectives of “doing something useful with knowledge”. This suggests that knowledge that is not useful is, in some way, wasteful and unmanageable (Fuller, 2002). In discourses of business and economics, the capability to create, store, disseminate, manage and control access to knowledge has become crucial to business performance (Brown & Duguid, 1998; Davenport et al, 1998; Foray & Hargreaves, 2002; Mokyr, 2002) with technology providing the means to do so. Such a power effect does not give primacy to people as knowledge creators over technology as the means of codification and storage of the knowledge, but unifies the two within a knowledge-technology dimension to cooperatively generate knowledge content. Any status derived through the conceptualization of knowledge work as politically, economically and socially desirable (Drucker, 1959; 1969; Reich, 1991) and that those who do it should be treated with greater respect, given greater opportunities and be more highly valued by society (Adelstein, 2007; Brint, 1984; Drucker, 1994, pp. 65) are diminished as technology becomes more valued in organizational terms. An alternative view, which supports the social interactivity of knowledge as a communicative process in which the network of interactions creates the knowledge (Blackler, 1995; Empson, 2001), suggests that attempts to channel the pro-
cess or control it will create tensions between an organization’s management and its individual members (Tsoukas, 1996). Tsoukas argues that knowledge is “inherently indeterminate and continually emerging” and thus, is not contained by any single entity (Tsoukas, 1996, pp. 11). Thus, he asserts that knowledge is not fixed but changes. If, as is argued, knowledge is not fixed but is in the network of ongoing social relations, management cannot be certain that CoPs are delivering specific organizational outcomes in the transfer of knowledge. Without such certainty, the value of CoPs to an organization is potentially under fire. Management needs to assess what knowledge and how much of it is being transferred through the medium of CoPs, which means that the productivity and efficiency of CoPs in organizational terms needs to be measured. Further, the vagaries of human beings – their moods, their personalities, their characteristics – need to be reduced as important variables in such assessments, in order for productivity and efficiency to be benchmarked and then compared against idealized organizational standards. Productivity is key to management’s perceptions of the success of CoPs and requires new methods of measurement for consideration. This is especially significant for organizations for which knowledge is their business, known as knowledge intensive firms (see, Alvesson, 1995; 2001; Starbuck, 1992; Tsoukas, 1996) that market their knowledge wares within an economic globalized context. Therefore, a range of knowledge management models have been developed that centralize productivity within the knowledge discourses in both the academic world (see, Bhatt, 2001; Davenport et al, 1998; Nonaka, 1994; Raelin, 1997) and the world of business and management consultancy1 (see, Gartner Group, 2003; International Data Corporation, 1999; Meta Group, 2002, 2003; Wiig, 1999a, 1999b). For management, it is considerably easier to assume the rationality of technology, that is, knowledge management systems, than it is to assume
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or manage the (ir)rationalities of people. Potent rhetoric relocates the emphasis from people to technology in organizational discourses of knowledge work transference through CoPs. However, in order to facilitate the flow of knowledge from the people who know to the technology that captures it as organizational knowledge, management must devise strategies for coopting knowledge from an individual to the organization.
How Management is Trying to Gain Greater Control Over CoPs One way of coopting knowledge is to downplay the importance of an individual’s contribution to organizational knowledge and promote other means, such as technology, as having higher priority. We have already discussed the dominance of such discourses evident in the advice of consultants to their client organizations. By centralizing technology and its purposes of capturing, storing and commoditizing knowledge, knowledge becomes firmly attached to an organization so that its substance becomes an object that is owned by the organization as an asset (Morris, 2001; Teece, 1998). In effect, knowledge is being transformed from an object of knowing by a human being that is inextricably linked to humanity, to becoming a product to be owned by another, thus transmuting it into organizational knowledge. We begin to see a subtle shift in knowledge discourses is devolving the intellectual capacities of an individual to the margins of the discourse, while, at the same time, technology is becoming a more central and important object in discourses of organizational knowledge transference (Adelstein, 2007). An intangible, such as knowledge, needs to be made tangible in some way in order for it to be owned by an organization. This is done through technology that captures the knowledge, stores it, makes it available to others and puts an extrinsic value on it, so that it can be legitimately owned by an organization that sponsors its transference (Davenport et al, 1998; Drucker, 1993; Hargadon,
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1998; Teece, 1998). “In essence, there has been a separation of the mind of the knowledge worker from her body, with ‘knowledge products’ of the mind increasing in value as disconnection with the body becomes complete” (Adelstein, 2007, pp. 853). Like Delilah who cuts off Samson’s hair once she knows it is his source of strength; through CoPs, organizational management has been able to diminish the status and power of knowledge practitioners by segueing knowledge work from its central position of economic importance to the margins. CoPs have been instrumental in diminishing the status of knowledge practitioners (Adelstein, 2007) by commoditizing their knowledge (described by Huber, 1991, and Nonaka, 1994). Knowledge practitioners have become merely one of a number of resources for organizational knowledge (Gartner Group, 2003). If such marginalization is successful, CoPs in their present ad hoc form, may be seen as an indulgence, since their outcomes cannot be measured in any traditional instrumental way. Technology analysis firms such as Gartner Group and International Data Corporation (IDC) have significant influence on the business strategies of major national and international organizations. When these firms emphasize the importance of technology and knowledge management systems and de-emphasize the role of people as significant within knowledge management discourses, they are listened to by organizational management and their advice is acted upon within their thousands of client organizations. We can see in the example below, how rhetoric of practitioner marginalization occurs and has begun to effect change. In traditional IS architecture, all intelligence (i.e., all data and logic) is held within the application systems. Applications are smart, but the network isn’t. A conventional network simply moves data among the end-point application systems and people. (Gartner Group, 2003, pp. 1)
Samson and Delilah as a Discourse of Communities of Practice
Here, Gartner Group expresses a shift in rhetoric of knowledge from people to technology. Knowledge practitioners are now referred to as merely one part of an IS (information systems) network; the part that is less intelligent. Instead, application systems, those that manage knowledge, are drawn into a position of centrality within the discourse. Gartner Group suggests that for an organization implementing knowledge management, the role of people is significantly less important than technology, to the extent that one should assess success of knowledge management by the ‘intelligence’ of the technology systems deployed rather than by the people who use it. As well, global analysis firm IDC posits that although technological systems to manage knowledge are very important for organizations, the needs of knowledge workers cannot be ignored, since it is the capacity of knowledge workers to manipulate knowledge that is crucial for organizational competitiveness and sustainability. Currently, what organizations know determines the degree of their sustainable success. In fact, knowledge has turned out to be a company’s greatest competitive advantage, transforming KM into a trend in corporate life. Knowledge and people go hand in hand. In the knowledge age, the key asset of an organization resides in the minds of employees. Therefore, to succeed, a company’s culture must encourage and reward knowledge sharing, as well as manage it. Knowledge, however, is not an asset that can be controlled like any other company asset. (IDC, 1999, pp. 2) IDC analysts suggest that internal efficiency is the primary aim of organizations and needs to be sustained by organizational efficiency, knowledge worker productivity, and operational cost savings as beneficial goals of knowledge management programs (IDC, 1999, pp. 5). In giving primacy to technology through its ability to capture, create and organize “intellectual capital in inventive ways for the purpose of business planning and
reorganization, as well as other high-level, strategic decision-making issues” (IDC, 1999, pp. 9), IDC recommends to its clients that acceptance of the importance of technology within knowledge discourse is valid, normal and actual. Not only is it difficult for organizations and management to collect knowledge from organizational members, despite implementation of CoPs for knowledge sharing and technological systems to capture and make knowledge available to others, but it is necessary to use such knowledge on a broader economic basis in order to gain a return on this investment (Gartner Group, 2003). To whit, unless firms commercialize the knowledge acquired within a market environment rather than merely to improve internal processes such as helpdesk facilities, the costs associated with developing such systems may not be offset. Thus, the consulting advice provided for clients offers multiple messages, not only to capture and utilize knowledge for internal benefit but to work to commercialize it as well. This is a significant change in the way CoPs have been conceptualized by Lave & Wenger, Brown & Duguid and others for ‘situated learning’ experiences through peer group interactions.
Consequences of Management’s Control of CoPs Management enlists conceptions of organizational order and ownership, discourses that bind the social interactivity of CoPs to those of knowledge management systems (KMS), since KMS technological tools may be required to reframe CoP activities for organizational consumption. Activities of capturing and mapping a range of problem-solving activities that may occur in a CoP are reflected in knowledge management’s organizational ‘community-based’ electronic ‘discussion’ methodologies for extraction, codification, storage, and dissemination to others within the organizational social framework (Davenport et al, 1998). Social interaction becomes merely
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an adjunct to knowledge management, since it directly connects to discourses on knowledge sharing and CoPs. Although CoPs are associated with organization learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) also offer a more broad-brushed definition that is pertinent. Accordingly, a CoP is defined as [A]n activity system about which participants share understandings concerning what they are doing and what that means in their lives and for their community. Thus, they are united in both action and in the meaning that that action has, both for themselves, and for the larger collective. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, pp. 98) Lave & Wenger’s definition does not prescribe the notion of community as being location-specific or as shaped by management but allows for the situating of a CoP wherever participants decide it should be. After all, it is their community and their social lives. For management to determine the social context in which CoP activities can take place is to negate ownership by participants of their social sphere. Installation of water coolers at ten paces is not without an agenda, as some scholars suggest, any more than is community-oriented software that appears on organizational intranets. Through their environmental design, these tools are part of a managerial drive to connect CoPs with organizational learning and organizational knowledge. It is a “build it and they will come”2 strategy but if they don’t come … ah, well, that is a problem! Rhetoric widely used by management suggests that knowledge produced and reproduced by the CoP discourses is seen as natural and normal; and flows of knowledge are “inextricably linked to social relations developed through shared practice” (Swan et al, 2002, pp. 479). CoPs purport to emulate human interactions of the broader society, those engaging with traditional cultural practices of localized communities worldwide. In such a natural social environment, knowledge workers
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are thought to be more agreeable to share their knowledge, While knowledge is often thought to be the property of individuals, a great deal of knowledge is both produced and held collectively. Such knowledge is readily generated when people work together in the tightly knit groups known as ‘communities of practice’. (Brown & Duguid, 1998, pp. 91) Knowledge practitioners who share their knowledge in culturally-approved ways are considered more highly than those who do not (Cramton, 2001; Sveiby & Simons, 2002; Szulanski, 1996; Tam et al, 2002). Rhetoric of legitimated behaviours are embedded in organizational culture, so that there is virtue in the act of an individual sharing knowledge with others through the benign medium of CoPs (Adelstein, 2007, pp. 860); which can then be acquired by an organization uncontested (Brooks, 1994; Brown & Duguid, 1991, 1998; Davenport & Hall, 2002). Social approval within organizational contexts is just as important as in broader society; it concerns inclusion or exclusion from a social group. There are sanctions against an individual who does not conform to the norms of a community – even a community of practice. However, enforcing certain corporate cultures and social sanctions against the wishes of organization members may be doomed, since an organization cannot force loyalty on its members (Alvesson, 2000; Hirschman, 1970) and there will always be resistance (see for example, Clegg, 1989a; 1989b; 1994; 1997; 1998; Deetz, 1992; Jermier et al, 1994). A better way of control is for management to reduce or eliminate the power of knowledge practitioners within an organization by delimiting their importance to the process of knowledge creation. As Gartner Group (2003, pp. 2) suggests, organizations must protect their hard-earned knowledge by securing it within safe technology systems. Thus, if the knowledge that an organization deems to be worthwhile and the processes through which
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it is made explicit can be captured in knowledge management systems, to be used how management wishes, then the knowledge practitioners are of lesser value; their status is diminished. Further, if management can convince knowledge practitioners and itself that knowledge can be fixed as an explicit asset, rather than tacit lying hidden in the heads of the knowers (Polanyi, 1962), then the influence and more importantly the power that knowledge practitioners can exert within organizations can be reduced. And if the power of knowledge practitioners is reduced, then control is firmly in the hands of management. Despite the purported reciprocity of knowledge sharing within CoPs, Brown and Duguid (1998) recognize that such social activity is not frictionless. In some respects, potential for friction is due to what Macdonald (1984; 1985; 1995) describes as a ‘professional project’, whereby The possessors of specialist knowledge set about building up a monopoly of their knowledge and, on this basis, establish a monopoly of the services that derive from it. This draws on a mainly Weberian tradition, especially the concepts of ‘exclusion’ and ‘social closure’ as mechanisms whereby the social standing of a group is achieved and maintained. (Macdonald, 1995, pp. xii) Macdonald discusses Weber’s concept of social closure to explain how “members of a social stratum establish and maintain their status to achieve collective social mobility” (1985, pp. 541). Here, Drucker’s (1959) high social status, Reich’s (1991) aspirational business class, and Arthur and Rousseau’s (1996) boundaryless career of knowledge workers are echoed in Macdonald’s (1985; 1995) notions of social standing via selfregulating professional occupations and their associated norms, practices, rights and privileges (Macdonald, 1985, pp. 541; also Freidson, 1984). It seems that communities of practice as a means of organizational situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) have also developed as a way
of structuring and controlling dynamic social but work-related interchanges among organizational members (Hildreth & Kimble, 2004). The notion of a CoP has begun to shift from voluntary and ad hoc involvement by organizational members in communities to one in which management attempts to mandate transition of knowledge from the heads of knowledge workers and facilitate its sharing within an organization. There is renewed focus on using other disciplines as means to ensure that knowledge is captured. Nothing is left to chance, that is, uncertainty and ambiguity are forsworn. Other disciplines could be co-opted into management of knowledge and ‘extraction of intellectual capital’ (IC), such as cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence systems and more (Wiig, 1999b, pp. 16). Taken further, facilitation of CoPs by organizational management may be viewed as an attempt to predict and control outcomes, thereby enhancing organizational benefit (Contu & Willmott, 2000; Fox, 2000; Swan et al, 2002; Wenger & Snyder, 2000). Indeed, as Swan et al observe, management exploits the concept of “‘communities of practice’ as a rhetorical device in the pursuit of organizational objectives and the legitimization of new practices” (2002, pp. 479). These newly-legitimized practices are potent and disciplinary in that they sanction certain management-approved behaviours, even within communities of practice whose participants purport to voluntarily share knowledge. Thus, organizationally-sponsored CoPs “may make use of human aspects of knowledge through physical (environmental), cognitive (mental) and cultural (social) systems, [but] they have already been separated from any ethically-laden spirit and philosophy of knowledge” (Adelstein, 2007, pp. 861). The problem for management is that it is the network of relations that has the knowledge – the daily, weekly, monthly or irregular interactions among various organizational members that create knowledge that may or may not have some immediate and measurable value for an organization.
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Unlike the Samson and Delilah metaphor, the annual ‘haircut’ of capturing and owning knowledge that emerges untamed and unrestrained from CoPs does not disempower knowledge practitioners and seize the territory of knowledge for management. Instead, it captures only that which can be made explicit and the routines that can be recorded in knowledge management systems. The secret of practitioner knowledge is in the doing and discussions of the doing. In other words, knowledge is “inherently indeterminate and continually emerging” (Tsoukas, 1996, pp. 11) via CoPs and ad hoc gatherings around the water cooler, rather than fixed, or through structured processes or capturing. Like our monthly visit to the hairdresser, the hair that is trimmed is of little or no value, neither are the scissors or the combs or the mousse sitting on the shelf, or the apprenticeship undertaken by our hairdresser. None of them has value unless and until they are applied to our heads. It is all these elements plus the experience of Delilah and the ability of Samson to articulate how he wants his hair trimmed that work together to create success of the process, the final haircut.
Riskiness of CoPs There is a risk that management-controlled CoPs will not fulfil their community charter to permit free-flowing discussion among practitioners to construct knowledge praxis in their own terms and through their own perspectives. The risk is that potential members will not participate in the way that management desires or that they will not participate at all. The value of CoPs to participants as a socialized sphere of communication will be eroded, to be taken over by structured environments with each conversation recorded and analyzed to assess its instrumental value to an organization. To this point, the chapter has discussed the concept of CoPs in broad terms. However, there are different types of communities; two of which
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we will examine here. The first is the organizationally-sponsored CoP – the intra-organizational CoP. We have mainly been discussing this type of community since it is the one that management and organizations can influence. The second type of CoP is one that cannot be controlled by external influences – the organizationally-independent CoP. These are the communities of practitioners that one finds through a public sphere, such as the Internet. While power relations that develop among participants during their daily intercourse is a normal part of interaction in private or public spheres (Clegg, 1989; Deetz, 1994; Foucault, 1977; 1980; Mumby & Stohl, 1991), other power influences such as the organizational hierarchy (relating to superior-inferior subject positions) is less likely to occur in a public arena. What is more likely is a context that is free of organizational and management control, in which an open discussion about the practice and creation of knowledge can occur; one that is as power neutral and as ‘naturally occurring’ (Silverman, 2007) as possible. For such a discussion to occur in a relatively power neutral environment, it needs to emerge through participant interests and to address knowledge praxis through practitioners’ ontologies and epistemologies rather than those of management. The Internet provides virtually total freedom of speech (Benson, 1996, pp. 363) for participants, since they are not necessarily bound by social contexts of personal knowledge about other participants. Texts produced in a public space, such as an Internet CoP, are unstructured and environmentally unconstrained (by organizational structures). Thus, the Internet offers a high degree of freedom for participants to communicate conceptions about knowledge work in practice. Internet public texts are expressed directly by those engaged in online discussions of various types and are not mediated by third parties, thus providing ‘discursive democracy’ (Benson, 1996, pp. 361). Authors of Internet texts are
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not inhibited by identification within particular environments, such as national or organizational contexts, nor do they need to express their views in ways that fit the requirements of management or particular organizational projects. As well, interaction in an Internet forum is less inhibited by power hierarchies that would influence CoPs occurring within typical organizational contexts. The relative democracy of such a public forum can diminish hierarchical relationship positions between and among participants (Calhoun, 1992a; 1992b; Habermas, 1989). Power relations among participants can be normalized through the patterns of their discussions rather than through hierarchical subjectivities, that is, how practitioners see their subject positions within an organizational hierarchy such as superior or subordinate to other participants. These concepts are significant in a discussion of CoPs in that the distinction between organizationally-sponsored CoPs and those that are independent of organizational contexts is that knowledge practitioners may change both their use of and the emphasis for one over the other. If, knowledge practitioners are sidelined in organizationally-constituted CoPs by management, they are likely to turn to more independent communities in which to participate, or opt out completely. This signals a potential problem for management. If those who create the knowledge in a knowledge-intensive firm are no longer prepared to share their experiential and contextual knowledge (suggested by Tsoukas, 1996) but only that which is specifically task related, this will be detrimental to the organization in terms of innovation. Moreover, if those who are the most valuable to an organization draw back from an enforced organizational ‘community’, what is left within that community? Szulanski (1996) has researched this area in reference to ‘sticky’ knowledge and found that if organization members do not find value in or respect for knowledge that is willingly transferred by others, they will not participate in
situated learning practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991) with these others. Thus, knowledge transfer may not occur as management might wish. Further, enforced communities of practice are not CoPs at all since they are no longer voluntary and deliverables are specified (suggested by Horibe, 1999). What remains are multidisciplinary teams that are structured and controlled by the organization that typically address only organizational task-specific projects but are inadequate for entrepreneurial or innovative firms for which knowledge is the source of revenue (Alvesson, 1995, 2000; Brooks, 1994; Cohen et al, 1999; Nonaka, 1994; Tam et al, 2002; Zeller, 2002). Clearly, such a situation is undesirable for all concerned. From the perspective of management, knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer may not be occurring in ways that are most desired and of greatest benefit to the organization; and from the position of knowledge practitioners, they are required to become part of a ‘community’ of others not of their own choosing and expected to share not only their job-related knowledge but also their experiential and historical knowledge with others they may not know, like or trust.
A POSSIBLE SOLUTION While it seems that neither management nor knowledge practitioners fully trust each other to do right by the other, a more fundamental problem is the inability by either group to define expectations of the other. Many organizational CoPs are purposively-created for knowledge sharing and innovation for knowledge intensive firms (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Starbuck, 1992; Swan et al, 2002) yet, unless the CoP is specifically project-related, its desired objectives are vague and uncertain. While systematizing and controlling CoPs in ways suggested by Wiig (1999b) may be a solution, it may also generate resistance
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(Clegg, 1979; 1989a; 1989b; 1994; 1997; 1998; Deetz, 1992; Jermier et al, 1994) or opting out (Alvesson, 2000; Hirschman, 1970). However, there are other options. One such option that may find favor with both management and practitioners is to immobilize the pendulum of asymmetrical power relationships between management and organizational knowledge practitioners. This solution takes us to the early work of Drucker (1959) who coined the term ‘knowledge work’. Drucker (1959, pp. 75) discussed three important concepts that remain central to contemporary discourses of knowledge in organizational studies. One of Drucker’s concepts identifies knowledge work as an organizational activity, whereby knowledge workers are organized functionally to produce knowledge, either as an end product or as a contribution to a product. This is the contemporary concept of organizational teams, whereby specific projects are established and management delegates team members to resolve problems (Doorewaard & Brouns, 2003; Drucker 1959; Mohrman et al, 1995; Zeller, 2002). Another of Drucker’s knowledge work concepts defines knowledge acquisition as a capital investment through formalized educational programs rather than the traditional and more time consuming on-the-job observation and apprenticeship training. Drucker, and his successors, such as Reich (1991) and Despres & Hiltrop (1995), conceptualized that specific programs of learning through designated educational institutions would be key sources of knowledge acquisition. Although Drucker argued that such knowledge could only be obtained systematically and through accredited facilities, the concept of CoPs purportedly enhances structured learning through traditional on-the-job skills and knowledge transfer through situated learning. The third of Drucker’s concepts involves work by specialists who apply their knowledge as professionals and take responsibility for their own performance and contribution to an organiza-
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tion (Drucker 1959, pp. 75). Scant attention has been paid to this concept in terms of practitioners taking responsibility for their own performance and contribution. Instead, it is management that takes responsibility for the performance and contribution of knowledge practitioners by trying to control what happens in a CoP and the way in which it happens. This is where a problem lies for sustainability of CoPs. As discussed earlier in the chapter, the very vagueness of expected outcomes and processes inherent in the socially-oriented nature of CoPs actively works against effective management control. When management seeks to control the processes through micro-management tactics; when management sets specific outcomes and attempts to manage the way in which independent organizational professionals achieve them, then likely success for innovation and knowledge transfer through CoPs may be limited. Rather than attempting to control the processes by which voluntary workplace communities operate; if management sets the organizational goals for innovation in broad terms and takes responsibility for creating the environment in which such goals may be achieved; and if knowledge practitioners can take responsibility for their own performance and contribution in meeting or exceeding the broad management goals; then the parameters for more successful CoPs may be established. Such a strategy requires collaboration by management and knowledge practitioners to implement and agree on the broad goals for innovation and/or knowledge sharing and then take responsibility for their own performances and contributions to those goals.
CONCLUSION Using the metaphor of Samson and Delilah, the chapter has focused on management’s concern – and what it is doing about it – that organizations may not be deriving full benefit from commu-
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nities of practice and that productivity among participating practitioners may not be optimum. The unequal power relationships between these mythical characters reflects a perceived management problem of understanding where organizational knowledge resides, how to tap into it, and then extract all that there is. The problem for management is it cannot gauge the extent of success of CoP activities because participation in such communities by organizational members is voluntary, ad hoc and without express outcomes. As the chapter has described, in order to address the problem, management has begun to exert greater control over CoPs by establishing systems of measurement and directing CoP activities. Like Delilah who believed Samson’s power existed in the length of his hair and by cutting it she would gain the secret of Samson’s strength, so, too, management believes that the extraction of knowledge through control systems of technology will yield knowledge. While CoPs as spheres providing opportunities for knowledge transfer through normalized social interactions have found favor among knowledge practitioners, the uncertainty of outcomes and benefit to organizations from such interactions is problematic for management. The present solution is typical of the command and control systems that many in management consider to be appropriate. It is a twofold attack on the integrity of CoPs; first, by adapting organizational measurement practices to the community activities, and, second, by downgrading the status of participating practitioners to being only a part of the benefit of CoPs, and a lesser and more problematic one at that. In a strategic sweep, management has elevated the status of such regimes of control while downgrading the importance of knowledge practitioners in the process. The effect has been to shift the pendulum of power relations in favor of management and organizations while diminishing the independence and importance of practitioners within organizations.
The chapter argued that the imbalance of power relations between management and knowledge practitioners is evident in the use of CoPs as a vehicle for organizational control. However, this is a risky strategy in that the voluntary participation by knowledge practitioners in CoPs may also be diminished as organizational members find alternative vehicles through which to develop and sustain relationships to communicate their knowledge praxis. The notion of conformity to corporate cultures has become de rigeur by many organizational and management scholars; we just need to find ways to make practitioners adhere to organizational standards. Of course, there will always be resistance and opposition as others observe. There is riskiness in using command and control strategies, particularly where voluntary participation is necessary, such as CoPs, because it may result in potentially valued participants opting out or subverting management objectives. Further, the element of trust between management and practitioners may be further eroded; with practitioners considering management manipulative and coercive. To avoid, or at least minimize, such a destructive situation arising, the chapter has suggested that each of management and knowledge practitioners collaborate on setting goals for innovation, establish responsibilities for performance of and contribution to these goals, and establish the environment in which the processes of achieving them might occur. It means an appreciation for and trust in the other may be developed between management and knowledge practitioners, so that rather than using Delilah as a means of disempowering Samson, there is a supportive arrangement that can be creative rather than destructive. It also means that CoPs may be valued for what they are meant to be, a free association of participants who engage in problem resolution because it is in their interest to do so.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Community of Practice: A socialized environment voluntarily created by work colleagues for themselves, in which they discuss, cooperate and solve problems and issues of concern to them with colleagues who share these concerns. Such environments generally involve members and exist
for as long as participants hold such concerns and are interested in discussing them. Discourse: The way in which an object is understood in a particular way through how it is spoken about and enacted. Discourses may be broadened to include other discourses, which may be linked in such a way that what we know and do about one is integral to our understanding of the other. A discourse gains dominance when other ways of thinking about the object are rarely considered. Knowledge Practitioner/Worker: Individual employees or other organizational members who work with and combine various abstract concepts of knowledge to solve problems for the benefit of an organization. Their knowledge is based on structured and accredited learning, which is then applied in different ways to resolve business problems and create value for an organization. An example is business analysts who combine their education and experiences to evaluate business opportunities and potential. Such knowledge practitioners might use a CoP to discuss various aspects of a business, to arrive at a combined perspective they may not necessarily have achieved on their own. In this way, sharing knowledge is of great value to the firm for which these practitioners work. Organizational Knowledge: Transfer of knowledge (based on an individual’s learning and experiences, and their application to solving work-related problems) from an individual to the organization, so that the organization rather than the individual owns it, and it has value for an organization to repackage as a service or offering. Power, Power Relations, Power Relationships: Power is generally perceived as either having power over something (dominant or sovereign power) or having the power to do something (productive power). In the context of the chapter, the discussion is mostly about the power of management hierarchy, that is, management has power over subordinates and tries to force subordinates to do what it wants, including sharing knowledge.
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Praxis: A set of practices or routines.
ENDNOTES 1
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The firms mentioned here are among the most influential consultancy firms world wide, each of which counts many thousands of organizations as its clients. They have
2
significant influence on the business strategies of major national and international organizations. ‘Build it and they will come’ is an expression that has become part of every-day use and was originally a central line of dialogue in the 1989 American film Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner.
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Chapter 8
Communities of Practice: Context Factors that Influence their Development
Edurne Loyarte Vicomtech - Visual Communication and Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Olga Rivera Hernáez University of Deusto, Spain
ABSTRACT Many organizations have developed Communities of Practice and they are one of the most important vehicles of knowledge management in the 21st century. Organizations use Communities of Practice for different purposes, but both, organizations and Communities, are limited by different context factors. Therefore, different goals are achieved with them: sometimes the intended goals and sometimes unintended goals. With this in mind, this chapter focuses on the context factors that influence the development of Communities of Practice. To this end, we review different cases of Communities of Practice within various organizations. Our analysis provides: (a) a reflection on the Context factors in the process of integrating Communities of Practice, (b) an analysis of the impact of these factors on the development of Communities of Practice in different organizations and (c) the conclusions of the study. This study is based on the general idea that Communities of Practice are a valid management tool for organizations. This chapter is therefore based on the study of Communities of Practice from the perspective of organizational management.
INTRODUCTION Wenger et al (2002) define Communities of Practice as groups of people who share a concern, a DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch008
set of problems or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in the area by interacting on an ongoing basis. Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, or who learn how to do it better as they
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interact regularly (Kimble, Hildreth & Wright, 2000; Preece, 2004). This contributes to innovation and knowledge creation across an organization’s boundaries, creating, a good process flow of knowledge, which is usually well linked with the organization’s business strategy, in this way creating strategic benefits (du Plessis, 2008). In all cases, organizations are limited by their context factors and the changes they want to drive. So it is important for organizations to realize that they have choices to make when it comes to the cultivation of Communities of Practice and that they should use the formula that works best for their particular organization. Identifying more limits to knowledge management, not only organizations are limited, Communities of Practice are too. From this point of view, an increasing number of studies in management literature have provided critiques of the Communities of Practice approach (Contu & Willmott, 2003; Fow, 2000; Handley et al. 2006; Marshall & Rollinson, 2004; Mutch, 2003). Roberts (2006) also argues that there are clearly unresolved issues and difficulties in the Communities of Practice approach. Issues concerning power, trust and predisposition such as Communities of Practice size and spatial reach involve challenges that have to be studied. In this chapter, the authors approach Communities of Practice from an organizational point of view, including a study of Communities of Practice, which have considerable influence in organizational approaches. The authors of the present study have developed a cultivation model (E. Loyarte & O. River, 2007) in which Communities of Practice are clearly seen as a knowledge management tool which can be applied in certain cases within organizations. Although both Communities of Practice and organizations have their limitations, it now seems important to go one step further, and reach a stage where it is possible to analyze in a uniform way the different contexts in
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which Communities of Practice coexist and how they influence the groups they encompass, as well as the organization itself. With this in mind, the authors have focused on answering the following research questions: •
•
•
•
•
What kinds of businesses undertake the cultivation of Communities of Practice? What size are these businesses? Which sectors do they belong to? What objectives drive the cultivation of Communities of Practice within organizations? What kind of organizational environment is beneficial to the creation of Communities of Practice? Is organizational restructuring essential in order to promote Communities of Practice in organizations? What attitude should the members of a Community of Practice have in order to ensure its success?
In order to be able to answer these questions, we have analyzed the contextual factors which influence both Communities of Practices and organizations. The chapter is structured as follows. In the following section, we explain what a Community of Practice is not, the potential phases of its life cycle both within and outside of an organization, the different relationships it might have with its company, its limitations, the ways in which it can bring added value to an organization in helping to achieve competitive advantages, and the contextual factors that may influence it. We then go on to explain the methods behind this study, and present the selected case studies. The answers to the research questions set out in the current section of this work will then be detailed. Finally, the limitations of this study and the work to be carried out in the future will be set out.
Communities of Practice
BACKGROUND This section focuses on reviewing, within a theoretical framework, the phases of the life cycle of Communities of Practice, as well as their relationship with their organization, their limitations, their potential for achieving competitive advantages for organizations, and the contextual factors that influence them. Therefore, this review suggests that, while organizations and Communities of Practice are limited in their implementation, Communities of Practice are nevertheless useful as a knowledge management tool.
According to Wenger, (1998 b) the lifecycle of a community of practice within a company is as follows: (See Figure 1.) •
•
Communities of Practice within Organizations: Stages of Development
•
It is important to understand the potential phases of the life cycle of a Community of Practice, since the contextual factors influence it in different ways depending on the phase which the Community of Practice finds itself in. For example, if the Community has just been set up and the process has been implemented from within the organization itself, the Community will be greatly dependent on the organization with regards to resources and the way in which the Community is directed by the organization. However, if a Community has been created spontaneously during the same phase of the life cycle, then it is possible that it will depend more on the group itself and its interest in moving forward with the process than on contextual factors within the organization. Similarly, a Community of Practice which has already consolidated its contextual factors will be influenced by these factors in a completely different way, due to the existence of a prior adaptation process (or not) within the organization and the members of the Community. In this section we will explain the phases of the life cycle of a Community of Practice according to the theories of authors such as Wenger (b. 1998), McDermott (2000), and P. Gongla, and C. R. Rizutto (2001).
•
•
Potential stage: People with similar work face similar situations daily without the benefit of shared practice for these situations. In such cases, people tend to look to their peers in order to discover common interests. Coalescing stage: Members meet and recognize each others’ value, explore similarities in their work, define common practices and begin to develop a community. Active stage: Members engage in developing common practices, adapting to different circumstances, renewing interests, obligations, and relationships. Dispersion stage: Members no longer have a commitment to the community, but the community remains alive as an important centre of shared knowledge. As a result, members keep in touch and keep meeting sporadically. Memorable stage: The community is not the centre of relationships for its members, but they still remember it as a significant part of their identities. When members get together, they remember stories and, in turn, preserve memories of the time during which they belonged to the community.
McDermott (2000) also develops a lifecycle for Communities of Practice that coincides with Wenger’s (1998b) lifecycle analysis, despite the fact that each stage is given a different name. According to McDermott (2000), communities evolve in the following stages: planning, start-up, growth, sustain renew and close. However, the community of practice lifecycles developed by Wenger (1998b) and Mc Dermott (2000) are not the only ones in existence. In 1995, IBM Global Services began to implement a knowledge management model that included the
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Figure 1. Stages of development. Wenger (1998 b)
development of Communities of Practice. Experience with this implementation process during more than five years means that IBM has a model for the evolution of Communities of Practice after having monitored more than 60 communities. The stages of evolution that IBM proposes are related to those developed by Wenger (1998b) and McDermott (2000) and are as follows: •
•
•
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Potential stage: At this stage, the community is starting to form and its members are beginning to contact each other. Building stage: The community starts to be defined and forms its operational principles. The community’s main group begins to develop the community’s core and its memory of activities. Engaged stage: The community begins to use processes and to improve them, always pursuing the members’ common objectives and goals. The interaction between
•
•
members and permanent learning are fundamental in this stage. At this point, the community evolves in its abilities of developing tacit and explicit knowledge. Active stage: The community begins to obtain benefits and to show them, as well as to create value for the members and the organization. This value and benefit is derived from knowledge management and from the members’ joint work. At this point, collaboration is fundamental. Adaptive stage: Both the community and the organization use knowledge in order to generate competitive advantages. At this point, the community innovates and generates new knowledge, creating significant changes and benefits in the organizational environment.
As of now, and after analysis and study, IBM has extensive experience with Communities of
Communities of Practice
Table 1. Different stages of development for communities of practices AUTHOR
PHASES
DIFFERENCES
Wenger (1998)
Potential, coalescending, active, dispersed, memorable
Wenger’s approach can be applied to Communities that may be within an organization or not.
McDermott (2000)
Planning, start-up, growth, sustain/renew, close
McDermott considers the final phase of a Community to be the closing phase, while other approaches consider what will happen to a Community beyond its closure.
IBM (1995)
Potential, building, engaged, active and adaptative stages
This approach is aimed at the phases of the life cycle of Communities within an organization.
Practice in the first three stages. However, there are few examples of communities that have reached the active stage, and even fewer of communities reaching the adaptive stage. What IBM has noticed, however, is the fact that there are communities that, although not quite in the adaptive stage, have some of the characteristics of this stage. So they are communities that combine some aspects from this stage and others from the last stage (Gongla & Rizzuto, 2001). In short the different life-phases of Communities of Practices can be summarized as stated on Table 1. Each Community of Practice will have its own particular phases within its life span, but given that Communities are also groups of people, the approaches previously set out give us an idea of how they can create and evolve, the cultivation of these groups being of primary importance in order for them not to enter into the closing phases. Wenger’s approach is the one that most closely mimics the way that human beings act, and explains very well how a Community of Practice can enter into the dispersion phase if sufficient motivation and the commitment to continue moving forward are not maintained. McDermott and IBM discuss the phases of the
SIMILARITIES All the approaches have a first phase which involves the potential cultivation of Communities as well as some final phases involving the closure or dispersion of the groups.
life cycle of Communities within an organization, which is helpful when, having determined which phase a Community is in, deciding whether to intervene in them or not. In the study developed by the authors in this chapter, the contextual factors are analyzed in Communities of Practice which have already run their course within an organization. Since the success or failure of these Communities is already known, it is possible to analyze their trajectory and the influence (positive or negative) these factors have had on the organization and the group itself.
Types of Relationships between Communities of Practice and Organizations In this section we will explain the relationship which a Community might have with an organization, taking into account the fact that a Community can be linked to a department or business unit, an interest group which combines more than one business unit, or even a group from outside the organization itself. It is clear that contextual factors differ depending on the case in hand. As has been explained previously, being a member of a Community of Practice is not a
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question of rank but rather of voluntary participation. Because of this, communities can cross the hierarchical and institutional levels of organizations. It is possible to find communities such as the following: •
•
•
Within business units: They solve problems that emerge within the units themselves. Beyond business units: The knowledge of communities is normally distributed across different units. In such cases communities can develop strategic perspectives that transcend product line fragmentation. For example, the Community of Practice could suggest an investment plan which no single business unit would be able to produce due to lack of knowledge. Beyond the organization’s limits: In certain cases, Communities of Practice can be useful for working beyond the limits of the organization. For example, in industries in which change is a key factor in the market, engineers who work together with clients and suppliers could form a Community of Practice for the technological monitoring of company laboratories’ updated maintenance, taking into consideration the market’s technological changes.
In addition to the above, the relationship between different Communities of Practice and organizations can vary substantially, as seen in Table 2. In this study we analyze the contextual factors that influence Communities of Practice within an organization and attempt to ascertain what gives rise to the relationship which is established between the organization and the members of the Community.
The Drawbacks of Communities of Practice If the evidence suggests that the contextual factors influence Communities and organizations, then it follows that both have their limitations. Therefore, in this section we will also examine the limitations of the various kinds of Communities that exist. Communities of practice, just as every other human institution, also have their drawbacks: They can hoard knowledge, limit innovation, close off new members and experiences, reflect society’s injustices and prejudices, etc. Therefore, it is not a good idea to idealize communities of practice or to expect for them to solve every problem without creating any of their own. In fact, since communities are normally involved in organizations, they are usually part of the problems that they normally have to solve. This section examines the disadvantages of communities of practice, taking
Table 2. Original table based on “Relationships to Official Organization”. Wenger (1998 b) Type of Relationship
Definition
Challenges in the Relationship
Unnoticed
Invisible to the organization, and sometimes even to the members themselves
Reflection, awareness of value and of the Community’s limits
Invisible
Only informally visible to a circle of people
Obtaining resources and impact in order to not remain hidden.
Legitimate
Officially recognized as a valuable entity
Not monitoring or managing the community too much, and trying to fulfil work demands.
Strategic
Recognized as a priority asset for the achievement of organizational success
Pressure, exclusion, elitism.
Transformational
With the capability of redefining its environment and the direction of its organization
Management of organizational limits and acceptance.
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into account three different levels: Individual communities of practice, constellations of communities (relationship between a group of communities), and organizations. Seen from this perspective, the weaknesses featured by communities of practice are as follows.
rest of the group), lack of connection between people, localism, etc.
Individual Communities: Weaknesses
A lot of these weaknesses are not fatal, and communities can even live with this type of problems and achieve great results. A large number of successful communities recognize their weaknesses and are able to reaffirm themselves in their vitality.
The two most general problems in a community are:
Constellation of Communities: Weaknesses
•
In order to study the effectiveness of a community, it is not only necessary to observe its internal development, but also its relationships with other communities and bodies. There are, however, problems associated with constellations of communities. Maintaining trust between members of several communities is more complex that maintaining it within a specific community. In fact, different communities mean different languages, practices, styles, vocabulary, etc. The limits of each practice are often informal and are not normally addresses, but this does not mean that they do not exist. The limits of practices entail two challenges for communities:
•
The first problem is fairly obvious, since it consists of the fact that the community may not work correctly. There are various possible reasons for this: Their design is not focused on their evolution, there is no dialog, they don’t invite different dialog levels, private and public spaces for discussion are not developed, they’re not focused on creating value, there is no familiarity, there is no rhythm of work, they fail in reaching the different stages of a community’s life cycle, the domain does not motivate the community’s members, members do not get along well enough to develop the necessary trust for working, etc. The second problem is more subtle. It reflects the human weaknesses of each member and, as a result, the community’s weaknesses are inherent to the group. Communities are made up of people, and although people might work well, problems arise even when the community is functioning correctly, since there could be implicit problems that could entail the development of serious disarray within the group. A community is an ideal structure for arresting people’s learning when members do not get along. There could be jealousy, imperialism, narcissism, ostracism, dependencies, stratifications (too much distance between the core group and the
•
Protection: Communities develop knowledge efficiently by creating their own jargon, methods, and surroundings. This helps members learn and invent more easily, but limits for people who do not belong to the community are inevitably created, and, as a result, there can be misunderstandings and lack of communication between communities and transferring knowledge from one community to another can be a challenge that is difficult to overcome. Differences between different communities are difficult to overcome, and, as a result, every community tries to protect its knowledge implicitly.
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•
Filtering: The limits of practices do not correspond to organizational limits. Therefore, there are communities that cross these limits, and knowledge is filtered towards areas outside of the organization in an easier manner than towards areas inside, since communities can get to the point where they share practices with communities from other organizations. This mechanism can result in the effective and efficient development of channels of distribution for information and ideas.
Communities protect and filter knowledge simultaneously. It is not easy for knowledge to filter through the limits of a practice within an organization, but it does flow easily within the same practice and without taking into account the existence of other types of limits. It is not possible to avoid these types of risks, and, as a result, it is necessary to coexist with and manage them. The key is in paying enough attention to limits in order to avoid any possible problems and to pursue the advantages and opportunities that could emerge.
Organizations: Weaknesses Communities of practice normally develop within an organizational context. This section has explained how a community of practice can hinder organizational learning when its problems distract people from their productive activities or their organizational limits. On the other hand, organizations can hinder the development of a community in exactly the same way. The organization can be irrational and counterproductive, and internal conflict could proliferate. There are two types of problems at an organizational level: The first one deals with the organizational dysfunction that communities may suffer, and the second with the structural rigidity or complexity of the organization in question. Communities, just like other types of organizational initiatives, can run into corporate barriers
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that will affect their ability to transfer knowledge. These barriers could be: Irrational policies, shortterm focus on tangible results (these do not allow long-term strategic priorities), and anti-learning organizational cultures. Communities are usually unable to develop mechanisms that counteract organizational disturbances, since they require a commitment on behalf of the company that manages organizational policies and the corporate system’s priorities. However, in order for a community to prosper, the process must be kept in line and promoted so that a knowledge system that allows for the creation of added value to the organization can be built. In this case, the community will overcome the company’s rigidity and complexity, and will be able to become an agile tool for sharing knowledge. Conscious of the risk that the creation of a community can entail, the objective is to create a productive relationship between the organization and the community that will allow sharing necessary knowledge and that will allow the members of a community to learn. This study focuses on the limitations of Communities of Practice within organizations as well as the limitations that may exist by having certain members in the group (limitations of the Community itself).
The Validity of Communities in the Improvement of Competitiveness Even taking these limits into account, and paying due attention to contextual factors, this chapter nevertheless aims to demonstrate that Communities of Practice are valid management tools for organizations. This theory has also been explored in the writings of other authors, as can be seen from the text that follows. The growing interest in organizational learning during the nineties implicitly promoted the significance of groups and informal networks, both recognized as important opportunities for organizations. Along the same lines, Lave and
Communities of Practice
Wenger (1991) state that communities of practice should be recognized as valuable assets within organizations. Recognizing the fact that communities of practice affect the company’s activity is important, since this is how the traditional hierarchical barriers of organizations themselves are overcome. However, communities also seem effective when it comes to solving unstructured problems and sharing knowledge beyond organizational limits. Moreover, the concept of communities is recognized in respect to their significance in developing and maintaining the organization’s memory in the long term (Lave & Wenger, 1991). All these opportunities are important, although not always recognized, in complementing the value that members of communities obtain when enriching their own learning with the increase in motivation to share what they know (Lesser & Storck, 2001).1 Empirical studies show that communities of practice benefit organizations, the communities themselves, and their members, since they are powerful driving forces when it comes to sharing knowledge and obtaining business benefits (Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2003). The competitive advantages gathered from said studies are as follows (Allee, 2000): •
For the organization: ◦⊦ Helps drive the business strategy. ◦⊦ Helps solve problems by joining the community’s opinions with those of the organization ◦⊦ Helps develop, retain, and acquire knowledge talents and employees ◦⊦ Develops key abilities and knowledge competencies. ◦⊦ Quickly spreads the operation and practice excellence of the organization. ◦⊦ Generates ideas and increases opportunities of innovation.
•
•
For the community: ◦⊦ Helps develop a common language, methods, and models around specific competencies. ◦⊦ Extends knowledge and know-how to diverse people. ◦⊦ Helps retain knowledge when there are workers leaving the company. ◦⊦ Increases access to knowledge throughout the company. ◦⊦ Provides the significance of sharing power and influence with the organization’s formal part. For the person: ◦⊦ Helps people carry out their work. ◦⊦ Provides a stable sense of community with other people in the organization and with the company. ◦⊦ Promotes a sense of identity based on learning. ◦⊦ Helps develop individual abilities and competencies. ◦⊦ Provides people with personal challenges and opportunities.
According to Lee (2003), the benefits of an organization in having communities of practice include a fast response to clients, cost savings, improvement in work quality, the quick implementation of projects, and the ability of solving problems with knowledge that has been developed previously. Communities also provide the organization with the key to making tacit knowledge explicit, since tacit knowledge is extremely personal and difficult to transfer as is and to quantify. This type of knowledge, as previously mentioned, is essential and difficult to capture, since it is not normally documented. Members of communities are also benefited, since they can become members of communities as soon as they enter the organization. This allows them to access knowledge that they could need to orient themselves in their new job. Seen from
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this point of view, communities of practice are particularly effective for members spread across different geographical environments, since the community provides them with a way to have constant access to information and knowledge that they could require at any moment. Organizations that support communities of practice have the advantage that knowledge flows from the person to the organization without the need for impositions derived from hierarchical reasons, and rather as a result of their personal motivation, which leads the person to keep sharing knowledge constantly, naturally, and nonspecifically (Ledtka, 1999). Research by Lesser and Stork (2001) reinforces the statement regarding the competitive advantages derived from communities of practice, and, along these lines, detects the fact that these groups have an influence on the results of organizations in the following aspects: •
•
•
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Decreasing the learning curve for people who have just entered the company, since members of communities take in new practitioners and share their tacit knowledge with them, helping them to communicate with the organization and trying to make the technical and cultural aspects of their current responsibilities easier for them. Responding quicker to clients’ needs and requests, since communities can help identify the ideal person for solving the client’s specific problem. Communities of practice integrate a perspective of connection between people, which can be very important, particularly in organizations in which specialized people are geographically scattered. Preventing both double work and “reinventing the wheel.” This is one of the contributions that organizations value most highly, since members of communities develop the ability of capturing and reus-
•
ing knowledge previously generated and using it in applicable cases. This way, retention in organizational memory becomes an important fact that conveys the security of proposed solutions to new problems being effective, since they have already been tried and tested in previous cases. Producing new ideas for products or services. A lot of the communities analyzed in the study by Lesser and Store (2001) have been creators of innovation, since their members share diverse perspectives on specific and common subjects within an environment of communication that is comfortable for sharing challenges and developing proposals.
These same conclusions are also backed up, on one hand, by authors such as Bukowitz and William (1999),2 who maintain that communities generate abilities in organizations that make these organizations competitive, and, on the other, by research directed by the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, Lotus Research, and the Boston University, which also highlights these benefits from communities of practice in organizations from various industrial sectors that were part of the analysis (Lesser & Everest, 2001). In turn, authors Wenger and Snyder (2000) state that communities of practice create value in organizations under the aforementioned terms and aspects and that they constitute a new horizon for companies, with the expectation that, in ten years, communities will be part of common conversations much like discussions about business units and work teams are today, as long as businessmen learn to understand communities as an important part of achieving organizational success. McDermott (2002) also states that the impact that communities of practice have on organizations can be measured through changes detected in activities, income, value created at an individual and organizational level, and in organizational results.
Communities of Practice
Factors which Influence Communities of Practice
factors – organization size and sector – have an influence on Communities of Practice.
In this section the authors try to identify factors from the theory of Communities of Practice in order to emphasize their importance during the process of Communities of Practice development, along with strategies that can be adopted for integrating communities into organizations. The factors used to analyze the experiences are the following:
Objectives which Prompt Organizations to Cultivate Communities of Practice
Size of Communities and Sector of Activity: Size of the Communities Communities of Practice were originally presented as organic, spontaneous, self-organized groups (Lave & Wenger, 1991). However, Wenger (2000) and other authors (Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2003; Wenger et al, 2002) suggest that Communities of Practice are susceptible to manipulation on the part of organizations, and that they are influenced by their organizational context. Communities of Practice exist in both small and multinational organizations, and so we can find Communities comprising anything from a few members to thousands of them. Therefore, the question is raised whether the same principles can be applied to very small Communities and very large ones, as well as Communities that coexist in multinational companies or small businesses (Roberts, 2006). Another factor which influences the context of Communities of Practice in organizations is the sector within which the business in question carries out its activity, since this affects the objectives to be covered with the cultivation of the Communities, and the organization’s attitude towards the group. In this study the authors focus on the analysis of the kind of organization linked to the Communities in hand, as well as the sector of activity, since the study is written from an organizational point of view, as opposed to being more focused on the Community’s perspective. However, both
Communities of Practice are cultivated in order to achieve various goals: to communicate good practices, to solve problems in the most efficient way possible, to develop professional skills, to influence organizational strategy, retain talent, etc. (Burk, 2000; Tamizi et al. 2006). The loss of knowledge deserves special attention, since it is a serious problem for organizations. Businesses are always fighting the loss of people which results in a loss of the tacit knowledge that encompasses corporate knowledge. In order to address this problem, organizations search for ways to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (du Plessis, 2008) or ensure that people who are about to retire train new personnel so that corporate knowledge remains within the organization. This retention of knowledge, in turn, is also more likely to help keep talent in the organization, as members of staff will have an innovative knowledge base to work from, which will create a stimulating working environment (Wenger et al. 2002). One organizational objective may be to build social capital by building up relationships and values such as trust and integrity. This will allow the building of values such as trust, honesty, integrity and transparency (du Plessis, 2008). All organizations have strategic drivers of Communities of Practice. In the du Plessis study of 2008, the strategic drivers in small and medium enterprises (SME) are the following: • • •
Adopting to the rapid pace of change in the business world; Using Communities of Practice as a communication tool; Communities of Practice can achieve shared organizational objectives;
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•
• • • • • • • •
Communities of Practice can assist in managing the knowledge management lifecycle; Communities of Practice can break down organizational silo behaviour; Communities of Practice create a knowledge structure for the organization; Communities of Practice can ensure collaboration across geographical boundaries; Using Communities of Practice as vehicle to combat knowledge attrition; Creation of social networks; Using Communities of Practice as learning entities; Communities of Practice as incubators for the stimulation of innovation; The more change in the environment, the more connectivity is required by organizations with the key marketplaces.
•
Therefore, the goals for developing Communities of Practice are highly heterogeneous and depend on multiple characteristics (size, sector, employees, necessities, etc) which have to be considered in a cultivation process and, of course, when studying different experiences. There are different motivations for developing Communities of Practice and the potential results depend on the factors explained above.
Context Factors •
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Organizational environment: Communities of Practice require an organizational environment which will foster their cultivation, with an organizational culture in line with their characteristics. Moreover, this environment must be in tune with the environment of the groups themselves so that both the organization and the Communities can provide one another with mutual assistance. In the experiences studied we focused on the need for a particular environment (Wenger et. Al 2002), which is the
•
• •
need for conditions or a communication infrastructure between potential community members (Brown & Durguid, 2001) highlighted that Communities of Practice require a supportive management approach (Swan et al. 2002) and that Communities of Practice should engage with their wider epistemic context (Thomson, 2005). Technical, historical and cultural context is also significant, and the desire to develop Communities of Practice should be taken into account, along with the potential impact of successfully engendering Communities of Practice. Successfully founding Communities of Practice might have the potential to fundamentally reshape an organization (Venters & Wood, 2007). The need for restructuring as a key element of Communities of Practice: Venters and Wood’s 2007 study suggests that success in founding Communities of Practice has the potential to fundamentally reshape an organization. It is obvious that if an organization starts the process for founding Communities of Practice it is because it needs to reshape a process, a group, a department or something in the area of Knowledge Management. However, it is not enough with the need to reshape, having resources enough to start the process is a key factor. In other words, being able to reshape. Epistemic context: The concept of Community of Practice developed by Wenger (1998) is part of the social learning theory, which is based on the following premises: We are social beings - which is considered an essential aspect of learning. Knowledge is a matter of competence in respect to certain valued practices, such as singing in tune, discovering scientific
Communities of Practice
•
•
facts, fixing machines, writing poetry, being convivial, growing up, etc. Knowing is a matter of participating in the achievement of these practices, engaging oneself actively in the world. Meaning is what learning must ultimately produce.
The main core of interest of this theory, which is based on the assumptions quoted above, rests on learning as social participation. Participation within this context does not refer to mere engagement, but rather to a process of greater reach that consists of actively participating in the practices of social communities and of building identities within them. In describing the practical side of Communities of Practice, Wenger (1998) draws on theories from several publications which are summarized in Table 3. This table shows epistemic characteristics of Communities of Practice to the extent they concern the way we think, experience and learn (all of which occurs as part as of our participation in social activity). •
•
•
Theories of social structure give priority to institutions, norms, and rules. They emphasize cultural systems, discourses, and history. They look for underlying explanatory structures that clarify social guidelines, and tend to view action as a mere realization of these structures under specific circumstances Theories of situated experience give priority to the dynamics of everyday existence, improvisation, and coordination. They basically deal with people’s interactive relationships with their surroundings. Theories of social practice deal with the production and reproduction of specific ways of participating in the world. They are concerned with everyday activity and real-life scenarios, but with an emphasis on social systems of shared resources by
•
means of which groups organize and coordinate their activities, their mutual relationships, and their interpretations of the world. Theories of identity address the person’s social formation, the cultural interpretation of the body, and the creation and use of markers of affiliation such as rites of passage and social categories.
Once again, learning is located in the middle. It is the vehicle for the evolution of practices and for the inclusion of participants in them, as well as the vehicle for the development of identities and their transformation at the same time. In claiming the existence of Communities of Practice, one is the adopting a definable epistemological position in which it is theoretically possible for a group of interacting people to achieve a unique virtuous circle of increased participation, identification, learning, prominence Table 3. Epistemic characteristics of communities of practice (Thompson, 2005) Body of Theory
Communities of Practice Characteristics
Theories of Learning
Participation in Communities of Practice involves communication, is task oriented, requires at least peripheral social inclusion, is distributed and arises from dialectics between subjective and objective realities.
Theories of Social Formation
Situated learning exists only in interaction between structural forms and human action, not in either of these alone.
Theories of Practice
Communities of Practice are a living social situation.
Theories of Identity
Situated learning is negotiated experience, of which identity is both input and output – a connection between different communities, styles and procedures.
Theories of Situation
Situated learning is always context specific, and is affected by the interpreter’s curriculum and narration.
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within the group and motivation (based around certain structural styles and procedures).
ANALYZING MANAGEMENTPROMOTED COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE This section explains the research methods and the selection of the cases analyzed.
Case Study Methodology In order to reach the conclusions proposed in the following text, the authors carry out an analysis of case studies where selection of the same follows the following criteria: •
• •
•
•
•
•
The experiences should be well documented, and explain the results of the cultivation of Communities of Practice within an organization. The study should be based on organizations of different types, sizes, and sectors. The study should explain the relationship between Communities of Practice and organizations, as well as the organizational environment in which it is found. Cases should be selected which allow us to know the characteristics of each Community of Practice, its environment, and the way it functions. Each new experience should enrich the study, and therefore no two similar experiences should be used. The unit of analysis should be the Community of Practice itself as a management tool in an organizational environment. All experiences must be analyzed using a single theoretical model.
These criteria will allow us to conduct different analyses on real and relevant experiences related to the cultivation of Communities in organiza-
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tions, allowing us to compare them and reach conclusions that will aid the launching of new experiences based on Communities of Practice. The sources used to identify experiences are the following: • • • •
Scientific articles Books Publications issued by the organizations themselves The organizations’ websites
All the Communities of Practice examined in this study are linked to organizations, allowing us to compare these groups within a specific context.
Case Selection Table 4 shows the companies that were studied and some of their basic features, such as their respective profiles, the country and the size of the company, and the references of the documented experiences. It must be mentioned here that the selection of cases has not been an easy task, mainly because the authors have had to define for this purpose the conditions that distinguish a Communities of Practice from just a group or a network, as we mentioned in the background.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In this section the conclusions reached from the study which answer the research questions posed in the introduction to this chapter are presented. The analysis and conclusions obtained are described below: 1. What kind of businesses undertakes the cultivation of Communities of Practice? What size are these businesses? Which sectors do these businesses belong to?
Communities of Practice
As can be seen from Table 3, the majority of the organizations studied are large, and we only have three case studies involving small businesses. Therefore, from this study we can conclude that it is large companies which require new manage-
ment tools which can provide them with a new competitive advantage within their sector. In any case, it is still necessary to take into account that this case study is based on published experiences, and it is likely that there are many more cases of
Table 4. Main features of the experiences analyzed ORGANIZATION
SECTOR
COUNTRY
SIZE
CASE PUBLISHED BY
IBM Global Services
Telecommunication
USA
Large
Gongla, P. & Rizutto. C. R. (2001)
World Bank
Bank
USA
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
Andersen Consulting Education
Consultancy
USA
Large
Graham, W. & Osgood, D. (1998)
Cap Gemini Ernest & Young
Consultancy
France
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
DaimlerChrysler
Automotion
Germany
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
Ford Motor Company
Automotion
USA
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
Schumberger
Technological Services
USA
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
Xerox Corporation
Technology and Services
USA
Large
American Productivity and Quality Centre (2000)
Watson Wyatt
International consultancy
England
Large
Hildreth, P. & Kimble, C. (2000)
International company
Distributor/Commercial company
England
Small
Hildreth, P. & Kimble, C. (2000)
Defence Department
Civil Sevice
USA
Large
Defense Department of USA (2004)
Medico
Bioscience
UK
Large
Swan, J. A.; Scarbrough, H. y Robertson, M. (2002)
University of Indiana
Education
USA
Large
Liedtka, J. (1999)
Basque Company
Automotion
Basque Country
Small
Calzada, I. (2004)
British Council
Education & culture
UK
Large
Venters, W & Wood, B. (2007)
E-Future
Information Technologies
UK
Small
Thompson, M. (2005)
Anglia Rusking University
Education
UK
Large
Wisker, G. et al. (2007)
Public House Managers
Licensed retail sector
UK
Large
Mutch, A. (2003)
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small businesses which have created Communities of Practices without recording their experiences. The large organizations, often market-driving organizations in their sector, publish the results of their good practices, while small and medium sized businesses, even if they are immersed in the culture of knowledge management, are not used to publishing the management tools they use to carry out their business strategy. This is reflected in the study presented in this chapter. The predominant sectors are consultancy and education, along with the motor industry and technology. The consultancy and education sectors (business schools) were the first to investigate and work with new management tools, since these sectors need to be up to date at all times in order to be able to train managers or students in this discipline. This knowhow allows them to be at the forefront of various aspects of their sectors, ensuring that they are able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the fact that they are adequately prepared to implement these tools in their own organizations. In fact, the earliest cases of the cultivation of Communities of Practice come from the consultancy and education sectors. The motor industry is subject to such high competitive pressure that it requires a high level of efficiency and efficacy when launching a new product and this implies important organizational changes. In fact, we have even found a small business which has involved itself in the world of Communities of Practice in order to survive in the motor industry in the Basque Country. Companies in the technology sector are characterized by intensive knowledge. They require this kind of tool in order not to duplicate processes and to allow them to create synergies in organizational learning for the professionals that make up the companies. As set out by Roberts (2006), the characteristics of Communities of Practice which are cultivated in small or large companies are completely different: for example, it is impossible for small companies to create a Community of Practice comprising
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1,500 members, and they are limited with regard to the resources available to them. Likewise, the sector in which an organization works also has an effect on its limitations and opportunities. Both factors create limits for organizations, their Communities of Practice, and the opportunities available to them. In this study we have already pointed out that the motor industry is affected by certain factors which pressure motor companies to change their management tools, although results differ for large and small companies. Nevertheless, in other sectors the pressure is not so great, and therefore the companies in those sectors work in a different way. 2. What objectives are used to promote the cultivation of Communities of Practice within organizations? Objectives differ according to the business and the sector. In this study, the most common objectives are the following: •
•
•
Convert the business into a flexible working unit with heterogeneous staff who share their tacit knowledge. The idea is that a business should have the capacity to react to unstable market conditions (Automotion, SME). Unite knowledge management and business strategy in order to create a system that adds value and brings with it a competitive advantage by means of an improvement in organization thanks to knowledge sharing (IBM Global Services, Andersen Consulting Education, Cap Gemini Ernest & Young, Schumberger). Promote global knowledge within and outside the organization in order to be more effective, using Communities of Practice which allow for discussion forums (World Bank, Indiana University, Ford Motor Company, Public House Managers).
Communities of Practice
•
•
•
To ensure that corporate knowledge remains within the organization even though experts retire, maintaining basic organization competences (Defense Department, Daimler Chrysler). Promote innovation within the company in order to improve results (Xerox Corporation, Medico, Efuture). Test the validity of Communities of Practice in distributed environments (Watson Wyatt, Important International Company, Anglia Ruskin University).
It is clear that the objectives specified for the cultivation of Communities of Practice are various, but the common denominator is their use as a management tool, with the final objective of reducing costs or obtaining a competitive advantage in a particular sector. One of the characteristics of Communities of Practice which differentiates them from other management tools is that they can be used to retain tacit knowledge within an organization although those who possess the knowledge leave the organization: Communities, therefore, are a valid tool for maintaining corporate knowledge. In this case, success depends on the attitude of the members that comprise the Communities of Practice and their willingness to share their knowledge, as well as the business culture of the company itself and its attitude towards Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. 3. What kind of organizational environment is beneficial to the creation of Communities of Practice? According to the case studies, the idea to cultivate Communities of Practice can come from employees or the organization itself. In both cases, there has to be an organizational culture which is able to support change, and which can also depend on the flexibility of its employees in order for these changes to be carried out. In many
successful cases it is clear that the organizations involved are capable of providing the necessary resources – both human and material – to cultivate Communities of Practice. An environment in which the employees have the initiative to create these groups and the organization supplies the technology and other means to support their efforts is an environment which will allow the process to bear fruit (Andersen Consulting Education, Ford Motor Company, Schumberger, Xerox Company). There are also organizations which, while they do not have employees who provide the initiative, they do have the culture, strength, and sufficient resources to carry out an organizational change of these characteristics where the staff is kept motivated in the Communities of Practices that have been created (World Bank, IBM Global Services, Defense Department, Indiana University, Cap Gemini Ernest &Young, Daimler Chrysler, Watson Wyatt, Anglia Ruskin University, Public House Managers, Efuture). Nevertheless, this environment will deteriorate if the objective is not only to share knowledge but also to get rid of a hierarchical status which existed before the change was embarked upon (Medico) and the organizational environment is deteriorated by the members of the Communities of Practice themselves. That is to say, that the change in employees’ perceptions of the company affect the organizational environment and its culture. Therefore, when a process of cultivation of a Community of Practice is undertaken, it is necessary to assess the organizational changes that this new route will entail, since the people that comprise this organization might not be prepared to assume and absorb this change (although this change might be necessary for the organization). Of course, in cases where there is no organizational culture which might take knowledge management into account, or willingness on the part of the members to change any aspect of their work or the organization, the mission to cultivate
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Communities of Practice
Communities of Practice becomes impossible to fulfil (British Council). 4. Is organizational restructuring essential in order to promote Communities of Practice in organizations? In cases in which the creation of Communities of Practice is organic, there is no need for organizational restructuring; at least, if there is, employees are not aware of it. Sometimes the company supports these initiatives because they understand that the gestation of these groups can be beneficial to the organizational learning that might subsequently lead to restructuring. However, in these cases Communities of Practice are not proposed as a tool for restructuring. Nevertheless, in cases in which Communities of Practice are promoted by the organization itself (as suggested by Venters and Wood, 2007), in general it is necessary to restructure the company, and these groups are used as a means or as part of the strategy designed to achieve this restructuring. Therefore, Communities of Practice are useful in the restructuring of companies, although there are other management tools that can also be used to achieve this. As a consequence, depending on the restructuring that needs to be carried out, it is necessary to assess whether Communities of Practice are the correct tool for the task or not. 5. What attitude should the members of a Community of Practice have in order to ensure its success? The Communities of Practice capable of creating identity, confidence, and commitment within a group when the members of the Group are passionate about the practice, and are willing to share and participate by sharing their experiences and knowledge (World Bank, Andersen Consulting Education, Indiana University, Daimler Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, Schumberger, Efuture) are
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those which achieve a substantial improvement in the organization in an efficient manner. Nevertheless, those groups that cannot create this environment, either because the members feel obliged to be part of the change or because there is not an atmosphere of confidence, will create obstacles for the organization in order to ensure that it does not achieve the chosen objectives, or that the cost of achieving them is very high (Medico, British Council). The members of an organizational Community of Practice should have an open attitude towards personal learning (and sharing their own knowledge), as well as an open attitude towards the interests of the organization, since they are not integrated members of an isolated Community; rather, they are part of an organizational environment which must be taken into account. Thus, when both the visions of the Community of Practice and the organization coincide, both parties can achieve good results and maximize the capacity that Communities of Practice possess as a source of competitive advantages. If it is not the case, this is when the limitations of the Communities and the actual organizations are perceived, as both are limited in the achievement of their objectives: the Community relies on the willingness of the organization, and vice versa.
FUTURE WORK This study presents the different context factors that influence the development of Communities of Practice. The organizations and their Communities of Practice are sensitive to different factors and this issue emphasizes the limitations of the Communities of Practice as a management tool and also the limitation of some organizations to start a process of Communities of Practice cultivation. The Communities of Practice can be studied from an epistemic point of view (studying the communities’ members and their relationships) or from structural parameters (studying the organizational
Communities of Practice
infrastructure needed to develop Communities of Practice). In both cases, Communities of Practice can be studied from different points of view. For example, Roberts 2006, suggests an analysis of Communities of Practice studying issues like power, trust and predisposition and Mutch, 2003, including the habits in the study. These epistemic factors affect the evolution of Communities of Practice and it would be interesting to analyze some different cases from this point of view. The influence of the leader in different Communities of Practice is also an interesting study because the leader is the key person in implementing the community’s culture and work-methods. With a good leader, the community will probably exist in the future and with a bad leader it probably will not. Another possibility is to study organizational culture, infrastructure and the specific moment of its development in order to understand better if the development of Communities of Practice at that moment is the best management tool or not.
CONCLUSION Contributions The main contribution of our study is the understanding of different factors and their influence in the development of Communities of Practice. The concept of Communities of Practice has already been spread in the science community and in the organizational world. So now there is documentation from these two worlds that can be use to carry out in-depth studies of Communities of Practice depending on the organizations in which they have been implemented. Various different authors that have contributed with original case studies (Thompson, 2005) which include the different ways of studying Communities of Practice. Authors such as Roberts, 2006 and Mutch 2003 also give different points for examining Communities of Practice. These different perspectives have been used to give a
different way to analyze Communities of Practice and their organizations.
Limitations of the Study The most important limitations to this investigation project are the following: •
•
•
The cases presented have been studied with the factors explained in the background. There are some other factors which could have been interesting to include in order to complete the cases presented. Most of the experiences have been studied in big companies. The case results would be more interesting if they included more SME cases. The problem is that it is very difficult to get documented experiences about Communities of Practice development in SMEs. The sample is made up of by experiences documented and published by other authors, which of course prevents the authors from having access to the information and knowledge needed to go deeper in their analysis.
General Interest This chapter has been written bearing in mind a broad readership, ranging from academics and researchers (MSc and PhD students) to professional people in industry with an interest in the Knowledge Management field and in Communities of Practice. The authors have prioritized a managerial point of view, looking at case studies, and emphasizing results in firms in challenging environments, considering their contribution to key subjects such as innovation, knowledge management, learning, technology, and motivational approach, all studied from this point of view. The authors expect that academics and researchers will find the chapter useful in incorporat-
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ing this Management approach to their advanced postgraduate and PhD materials on Communities of Practice. Industry professionals may obtain useful insight for re-considering management strategies, personnel relationship management and learning organizations.
REFERENCES American productivity and quality centre (2000). Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice. Final Report. APQC, USA Brown. J.S.. & Durguid, P. (1991). Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Toward A Unified View of Working, Learning and Innovation. Management Science. Calzada, I. (2004). Una forma organizativa para intervenir en las organizaciones: comunidad de prácticas (Communities of Practice). MIK, S. Coop. Contu, A., & Wilmott, H. (2003). Reembedding situatedness: the importance of power relations in learning theory. Organization Science, 14(3), 283–296. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.3.283.15167 Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working Knowledge: How Organizations manage what They Know. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Defense Department of USA. (2004). Information technology (IT) community of practice. Defense & AT-L, 33(5), 79–80. du Plessis, M. (2008). The strategic drivers and objectives of Communities of Practice as vehicles for knowledge management in small and medium enterprises. International Journal of Information Management, 28(1), 61–67. doi:10.1016/j. ijinfomgt.2007.05.002
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Fox, S. (2000). Communities of Practice, Foucault and actor/network theory. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 853–867. doi:10.1111/14676486.00207 Gongla, P., & Rizutto, C. R. (2001). Evolving Communities of Practice: IBM Global Services experience. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 842–853. doi:10.1147/sj.404.0842 Handley, K., Sturdy, A., Fincham, R., & Clark, T. (2006). Within and beyond Communities of Practice; making sense of learning through participation, identity and practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 641–653. doi:10.1111/j.14676486.2006.00605.x Hildreth, P., & Kimble, C. (2000). Communities of Practice in the international distributed environment. Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(1), 27–38. doi:10.1108/13673270010315920 Kimble, C., Hildreth, P., & Wright, P. (2000). Communities of Practices. Going virtual (pp. 216–230). Knowledge Management and Business Model Innovation. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lesser, E., & Everest, K. (2001). Using Communities of Practice to manage intellectual capital. Ivey Business Journal, 65(4), 37–42. Lesser, E. L., & Storck, J. (2001). Communities of practice and organizational performance. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 831–842. doi:10.1147/ sj.404.0831 Liedtka, J. (1999). Linking Competitive Advantage with Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 8(1), 5–17. doi:10.1177/105649269981002
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Loyarte, E., & Rivera, O. (2007). Communities of Practice: a model for their cultivation. Journal of Knowledge Management, 113, 67–77. doi:10.1108/13673270710752117 Marshall, N., & Robinson, J. (2004). Maybe bacon had a point: the politics of interpretation in collective sensemaking. British Journal of Management, 15, S71–S86. doi:10.1111/j.14678551.2004.00407.x McDermott, R. (1999). Learning Across Teams: how to build Communities of Practice in team organizations. Knowledge Management Review, 2(2), 32. McDermott, R. (1999b). Nurturing Three Dimensional Communities of Practice: How to get the most out of human networks. Knowledge Management Review, 2(5), 26. McDermott, R. (2000). Critical success factors in building Communities of Practice. Knowledge Management Review, 3(2), 5.
Swan, J. A., Scarbrough, H., & Robertson, M. (2002). The Construction of Communities of Practice in the Management of Innovation. Management Learning, 33(4), 477–497. doi:10.1177/1350507602334005 Thompson, M. (2005). Structural and Epistemic parameters in Communities of Practice. Organization Science, 16(2), 151–164. doi:10.1287/ orsc.1050.0120 Venters, W., & Wood, B. (2007). Degenerative structures that inhibit the emergence of Communities of Practice: A case study of knowledge management in the British Council. Information Systems Journal, 17(4), 349–368. doi:10.1111/ j.1365-2575.2007.00247.x Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Boston, MA. Boston: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998b). Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System. Systems Thinker.
McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.
Wenger, E. McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.
Mutch, A. (2003). Communities of Practice and habitus: A critique. Organization Studies, 24(3), 383–401. doi:10.1177/0170840603024003909
Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–146.
Preece, J. (2004). Etiquette, empathy and trust in communities of practice: Stepping stones to social capital. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 10(3), 294–302.
Wisker, G., Robinson, G., & Shacham, M. (2007). Postgraduate research success: communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors and online communities. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(3), 301–320. doi:10.1080/14703290701486720
Roberts, J. (2006). Limits of Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 623–639. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00618.x Saint-Onge, H., & Wallace, D. (2003). Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advance. USA: Butterworth & Heinemann.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Case Studies: A detailed intensive study of a unit, such as a corporation or a corporate division that stresses factors contributing to its success or failure.
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Communities of Practice: An active system in which its participants share knowledge based on their daily tasks. They share the meaning of this knowledge in their life within the community. The participants of the community are united in the community are united in the community’s practice and in the meaning of said practice, both at the community level and at broader levels (Wenger, 1998). Cultivation Model: A model of evaluation for communities of practice in the process of cultivation that makes it possible to estimate the probabilities of success for the proposal of creating communities at a specific moment and under a specific situation is included. The cultivation and integration of communities is a continuous process, due to which its evaluation must be performed periodically.
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Knowledge Management: Managing the corporation’s knowledge through a systematically and organizationally specified process for acquiring, organizing, sustaining, applying, sharing and renewing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of employees to enhance organizational performance and create value (Davenport, 1998).
ENDNOTES 1
2
Lesser and Storck, 2001, quoted by Lave y Wenger (1991). Bukowitz and William, 1999, quoted by Furlong and Johnson, 2003.
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Chapter 9
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP:
The Experience at IADE-UAM Monica Longo Somoza Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Julio Acosta Prado Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Cecilia Murcia Rivera Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes the knowledge-creating process that has been developed in the Institute for Research in Knowledge Management and Business Innovation (IADE) of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM). IADE develops activities of technical and scientific investigation, makes projects of technical assistance to different kind of organizations and makes a labour of postgraduate education. This chapter proposes that professors and doctoral students, from different countries and organizations, who carry out their research projects in IADE, work as an investigation Community of Practice (CoP) both in purpose, character and functionality, and develop a knowledge-creating process in a Ba. This chapter studies this process, describes the Ba and the investigation CoP as an element of the Ba. In order to get a deep understanding of these elements, we have chosen a case study as empirical research methodology and we have based our findings and conclusions in a previous theoretical analysis of these concepts.
INTRODUCTION In the current knowledge-based economy, knowledge has become a critical factor. Organizations DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch009
need to manage knowledge in order to take advantage of the opportunities brought by the quick changes of their environment and gain sustainable competitive advantages. This approach is specified in Nonaka’s school, whose contributions will be quoted along this work, as a natural and logic
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
relation between knowledge and innovation. That is, knowledge creation drives to the generation of innovation it does not matter its category and field of application. In this context, the Institute for Research in Knowledge Management and Business Innovation (IADE) of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) develops activities of technical and scientific investigation, and makes projects of technical assistance to different kind of organizations, publics and privates. The results of these activities and projects have been published in scientific publications and international congresses. Also, IADE makes a labour of postgraduate education at master-level and doctoral-level. Consequently, processes of knowledge creation and innovation are developed within IADE through relations and collaborative models between people (researchers) who take part in its activities. In this chapter, we analyze the dynamic process used by some members of IADE to share and create knowledge. We propose that this knowledgecreating process is developed in a context called Ba (Nonaka & Konno, 1998; Nonaka & Toyama, 2003; Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000) and our objective is to identify and describe this Ba and its practical relation with a Community of Practice (CoP).The motivation of this study arose when some members of IADE realized they were sharing and creating knowledge in a context that was not exactly a CoP because this context did not have clear boundaries of participants or history and it changed quickly (Peltokorpi, Nonaka & Kodama, 2007). Moreover, the positive results they were obtained for their personal objectives and also for IADE’s aims (scientific publications, projects and doctoral thesis) lead them to think it was interesting to study how they were creating knowledge in order to take advantages of this process in the future. Past studies in the areas of CoPs an Ba have not explored in deep the practical relation between both concepts. This chapter analyzed this relation by proposing first of all a theoretical relation and
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latter testing it empirically in the context of the IADE. We though IADE was an interesting context to make the empirical study as their members develop a research work and wanted to study how they were creating knowledge in order to take advantages of this process for the future. The members of an organization share experience and knowledge in a Ba and using CoPs. This starts a knowledge creation process that leads organizations to obtain superior results through innovation. This is the reason why in the last decades it has been a growing interest in this two concepts in organizational literature. Knowledge is created in social interactions amongst individuals and between individuals and their organizations so it is a dynamic human process. Also, it is contextually embedded because it depends on a particular time and space. Information becomes knowledge when it is contextualized and interpreted by individuals (Hayek, 1945; Maturana & Valera, 1984; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2002). Ba provides the context where people interact in order to interpret information and create meanings. It is a shared context in which people interact and knowledge is shared, created and utilised. The Japanese word Ba does not mean only a context as a physical space, this concept unifies physical, virtual and mental space. Ba is defined as “shared context in motion” because it is constantly evolving, that is, its boundaries are fluid (Nonaka, & Konno, 1998; Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000). On the other hand, a CoP is an informal group of people who, according to Wenger (2001), “share a common interest and problems in a certain domain of human endeavour and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them”. Along the chapter we will state an experience by analyzing a situation and presence of research activities that are focused on people with the function of developing their doctoral theses. This situation gives rise to a Ba as a space of knowledge and a CoP that makes operative and settle down the Ba. In summary, this chapter proposal
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
is: (1) Identify and describe the Ba emerged in IADE through its characteristics elements; (2) Analyze its relation with a CoP proposing that the community of people who participate in the Ba are a investigation CoP, so this CoP will be an element of the Ba; (3) Study its evolution focusing our attention on how it has been different types of Ba and its results as an investigation CoP. To get our aim, we have grounded our analysis in a previous theoretical analysis of knowledge, Ba and CoP and we have employed a case study as empirical research methodology because it presents advantages in order to achieve a contextual sense (Miles, 1979) and deep understanding of the knowledge-creating process of one single organization. First, in section “Conceptual analysis and characterization of Ba” we present the concept of Ba and the process of knowledge generation. Second, in section “Practical relation between Ba y Cop” we present the concept of CoP and propose the practical relations between the concepts of Ba a CoP. Following, we present the “Research Problem” and the “Research approach and methods”. Next, we develop the “Findings” section where we discuss the practical relations of Ba and CoP in IADE in order to analyze the research problem of the chapter. Finally the conclusions are described.
BACKGROUND Conceptual Analysis and Characterization of Ba The Ba concept was originally proposed by Nishida (1921) and subsequently developed by Shimizu (1995), defined as a context in which knowledge is shared, created and used. The application of Ba concept in the organizational area generated a large flow of works from different perspectives. It is understood as a shared space of knowledge (Von Krogh et al. 2000), as a set of relationships that result in new and good ideas that promote a permanent transformation (Fayard, 2003), as
a context of interaction with the processes of knowledge creation (Nonaka et al., 2000), as well as an exploration from the interaction of multiple mechanisms to explain trends in specific time and space, and as a place where new knowledge is created (Nonaka and Toyama, 2003). Therefore, Ba refers to a physical, mental and virtual space or a combination of all these, to create new and original ideas developed by individuals and work teams which are potentially relevant to the organization (Nonaka and Konno, 1998). Consequently, the Ba or space of knowledge helps to solve problems within an organization or a work team. Provides new ways to analyze the nature of a problem or improve a situation. This way, space of knowledge is understood as a generation of processes to develop useful ideas that reinforce the knowledge of stocks and flows of learning within the organizational infrastructure. The result of this space of knowledge is the innovation (Kanter, 1988). There are many ways of translating the exercise and practice of Ba. Nonaka and Konno (1998) suggest that the Ba arises in an organization from the exchange of data, information and opinions, as well as from the ability to solve problems that encourages creativity and mutual trust. It refers to a subjective and relational context, which creates meaning and stimulates involving in common interests and non-conflicting human relationships. Following Nonaka et al. (2000), organizations create, stimulate and develop processes geared to the generation of knowledge through interrelations between individuals and groups that result in innovations. These authors refer to knowledge as just information, when is separated from the Ba. The Ba appears in individuals, groups, work teams, informal circles, communities, networks, etc., and it unfolds at all the interconnected levels, as shown in figure 1. That said, the Ba is a place where dynamic interactions between the different types of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge are conditioned by their own dimensions. In other words, knowl-
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Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
Figure 1. Levels of interaction of Ba
Table 1. Ba and SECI model phases of knowledge conversion
FACE TO FACE INTERACTION
VIRTUAL INTERACTION
edge creation is a continuous process of interactions that occur in that space. From this perspective, a Ba can be considered as a level of consciousness both individually and collectively, developing through the interaction of individuals within a group and between it and its environment. According to the SECI model (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization) of knowledge creation (Nonaka,1994; Nonaka &Takeuchi, 1995), the Ba has a significant tacit component when emotions, experiences, feelings and mental images are shared (see table 1). It provides a context for socialization, an existential space, as it is the area where the individual goes beyond its limits through a physical experience that can lead to the involvement of all its capabilities. This process is called the “originating Ba”. As it is shown in Table 1, an individual dimension is added to another collective, through which practices, values, processes, culture and climate are shared. A framework for externalization, known as the “interacting Ba”, is provided. A Ba also can work through information technologies and communication in the virtual dimension of the networks, which tacitly and explicitly combines remote interactions into spirals of knowledge (Nonaka and Teece, 2001), resulting in the “cybernetic Ba”. And we finally have the “exercising Ba”, which provides the proper context for the
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INDIVIDUAL INTERACTION
COLLECTIVE INTERACTION
Socialization “Originating Ba” Sharing tacit knowledge between individuals.
Externalization “Interacting Ba” Have conversations in groups to form concepts.
Internalization “Exercising Ba” Internalize explicit knowledge of new.
Combination “Cybernetic Ba” Convert existing knowledge into new explicit forms.
Source: Bueno (2003).
assimilation of knowledge and acts as a catalyst for reflection, transforming it into action. On the other hand, if the concept of Ba is moved to knowledge intensive organizations it could help to identify potential resources available for exploration and exploitation of its capabilities. It could also increase the learning levels and ultimately create a common approach. Therefore, it creates a greater number of creative ideas, a greater number of available innovation options and possibilities of generating new knowledge and combinations of existing knowledge. This also applies to the flexibility of the organization to respond to external demands or opportunities that will also be greater. In this regard, and folloving Eskildsen et al. (1999), we believe that the Ba must help the flow of creative talent by encouraging individuals to participate and strive after solving the problems and situations which are relevant to the organization. It is about creating a space for interaction between the person, the work and the context of the firm or institution. Therefore, managing the person means understanding their talent, the same way managing the work involves formulating or structuring the problem. And this also applies to managing the firm, which means to organize the design of communications, the
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
physical environment and relationships with the firm itself. That said, the context of the Ba is not just the result of a shared space physical, virtual and mental, but also the expression of a set of roles and skills of managers that allows an efficient management of knowledge. In this case, leadership articulates a vision and encourages members of the organization to become actively involved in development programs. The biggest responsibility of the manager is to help individuals to learn. This is where the foundation of his leadership lies. He doesn’t need to know all the answers but to understand key issues such as the potential and limits of knowledge, the technical, organizational and economic development require and the direction and speed of change, risk, etc. Following Acosta (2009), a series of conditions are essential to a successful conversion of knowledge, besides the existence of a shared space for relationships or Ba. Managing an area of knowledge implies constructing a context in which behavior, weather or labor characteristics encourage creativity, confidence and commitment of people and also work and organization teams (Nonaka, 1994). This is illustrated in figure 2, where we propose a Ba model. Under this approach, it is necessary to guide or induce the generation of ideas and knowledge that comes from the creative process, so that it is useful to the organization and promotes the development of techno-scientific knowledge. Creativity is an inseparable condition of the people. Therefore, management should secure creative workers encouraging them to participate and strive. In order to achieve this is necessary to create a work context to strengthen the ability to apply creativity to the individual problems and situations which are relevant to the organization (Cumming and Oldham, 1997). A suitable level of trust is equally essential to establish the processes of interaction, communication and action that involve the generation of knowledge (Scott, 2000). That is why it is ap-
Figure 2. Ba model
propriate to make people feel that their interests matter are compatible with the interests of others and the organization itself. Thus, when people feel trustworthy and feel they can trust each other, their self-esteem increases and so does their willingness to get involved in knowledge exchange and cooperative relationships. Trust makes possible to effectively share information and knowledge, promotes discussion and dialogue on its technical, organizational and political implications and encourages the combination of knowledge and skills development for the organization (Nonaka et al. 1998, Von Krogh, 1998). Consequently, only organizations capable of managing the trust, making it an attribute of context, will awaken the initiative and participation of individuals, encouraging them to act in line with their objectives and the objectives of the firm itself (Zahra et al. 1999) and balancing the relationships at different levels within the organization. Finally, along with creativity and confidence, there is the commitment as intellectual or emotional bond that connects the individual with the organization (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). It implies an acceptance of the objectives and orientation of the firm, a strong desire for affiliation and a tacit agreement to reject other ways of investment. This commitment should help people understand the organization, so they know where it is going to,
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what they are doing to achieve their objectives, how they can add value and know what their role is. This would allow the individuals to feel part of the organization and participate in it as their own, to achieve a state of belonging. Individuals will get involved when they have the resources needed to achieve the required results (Ulrich, 1998). Following Tissen et al. (2000), to achieve a real and lasting commitment of individuals, the organization should offer them a meaningful work, challenging opportunities and rewarding valuable results. This way, the willingness and involvement of people will be greater and the generation of knowledge will increase.
PRACTICAL RELATION BETWEEN ba AND COP Concept and characteristics of CoPs The increasing in the flexibility of organizations as a strategic response to the complexity of the environment obliges us to reflect on ways of creating and acquiring new knowledge to ensure the development of these organizations in the long run (Kogut and Zander, 1996). This discussion leads to think that knowledge creation takes place through different forms of learning: individual, teams, communities or in an exchange space. Within this diversity, we find the concept of Community of Practice (Lave and Wenger, 1990), which promotes team learning by providing an understanding of the contexts and values among members and the new knowledge generation. This learning contributes to organizational memory and affects all members of the organization: present and future with the amount of stories, experiences and standards (Belmiro, 2005). There are several definitions of CoP. These can be considered as ways to improve individual skills, as they are targeted to their members (Lave and Wenger, 1990, Brown and Duguid, 1991); also, as groups of people informally bound together by
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shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise (Wenger and Snyder, 2000) or as a group of professionals who share knowledge, work together, create common practices and gather knowledge on a field of mutual interest (Meingan and Crouzet, 2002). In summary, we can say CoPs are formed by people who share interests and exchange experiences and discuss their practices, physical, virtual or mentally and to promote a mutual learning. According Wenger and Snyder (2000), CoPs add value to organizations in several important ways: they help to drive strategy; they start new lines of business; they solve problems quickly, they transfer best practices; they develop professional skills and they help companies recruit and retain talent. Besides CoPs make of knowledge an act of participation and, therefore, people who own it are the same who produce and use it every day, assuming a dynamic character difficult to replace by another system. (Belmiro, 2005). Following Brown and Duguid (1991) and Wenger (1998), CoPs allow the interaction between members of a organization. This intaraction benefits the generation, exchange and assimilation of experiences about specific application areas with clearly defined objectives. Also, they allow renovation in the organizational data base, structuring the experiences and facilitating its members recorded these experiences and their contributions. Deepening in the study of CoP, Wenger (1998) proposed that a CoP is defined by 3 dimensions that relate to the practice itself: •
•
Mutual engagemen, of people working in certain actions or common ideas • Joint enterprise which goes beyond the goals and create mutual accountability between members of CoP. Shared repertoire of ways of doing things.
These ideas are closely linked to analysis of Brown and Duguid (1991), on the ideas of Orr (1990) who argue that knowledge creation within
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
communities of practice is characterized by the following key elements: •
Narrative: used to diagnose problems and representing repositories of existing knowledge. • Collaboration: powered by participants involved in the common practices exchange • Social Constructivism: participants develop a common approach to understand their practices and how to solve problems.
Practical Relations between ba and CoP The conceptualization and characterization of CoP proposed in this section of the chapter as well as the characterization of Ba, previously treated, help us to find differences and similarities between both of them, which are summarized in Table 2: Table 2 shows the concept and characteristics of Ba as a shared space for new relations that serves as basis for knowledge creation, so it can be concluded that Ba is a wider space than CoP, because Ba is not limited by a need or particular problem but the desire to share explicit and tacit knowledge to create individual and collective knowledge; however, a CoP is focused on solving a particular situation or problem and on sharing experiences and knowledge related with it. In conclusion while Ba is a “how to do” the organi-
zation, CoP is an organizational tool to solve problems. Table 2 also shows the characteristics shared by Ba and CoP: both are informal groups for exchange experience and tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1969) through the interaction among its members; both promote learning by providing a mutual understanding of contexts and values among members and the creation of new knowledge; both are integrated by members of the organization that share knowledge in order to create new knowledge; both have the aim of remaining however, whereas the membership of a CoP is relatively stable and lasts while they share the same interest, a Ba has the quality of evolving along the time because it changes as participants change themselves (Peltokorpi, Nonaka & Kodama, 2007). Therefore, our theoretical proposal is that a CoP can be integrated in a Ba, as part of it. As it was mentioned, the informal group that is a CoP is more specifically on its objective and duration than a Ba that is a context in motion and a space shared by the participants.
RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS Research Problem The proposal of this chapter is to analyze the practical relation between the concepts of Ba and
Table 2. Ba and CoP comparison Concepts
What is it?
Purpose
Members
What unites them?
Duration
Ba
Interpersonal space of informal knowledge exchange
Knowledge creation
People who share a physical, temporal, virtual and mental space
The need to share knowledge to create new knowledge
Permanent but with a fluid quality because it is formed by participants who are not fixed
CoP
An informal group formed as a tool to organizational learning
Specific problemsolving and knowledge creation
People who share a common task and interest
The need to share knowledge to solve a specific problem
Stable according to the needs of the group
Source: Own elaboration
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CoP in the process of knowledge creation. So, after having described this relation theoretically we test them empirically in the context of IADE. To achieve the research problem we identify the Ba in IADE and its emergency, evolution, results and practical relation with the IADE’s research CoP.
Research Approach and Methods As it was explained in “Introduction” section, the motivation of testing empirically the chapter proposal in IADE emerged when some members of its investigation team realized they were exchanging and creating knowledge in a context that was similar to a CoP but also had got features of a Ba. The positive results they were obtained in the development of their doctoral thesis and papers led them to think it was very interesting to analyze the aforementioned context to know how they were exchanging and creating knowledge in order to take advantage of it for the future. To test empirically the research issue we have used a case study methodology particularly suitable for answering “how” and “why” questions (Yin, 1984) such as the ones that guide this research: how did a Ba emerged and evolved in IADE?, how is it related with IADE’s research COP?. A case study also is suitable for providing a real-time study of the chapter research issue. This methodology enables to use “controlled opportunism” to respond flexibly to new discoveries made while collecting new data (Eisenhardt, 1989) and also, ensures that data collection and analysis meet tests of construct validity, reliability, and internal and external validity. Construct validity is enhanced by using multiple sources of evidence (interviews, observations and secondary data sources) and by establishing a chain of evidence when we concluded the interviews. Reliability in findings is promoted by a case-study protocol in which all informants were subjects to the same entry and exit procedures and interview questions and also by creating similarly organized case data bases for each interview.
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Also, the reliability is pursued by a pilot study to improve the data-collection plan in content and procedures. External validity is assured by the case study design as all the informants were members of the same investigation team of the IADE. Finally, the internal validity is addressed by the pattern-matching data-analysis method described in “Data Analysis Procedure” section.
Data-Collection Methods The data-collection process took place in December 2008, through several data-collection methods (interviews, observations, and secondary sources). Interviews have been the primary method of data-collection. It has been used as an inductive technique to study the bases of the chapter proposal. Monica Longo Somoza, researcher for IADE, Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of UAM at that moment and member of the IADE’s Ba, was in charged of conducting the interviews, following the guide and directions pointed out by Eduardo Bueno Campos, also member of the Ba, Director of the Institute (IADE) and Professor of Business Economics at the UAM. In order to triangulate which provides stronger substantiation of concepts and propositions (Webb, Campbell, Schwartz & Serchrest, 1996) we used several data-collection methods apart from interviews we developed observations and looked up secondary sources.
Interviews In December, 2008 three semi-structured and open-ended interviews with three informants were conducted in order to obtain several point of views. The interviews lasted ninety minutes on average per case and were recorded and immediately transcribed verbatim (Eisenhardt, 1989). The three informants and Ba members were: Cecilia Murcia Rivera, Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of the UAM;
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
Professor Eduardo Bueno Campos, Director of the Institute and Professor of Business Economics at the UAM; and Julio Acosta Prado, researcher for IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of UAM. As it has been mentioned, Monica Longo Somoza (Researcher for IADE, Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of UAM and member of the IADE’s Ba) conducted the interviews. This interviews took place in IADE, where the informants develop their research work, and took the form of focused interviews that remained open-ended and assumed a conversational manner (Merton, Kiske y Kendal, 1956) in order to focus the informants’ attention in the research problem (to analyze the practical relation between the concepts of Ba and CoP in the process of knowledge creation in the context of IADE). The interview guide was the same in all the cases. Longo started by asking the informants to describe his or her task in IADE. The following open questions involved areas such as the features of the Ba members, the interactions and relationships among them, the history and evolution of Ba, how members share and create knowledge, how they record that knowledge and how the Ba benefits IADE and members of the investigation team. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed immediately afterward. In the transcriptions, we included all data, regardless of its apparent importance in the interview. We checked facts and ended the transcriptions with our impressions to supplement the transcribed interviews and to sharpen them by asking ourselves questions such as “what did we learn?” or “how does this interview compare to prior interviews?” (Yin, 1984).
Observations and Secondary Sources In addition to data collected from interviews we used observations and secondary sources. We observed and took notes of the impressions we
made when we participated in activities such as Ba members’ meetings. We attended these meetings as passive note-takers. We used our notes during data analysis and discussed them immediately after each meeting. In order to collect background information about the case and obtain historical references of Ba, we also analyzed data from secondary sources such us internal documents, website and agendas for meetings.
Data Analysis Procedure To analyze the colleted data we have followed the pattern-matching method (Yin, 1984). First, we have described the concept of Ba and CoP and their practical relation from a theoretical point of view in section “Conceptual analysis and characterization of Ba” and “Practical relation between Ba y CoP”. Second, we test our theoretical proposition about their practical relation in the context of IADE following an iterative process of comparisons between the theoretical proposition and the empirical evidence in order to test the research problem.
FINDINGS Framing the empirical work of this chapter in the background about the concepts of Ba and CoPs and its relations, following we state the findings of the case study. The findings refer to the identification and description of the Ba emerged in IADE, its practical relation with the investigation CoP that exists in this research institute and the benefits for researchers and IADE of the existence of the Ba. We have structured the description of the findings following the background section structure. First of all, we use the conceptual analysis and characterization of Ba (section Conceptual analysis and characterization of Ba) and the concept and characteristics of CoPs (section Concept and characteristics of CoPs) to describe the creation and results of IADE’s Ba as a CoP of research.
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Following, we take the practical relation between Ba and CoPs (section Practical Relations between Ba and CoP) to explain the experience of IADE. Finally, we detail the limitations of this work and future empirical research.
Creation and Results of IADE’s ba as a CoP of Research Researchers from UAM and from various Iberoamerican universities that have been conducting various research stays in IADE in recent academic years have done it under the sponsorship of their institutions or under their own auspices. These placements are coordinated in the Research Area by Colombian Cecilia Murcia Rivera, Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of the UAM. The different research projects, usually doctoral thesis, are led by Professor Eduardo Bueno Campos, Director of the Institute and Professor of Business Economics at the UAM. In 2008 various researchers met in the institution, including Venezuelan Julio Acosta Prado, researcher for IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of UAM; Spanish Monica Longo Somoza, researcher for IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization of UAM; Chilean Miguel Fernandez, Doctoral Student in Business Administration from Universidad de La Frontera (UAM Agreement); and Cuban Humberto Granados, Professor of the Universidad de La Havana (see Table 3). The lines of research focused on development, measurement and knowledge management, intellectual capital, innovation systems and evaluation of scientific and research activity. In all cases it came to analyzing the knowledge and processes involved in obtaining superior results. This situation favored the emergence of a Ba in the research area, to the extent that it became a Community of Practice (CoP). Several researchers with the same needs, anxieties and problems met at the institute and the need to share knowledge and help each other spontaneously appears. In
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Fernandez’s case the search of information on the Intellectus Model® led him to seek the cooperation of Murcia, Acosta and Granados. While Acosta received support from Murcia in the search for specialized information, he also helped Fernandez to implement in his thesis all the information previously given to him by Murcia. In turn, Murcia started to design her conceptual model of doctoral thesis from the confrontation of views with other researchers. Granados’ teaching and research experience helped the other members of the Ba to gain a new perspective on the information they were dealing with. Instead, he got plenty of comparative information on postgraduate certificates, masters and about professors giving classes in postgraduates, which were vital to him for his teaching in Cuba. Thus, collaboration became permanent and the researchers cleared up all the queries related to their doctoral theses and research projects. Due to the fact that each researcher’s stay in the IADE had a different length, the group always showed a natural flexibility in the entry and exit of their members. Despite this, they established between themselves personal and professional ties that remained beyond their stays, what undoubtedly has favored the extension of the exchange of knowledge. Similarly, this atmosphere of good practice has been generating a style of work, based on collaboration and sharing. This form of work will be passed on to new members and inevitably will be enriched and modified with the new additions. At the same time, the physical environment helped the exchange of knowledge. Researchers shared the same working space. In IADE place they discussed the different subjects in group and worked individually, always face to face. The office where they met has the all suitable furniture and accessories for this kind of events (blackboards, computers, printers, etc.) and which affected the quality of those meetings, favoring the explicitation of all the shared knowledge. The exchange of information through emails and the
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
Table 3. Members of the Ba IADE Researchers
Origin
Activity
Prof. Eduardo Bueno Campos
Spain
Business Organization Professor at UAM and IADE Chair
Cecilia Murcia Rivera
Colombia
Coordinator of the research area of IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization at UAM
Monica Longo Somoza
Spain
Researcher for IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization at UAM
Julio Acosta Prado
Venezuela
Researcher for IADE and Doctoral Student in Accounting and Business Organization at UAM
Miguel Fernández
Chile
Doctoral Student in Business Organization of Universidad de La Frontera
Humberto Granados
Cuba
Professor of Universidad de La Habana
Source: Own elaboration.
different searches through the Internet also have facilitated the collaborative process, speeding it up even after the finalization of the researchers’ stays in IADE. Researchers began to share a mental space, a Community of Practice where everyone knew what each can do, despite the similarity of the topics covered in their theses and the fact of having a common tutor. This facilitated mutual understanding and fosters solidarity, but also built confidence. This group was an open one; free of any formal inflexibility, avoiding written procedures and sharing knowledge, practices and resources. Several types of Ba emerged under these conditions. In the case of Murcia helping Fernandez on the Intellectus Model®, happened an interaction at the individual level, face to face, the so called originating Ba, a first phase of knowledge transfer. Fernandez was interested in what Murcia knew about the Intellectus Model® and in general for her thesis experience. At a group level, the fact of sharing a common work space favored the emergence of an interacting Ba. The physical proximity facilitated the spontaneous conversations in a group and these talks led to the realization of graphics, the
schematization of concepts, the knowledge maps and the comparison of learning between partners. It was a collective interaction, face to face, where they shared concepts and mental models. Conversations were long, wide, under which the views evolved and the researchers realized that they could complement their work more easily if they shared it, if they stated it explicitly. This explicitation of the shared knowledge also have taked place in a virtual way through Internet and Intranet of UAM even after the end of the researchers’s stays at IADE. Articles, papers and presentations provided by Professor Bueno Campos have generated interpretations that are discussed collectively, through the email; as a result of the previous individual study that each one maked. A cybernetic Ba has emerged at a virtual and collective level, where explicit knowledge is shared. Simultaneously, the exchange of information, the work of Professor Bueno advising each one of the researchers and the exchanges between them and Murcia through the email lead to an exercising Ba, at an individual level, where explicit knowledge becomes new knowledge. The style of leadership of Professor Bueno shows that the generation of new knowledge and
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the operation of the existing one are based on a leadership that fosters an environment of interrelationship between researchers, which in turn means the natural development of trust, commitment and creativity. His oversight and coordination of all the documentation used by researchers has generated confidence among them, ensuring that the information they provide to the Community of Practice benefits all in a proportional and fair way. Also, by coordinating what each one does within the group, he has ensured that none of them neglect their other activities. The existence of this Community of Practice in the area of research of IADE has had positive outcomes for both researchers and institution. In the case of researchers, sharing knowledge has helped to shorten the process of preparing the works, improving the efficiency, the effectiveness and the outcomes. Moreover, international networks and platforms linked to projects that serve as forums have increased and consolidated, which has allowed some participants to join the institute in a scientific and relational way. For its part, IADE also gets benefits and it will get profit in the future from this style of work. By putting its resources to work in favor of researchers and their scientific production, the institution is enriched with the information derived from the doctoral theses and other research projects and its lines of research get strengthened.
Practical Relation between ba and CoP: The Experience of IADE As we proposed in section “Practical relation between Ba and CoP”, while Ba is a “how to do” the organization, CoP is an organizational tool to solve problems. However, due to the characteristics shared by both, a CoP can be part of a Ba, although CoP is more specific in its objectives and duration than Ba. In the case study presented in this section we analyze the practical relation between Ba and CoP in the Institute for Research in Knowledge
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Management and Business Innovation (IADE) of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). In this Institute, as we have seen in sections “Conceptual analysis and characterization of Ba” and “Practical relation between Ba and CoP” and also based on the opinions expressed by researchers of IADE participants in the interviews, there is a Ba in the Research Area, formed in an informal and open way, by researchers of different nationalities, whose meet in IADE, sharing a common interest: creating knowledge; in the case study a doctoral thesis. Below, we can see the comments and their relation with the theoretical proposals of firsts sections of this chapter: •
According to interviews with researchers, they define and describe features of the Ba existing in IADE as:
“Our tema is a very open, informal group. The formality would establish rigidity to our working group. We share knowledge, practical, resources. It is a Ba because fulfill all conditions and characteristics such as: it is knowledge space where share, content, experience, and information; an interpersonal space with physical dimensions; Our Ba is physical but also, virtual and mental”. •
At the same time, the need to discuss the topics of thesis in process with other people different from Tutor, helped to create, naturally, a working group integrated for doctoral students; they had a common objective (make a doctoral thesis) and performed the same tasks oriented to solve a specific problem about it. The final result was the creation of a specific CoP:
“We have many characteristics of Community of Practice because we are developing a document at once, regardless whether each has a separate document, documents have a common goal. Then, based on the experience of people involved we use this room to explicit knowledge which is useful
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
for everyone. Community of Practice is always a Ba. It is part of Ba”. •
Anyway, this working group with characteristics of CoP within a broader research Ba in the Institute, works in a particular way compared with CoPs that are formed inside enterprise in the opinion of the members. This may be due to the research area in which the Cop was created so that its characteristics are different from a traditional CoP:
“Communities of practice need to be formalized after time. Our interest to formalize is not clear because we use an open space. Then, the Community of Practice also requires a person to develop mentoring: is the leader of this Community. We do not have a leader because this is a flat structure. And, why do not we want a person as a leader? The simple reason is that we will lose the ability to supplement knowledge. Because this shared space need an equality relation between members to facilitate exchange of views on issues of common interest. This will help us get more security and clarity to discuss our work with our tutor […] So substantial difference with the Community of Practice is that we do not have a formal structure, though we share knowledge, best practice and, resources. However these resources are all of us and we do not need a written procedure. Communities of Practice also mean that you have procedures to govern the work of CoP. On the contrary, we work more informally, perhaps because our shared space and our resources are open to anyone who needs it”. The practical relation discussed in the previous comments between the research CoP of IADE, (integrated by researchers who are pursuing their doctoral theses) and the Ba created in IADE (as a knowledge shared space) makes that the research area of IADE has a particular way of work. In this area of knowledge exchange and creation takes place a specific CoP used by the researchers group
as a tool to develop their doctoral thesis. In this way, both, the Institution and its researchers, are getting profits from the exchange and one of the reasons is the enrichment of new contributions maked by the researchers from different countries involved in this process.
CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH We are living in a knowledge-based economy where knowledge is a source of competitive advantage and profit. In a context that changes rapidly, knowledge allows organizations to innovate and answer quickly to customers, the emergent technologies or new markets, so knowledge becomes a source of competitive advantage. In an organization such as IADE whose objective is the research and develops activities of technical and scientific investigation, and makes projects of technical assistance to publics and privates organizations, the knowledge of individuals and the processes of knowledge creation and innovation through relations and collaborative models between researchers are of the highest importance. The case study developed in this chapter has focused on Nonaka’s proposal about the relation between knowledge-creating processes and innovation. For this author creating new knowledge is a way of behaving that leads to a continuous innovation and self-renewal of organizations. One element of such a way of behaving is Ba, the shared context for knowledge creation. CoPs are also facilitators to do it because they are tools that can be used to share and discuss members’ observations and experiences and doing so, individuals develop organizational knowledge. Our proposal has been that there is a practical relation between the concepts of Ba and CoP in the process of knowledge creation and we have study this relation describing the theoretical concepts of Ba and CoP and their relations and testing them empirically in the context of IADE.
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We though it was an interesting context to make the empirical study as their members develop a research work and wanted to study how they were creating knowledge in order to take advantages for the future. Therefore, we tested in IADE case study our research question that was to analyze the practical relation between the concepts of Ba and CoP in the process of knowledge creation. We identified a Ba that emerged in IADE’s research area because of the interaction between Iberoamerican and Spanish doctoral students who were sharing director and space (physical, virtual, temporal and mental). This Ba has evolved because it is a shared context in motion, that is, its boundaries are fluid and change quickly depending on the participants. We also disclosed a research CoP as a tool integrated in the Ba. This research CoP is made up by the group of researchers who participated in the Ba. As a CoP, the members share the interest for research in the domain of their doctoral thesis focused on the analysis of knowledge and processes involved in obtaining superior results in organizations. Therefore, this chapter supports the theoretical and empirical evidence about the practical relation between the concepts of Ba and CoP. The theoretical relations have been shown in Table 2 and
the empirical evidence is summarized in Table 4 following the structure of Table 2. Table 4 shows the characteristics shared by IADE’s Ba and its research CoP: both are informal groups to exchange doctoral students’ experience and tacit knowledge about their doctoral thesis; both promote learning by the interpersonal interaction among members; both are integrated by IADE’s researchers who are developing their doctoral thesis and aim to share knowledge in order to create new knowledge and add it to their work; both have the aim of remaining along time, however if the research CoP lasts whereas the researchers share time and interest, IADE’s Ba is something more than its participants. It is a context that enables the doctoral students share physical, virtual and mental space in a certain period of time and when these researchers change Ba evolves, it changes but does not disappear. Therefore, the participants of IADE’s Ba works as a research CoP whose members have got the common task and interest of developing their doctoral thesis that share a common domain (analysis of the knowledge and processes involved in obtaining superior results). When IADE’s doctoral researchers change, it is created a new CoP, however the shared context that is IADE’s Ba evolves and changes to enable the new re-
Table 4. Ba and CoP comparison in IADE Concepts
What is it?
Purpose
Members
What unites them?
Ba
Interpersonal space shared by researchers to informal knowledge exchange
Knowledge creation related with the doctoral thesis of the researchers
Researchers who share the physical space and virtual resources of IADE, share time, and also mental space as all of them are developing a doctoral thesis
The need to share knowledge and create new knowledge to develop the doctoral thesis
Permanent but with a fluid quality because it is formed by the doctoral students who join IADE and can change every term
CoP
An informal group formed by researchers as a tool to organizational learning
Solve the problem of the developing of the doctoral thesis and knowledge creation related with them
Researchers who share the common task and interest of developing their doctoral thesis
The need to share knowledge to solve the problem of developing the doctoral thesis
Stable according to the doctoral students’ needs of developing their doctoral thesis
Source: Own elaboration
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Duration
Knowledge Creation, Ba and CoP
searchers to develop knowledge processes for advancing individual and collective knowledge. Finally, this chapter is not free of limitations that can serve as signposts for future studies in the areas of CoPs and Ba. This chapter analyzed the practical relation between the concepts of CoP and Ba by proposing a theoretical relation and testing it empirically in the context of the IADE. However, this study is not free of limitations that can serve as signposts for future studies in this area. The chapter develops the idea that a CoP is part of a Ba, that is, a CoP can be used as a tool of a Ba in order to create knowledge. However, this proposal has been tested only in the context of IADE so the results of the case study can not be generalized but can be a first empirical study to test deeper in the future this proposal again in IADE and in other kind of organizations.
REFERENCES Acosta, J.C. (2009). Ba: Espacios de conocimiento. Contexto para el desarrollo de capacidades tecnológicas. Boletín Intellectus, September, 12-18. Belmiro, J. (2005). Estrategias de valor para la creación de conocimiento en organizaciones intensivas en conocimiento. Revista Galega de Economía, 14 (001-002), 1-19. Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40–57. doi:10.1287/ orsc.2.1.40 Bueno, E. (2003). Enfoques principales y tendencias en dirección del conocimiento. In R. Hernández (Ed.), Dirección del conocimiento: desarrollos teóricos y aplicaciones, Ediciones La Coria, Cáceres, 21-54.
Bueno, E., Morcillo, P., & Salmador, M. P. (2006). Distinctions that matter: a classification of resources and discussion of implications for dynamic capabilities of firms. International Journal of Technology Management, 41(1-2), 155–168. Bueno, E., Rodríguez, J. M., & Salmador, M. P. (2008). Knowledge creation as a dynamic capability: implications for innovation management and organisational design. International Journal Management Practice, 2(1), 72–82. Cummigs, A., & Oldham, G. R. (1997). Enhancing creativity: Managing work contexts for the high potential employee. California Management Review, 40(1), 23–38. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14, 532–550. doi:10.2307/258557 Eskildsen, J. K., Dahlgaard, J. J., & Norgaard, A. (1999). The impact of creativity and learning on business excellence. Total Quality Management, 10(4-5), 523–530. Fayard, P. M. (2003). Strategic Communities for knowledge Creation: a western proposal for Japanese concept of Ba. Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(5), 25–31. doi:10.1108/13673270310505359 Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. The American Economic Review, 35, 519–530. Kanter, E. (1988). When a thousand flowers bloom: structural, collective, and social conditions for innovation in organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 10, 169–211. Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (1996). What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity and Learning. Organization Science, 7(5), 502–518. doi:10.1287/orsc.7.5.502 Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. M. (1990). A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108(2), 171–194. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.2.171 Maturana, H., & Valera, F. (1984). El árbol del conocimiento. Santiago de Chile, Chile: Universitaria. Meingan, D., & Crouzet, O. (2002). Materializing knowledge management through communities of practice. Valtech, France. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.providersedge.com/docs/ km_articles/Materializing_KM_Through_Cop. pdf Merton, R. K., Kiske, M., & Kendal, P. L. (1956). The Focused Interview. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Miles, M. B. (1979). Qualitative data as an attractive nuisance: the problem of analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 590–601. doi:10.2307/2392365 Nishida, K. (1921). An inquiry into de Good. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creating. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. doi:10.1287/orsc.5.1.14 Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of Ba: building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54. Nonaka, I., Reinmoeller, P., & Senoo, D. (1998). The Art of Knowledge: Systems to Capitalize on Market Knowledge. European Management Journal, 16(6), 673–684. doi:10.1016/S02632373(98)00044-9 Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press. Nonaka, I., & Teece, D. J. (2001). Managing Industrial Knowledge creation, transfer and utilization (pp. 1–12). London: Sage.
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Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2002). A firm as a dialectic being: towards a dynamic theory of firm. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(5), 995–1009. doi:10.1093/icc/11.5.995 Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2003). The Knowledge-Creating Theory Revisited: Knowledge Creating as a Synthesizing Process. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 1(1), 2–10. doi:10.1057/palgrave.kmrp.8500001 Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Konno, N. (2000). SECI, Ba and Leadership: A Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33, 5–34. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6 Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Konno, N. (2000). SECI, Ba and Leadership: a Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation. Long Range Planning, 33, 5–34. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6 Orr, J. E. (1996). Talking about machines: An ethnography of a modern job. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press. Peltokorpi, V., Nonaka, I., & Kodama, M. (2007). NTT DoCoMo’s Launch of I-Mode in the Japanese Mobile Phone Market: A Knowledge Creation Perspective. Journal of Management Studies, 44(1), 50–72. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00664.x Polanyi, M. (1969). Knowing and being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Scott, J. E. (2000). Facilitating Interorganizational Learning with Information Technology. Journal of Management Information Systems, 17(2), 81–113. Shimizu, H. (1995). Ba-principle: new logic for the real-time emergence of information. Holonics, 5(1), 67–79. Tissen, R., Andriessen, D., & Deprez, F. (2000). El Valor del Conocimiento para aumentar el rendimiento en las empresas. Madrid: Prentice Hall. Ulrich, D. (1998). Capital Intelectual: Capacidad x Compromiso. Harvard Deusto Business Review, Septiembre-Octubre, 28-40.
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Von Krogh, G. Ichijo, K. & Nonaka, I. (2000). Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Webb, E., Campbell, D. T., Schwartz, R. D., & Serchrest, L. (1996). Unobtrusive measures: Nonreactive research in the social sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University. Wenger, E. (2001). Supporting Communities of Practice: A survey of community-oriented technologies. ewenger.com, 1-68. Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://ewenger.com/tech Wenger, E., & Lave, J. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of practice: the organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–145. Yin, R. K. (1984). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. California: Sage Publications. Zahra, S. A., Nielsen, A. P., & Bogner, W. (1999). Corporate entrepreneurship, knowledge, and competence development. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 23(3), 169–190.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ba: It refers to a physical, mental and virtual space or a combination of all these, to create new and original ideas developed by individuals and work teams which are potentially relevant to the organization. Community of Practice: An informal group of people who share a common interest and problems in a certain domain of human endeavour and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them. Combination: It is the process of converting explicit knowledge into more complex and systematic sets of explicit knowledge. Explicit Knowledge: This knowledge is universal and abstract and it can be articulated, codified and stored. Externalization: It is the process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Internalization: It is the process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. SECI (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization): A model of knowledge creation process developed to understand the dynamic nature of knowledge creation by the interaction of Ba, knowledge assets and socialization, externalization, combination and internalization. Socialization: It is the process of sharing tacit knowledge through face-to-face communication. Tacit Knowledge: This knowledge is creative and dependent on the history and experience of people, embodied in their minds and therefore, difficult to access, transfer and shared.
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Chapter 10
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry Paul F. Skilton Washington State University, USA
ABSTRACT This study explores the question of how the competitive environment, regional clustering and industry network structure influence the potential for developing firm level competitive advantage based on communities of practice. Paying attention to the context that communities of practice function in is important because only by doing so can we understand the conditions that constrain or facilitate the emergence of competitive advantage from them. Using the motion picture visual effects industry as the basis for a descriptive case, the study relies on primary sources and archival data to examine how managers can move toward competitive advantage by understanding communities of practice and the social, economic and organizational contexts in which they emerge.
COMMUNITY AND ADVANTAGE IN THE EFFECTS INDUSTRY One of the central motivations for this handbook is the belief that the intentional development of communities of practice within firms should allow managers to achieve competitive advantage for their firms. This chapter extends this idea by examining the question of how competitive DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch010
advantage can be supported by communities of practice that emerge outside of managerial control in occupations, extended social networks, regions and industry sectors. Taking this approach is important for two reasons. First, managers seeking to establish and direct communities of practice within firms must understand the contexts within which community members operate if their efforts to create community are to bear fruit. Second, competitive advantage is generally believed to be the product of complex bundles of resources, some
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of which may be outside of direct firm control (Coff, 1999; Eisenhardt & Martin, 2001; Zollo & Winter, 2002). Taken together these reasons suggest that managers should try to understand all the ways that communities of practice (whether created intentionally or not) are influenced by their competitive environment. This chapter moves in that direction by asking the following research question: How can managers promote competitive advantage by exploiting or supporting emergent communities of practice outside the firm? Communities of practice (CoPs) are social entities defined by the shared practices, knowledge and beliefs that emerge when people work together toward common goals. In its original meaning, (Lave & Wenger, 1991) a community of practice (CoP) is conceived of as a local instantiation of an occupation, craft or social movement, important primarily because it enables a discussion of situated learning and the emergence, diffusion and conservation of the shared practice that characterizes specialized technical domains (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Wenger, 1998), such as copier repair, claims processing, tailoring, retail butcher work and so on. Research from this original stream is primarily inward looking, concerned with the situated learning that ties members to the community. Recent work on CoPs has expanded in two directions – toward the community of practice as an instrument of managerial intention (Handley, Sturdy, Fincham & Clark, 2006; Lampel & Bhalla, 2007; Liedtka, 1999; Loyarte & Rivera, 2007; Wenger, 1998), and toward the inclusion within CoP theory of what Lindkvist (2005) calls “knowledge collectivities” – communities of diverse specialists oriented toward specific outcomes. The managerialist take sees CoPs as contributing to competitive advantage because they enable capabilities for integrating, coordinating and developing specialist knowledge within firms. By constructing CoPs as integration mechanisms that span diverse specialized domains, managerialist research has opened CoP theory to the question
of whether communal practice can extend beyond a single domain or area of interest. This has lead to the inclusion of collectivities under the umbrella of CoP research. Collectivities are made up of “a mix of individuals with highly specialized competences, making it difficult to establish shared understandings or a common knowledge base.”(Lindkvist, 2005, p. 1190). Like the original version of CoP, the collectivity model emphasizes specialized knowledge, but where knowledge differences reside within rather than between groups. In collectivities shared practices are developed to govern the processes of interaction, integration and coordination between group members, rather than the conservation or development of technical know-how. Liedtka, (1999) argues that such practices can be the basis for meta-capabilities or dynamic capabilities that enable rapid innovation, agility and responsiveness to dynamic environments. What prior research has not addressed is the question of how the contexts in which these social entities function enable the creation or exploitation of competitive advantage. This chapter uses the motion picture visual effects industry to illustrate the ways that context contributes to CoP based competitive advantage. Visual effects production is an interesting case because it is embedded in an environment (motion picture production) that is organized around short lived projects. It involves repeated short-run interactions between temporary employees of motion picture projects and permanent employees of visual effects firms. This means that participation in firm-based communities of practice co-exists with participation in collectivities that include outsiders (Lindkvist, 2005). Mutual engagement is therefore characterized by movement in and out of projects and firms and by the maintenance of network ties to peers, employers and to specialists of many other kinds. Because there are many projects, persistent mutual engagement may extend across projects even when participants are not members of the same firm. Because the technical and social practices of visual effects tend to reach across
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firm and disciplinary boundaries, participants have opportunities to identify at multiple levels: with those who share specialized expertise, with repeat collaborators, with the firms they work for and with the occupation as a whole. The chapter is a descriptive case study (Yin, 1984) based on published primary and secondary sources, and on data derived from motion picture credits. Using archival materials enables the analysis to identify trends and patterns that would not be visible to a close-in view of a single community. The chapter begins with a discussion of the relationship between competitive advantage, communities of practice and context. After briefly describing the data sources used in the descriptive parts of the chapter, the reader is introduced to the visual effects field in terms of the technologies, the organization of work, the nature of firms and the role of visual effects in the motion picture industry. This history is followed by analyses suggesting that the relationship between competitive advantage and CoP depends on the structure of the competitive environment, the emergence of regional clustering and the firm’s place in the industry network structure.
Competitive Advantage, Communities of Practice and Context Scholars of knowledge management have taken an interest in communities of practice as a source of competitive advantage because the emergent, path dependent character of community can be associated with firm level capabilities that meet the requirements for completive advantage defined by the resource based view of the firm (Barney, 1991). The conditions for resource based competitive advantage are met if the capabilities derived from firm based communities of practice are value creating; if they are rare; if they are hard to imitate; and if they are difficult to substitute for. In addition, capabilities based in communities of practice may make it more likely that the value created
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will be appropriated by the firm. The results of collective action are more difficult for employees to take credit for, making returns more difficult for employees to appropriate (Coff, 1999). Finally, for communities of practice to serve as the basis for firm level competitive advantage, they have to be durable and persistent. If mutual engagement between community members is temporary or fragile, it will be difficult to attribute sustained competitive advantage to the CoP. Communities of practice have primarily been associated with competitive advantage based on dynamic capability. Theorists of dynamic capability (Eisenhardt & Martin, 1999; Nonaka, 1994; Zollo & Winter, 2002) and scholars of communities of practice (Liedtka, 1999) have argued that community based capabilities are likely to enable the organization, coordination and integration of complex mixtures of knowledge, identities and interests. The capabilities that would be enabled by CoPs would be second-order or meta-capabilities (Liedtka, 1999) for assembling, operating and disbanding resource bundles designed for specific tasks, particularly those concerned with innovation and change. Persistent mutual engagement among community members would conserve and develop the knowledge at the root of these capabilities, while turnover and movement within the community would keep the resulting capabilities from becoming too rigid. The risk of rigidity (Leonard-Barton, 1992), which has not been much discussed in the CoP literature has become an important consideration in the literature on creative projects (Guimerà, Uzzi, Spiro & Nunes Amaral, 2005; Perretti & Negro, 2007; Uzzi & Spiro, 2005). If a capability rests on a dominant individual or a fixed team, repeat collaboration is likely to lead to entrenched team mental models and core rigidities (Leonard-Barton, 1992; Uzzi & Spiro, 2005). In contrast, capabilities based in communities of practice that are structured to create lateral interaction among changing sets of team members, would be less likely to become rigid.
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
The CoP is thus an intermediate form of organization between the firm and the project team. The CoP adds a layer of lateral, personal interaction to the hierarchical structures that delineate firms. Unlike project teams (which also depend on lateral interaction), the CoP does not have an identifiable termination point. CoPs constitute a pool of individuals who are competent in integration, coordination and innovation practices, from which project teams can be drawn. It is important to note that capability creating communities may extend beyond the firm. Extended relationships with customers and suppliers can lead to the inclusion of participants from outside firms in communities that create benefit for the focal firm. Including outsiders helps make CoP resilient to threats of rigidity, especially if the CoP creates mechanisms that accommodate and involve or outsiders. The idea here is not that individual boundary spanners must be involved in particular projects, but rather that a collectivity based CoP contributes to competitive advantage by developing practices that enable the community, rather than particular members, to draw on a diverse and flexible array of knowledge sources. By separating these practices from individual gatekeepers, the community becomes more likely to find opportunities for re-combination and cross fertilization in the knowledge acquired. The absorptive capacity (Cohen & Levinthal, 1991) associated with this kind of CoP would be greater than usual, since participation by outsiders would make external knowledge sources more leaky and the knowledge acquired less sticky (Almeida & Kogut, 1999; Schilling & Phelps, 2007; Szulanski, 1996). Firms with this type of capability would be better at finding, developing and executing more radical innovation in a wider array of projects. To sum up, to achieve competitive advantage on the basis of meta-capabilities which are in turn based on CoPs, it seems likely that firms would have to develop strategies for persistent lateral engagement among community members, without resorting to high levels of repeat collaboration
by intact teams or domination by individuals. The meta-capabilities that develop would enable integration and coordination practices in the first place, and innovation oriented practices that enable knowledge acquisition, development and recombination in the second. The nature of a firm based community’s connection to external communities is likely to determine whether the capabilities derived improve integration and coordination alone, or also enhance capabilities for opportunity identification and innovation. Collectivity CoPs that draw on resources primarily within the firm are likely only to benefit from improved integration and coordination capabilities, while those that connect more richly to external sources are more likely to be better at identifying and executing opportunities for innovation.
Data The goal of the remainder of this chapter is to illustrate these ideas. First, it is important to show that some firms exhibit both competitive advantage and the patterns of mutual engagement between employees that would be expected from collectivity based CoPs. Second, the chapter seeks to answer question of how managers can move toward competitive advantage by exploiting or supporting communities outside the firm by trying to detect patterns of relationships between firms and between employees that show how CoPs within firms depend on communities in the larger context. In keeping with a desire to avoid the entanglements of a local view of a specific community, the descriptive part of this chapter is based on a variety of archival primary sources, mainly interviews and articles written by members of the visual effects profession. The secondary sources used most heavily (Netzley, 2000 and Turner, 1983) are respectively an encyclopedia written by a long time industry observer, and a history of the evolution of photographic effects that constitutes the first chapter of a collection of essays compiled
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for the American Society of Cinematographers by members of the society who wrote mostly from personal experience. The credit data used in this study was downloaded from the Internet Movie Database (2007a, 2007b), commonly known as IMDb.com. Data collection followed a ‘snowball’ process that began with the collection of data on visual effects credits for 1,580 motion pictures that appeared in the list of top 20 motion pictures by U. S. box office gross for any quarter between 1995 and 2005, inclusive. 1,112 of these films had visual effects credits. The initial sample is somewhat overpopulated with effects intensive films, since effects intensive films are usually released very widely and therefore have stronger box office performance. The next step was the identification of the visual effects supervisors who worked on these projects. Visual effects supervisors are key members of the community who can be expected to work on the majority of projects. Tracking supervisors permits identification of the overall population of projects with effects. Complete motion picture credit histories for each of these individuals were created by searching individual names in the IMDb.com database. The next step was to identify visual effects credit data for all of the additional projects identified in the supervisor credit histories. From this second wave of data previously unrecognized visual effects supervisors were identified, and their credit histories were added to the data to the data. Data collection concluded with the collection of all visual effects credits for each of the previously unexamined projects identified in the second wave. These three waves of data collection resulted in a data set of 13,016 visual effects credits from 4,887 projects. 2,301 of these projects were feature films released in the United States. The final sample is representative of the variety of projects released in the U.S. market, with more than half coming from outside the top 20. The credit data is used to supplement the historical sources, principally by developing
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representations of firm, regional and industry level networks of shared work. Analyzing these networks allows us to detect patterns of mutual engagement between industry participants. This method is valid because it is based on the reified artifacts and labels that are used to describe and define participation in and movement through communities of practice. In the visual effects community these artifacts include effects technologies, film credits, visual effects firms and motion picture projects. These artifacts enable observers to recognize boundaries and to identify the circumstances under which communities are likely to coalesce within networks of mutual engagement. They allow observers to recognize and trace careers, as participants develop the expertise and relationships that enable mobility. Finally, these artifacts allow observers to understand the power relationships that characterize both the larger field and specific communities.
From Special Photographic Effects to Visual Effects: A Transition in Practice This study focuses on visual effects production. Visual effects are used to create images of imaginary or fantastic objects, places and behavior, and to imitate real objects and settings when physical performance would be dangerous, impractical or prohibitively expensive. Visual effects are produced off-line and off-set, although some incamera techniques are considered visual effects. Visual effects often require an extended production period. In effects intensive projects, visual effects work begins in pre-production and is often one of the last things completed in post production. Some types of visual effects are color manipulation, manual and digital animation, optical distortion, compositing (digital and optical) and stop motion. During the studio era of American motion picture production, effects created with optical processes were called ‘special photographic effects’. While special photographic effects techniques
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
have been used for many decades, until the late 1960’s they were expensive, slow and of limited capability. The development of technology during this period was geared toward improving quality and simplifying production processes (such as moving from 2-head to 4-head optical printers, which reduces the number of steps in the process of printing composite shots). As the computer began to replace the camera as the main instrument of practice, the practitioners of this craft began to call themselves visual effects artists. Using computers to produce visual effects adopts the goals of special photographic effects, while substituting means that draw on a novel set of competencies that reduce cost and increase speed and quality. While these changes were eventually competence destroying for many photographic effects specialists, the transition was not abrupt. The origin of the modern visual effects community is associated with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which demonstrated the possibilities of using computers to assist traditional techniques, such as motion control for photographing miniatures. Douglas Trumbull and other 2001 alumni led this transition by contributing to the success of early 1970’s disaster blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, (Rickitt, 2000). By the late 1970’s, individual specialists playing a lead user role (Brosnan, 1984; von Hippel, 1998) had begun to provide true computer based visual effects. Star Wars, released in 1977, used both computer generated images and computer motion control techniques invented by John Dykstra, Richard Edlund and Phil Tippett as employees of the new firm Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). In 1982 the ILM Computer Division created the first completely computer-generated sequence for Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. Harrison Ellenshaw, who produced the effects for Tron (released in 1984) is credited as introducing the first purely digital effects to a feature film (Netzley, 2000; Patterson, 1983; Rickitt, 2000). The beginning of the fully digital age is generally associated with
the 1991 release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which seamless digital compositing, supervised by Dennis Muren at ILM, was used for all of the effects (Goldman, 2007). This community was both tightly connected (primarily via shared work on Star Wars, and through family and other ties. Visual effects technology improved rapidly in the 1980’s and 1990’s as the cost of computing power plummeted. After a period in which proprietary methods dominated, visual effects software has become more standardized and modular and much more powerful. Research on computer graphics produced numerous applications that resulted in wholly digital characters, the ability to more freely manipulate color, the simplification of formerly optical effects such as size distortion, and the ability to produce seamless digital composite images. Techniques and software migrated rapidly between academic settings and motion picture applications (Swartz, 2005) often through interactions at SIGGRAPH conferences organized by the graphics interest group of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a professional society of academic computer scientists, some of whom migrated to the effects industry. A change in the organization of work accompanied this technological transition. During the studio era, the major studios had special photographic effects departments to create effects for their own films (Turner, 1983). Most of these departments were closed down during the 1960’s and 1970’s as studios shed their production assets and became distributors. Even prior to the exit of studios from the field there was a small population of independent special photographic effects companies (Turner, 1983) and more sprang up as studios abandoned the function. Although most of the optically based firms tried to adopt the new technologies (Turner, 1983) the majority of them were out of business by 1980, replaced by firms that produced ‘visual effects’ on a contract basis. The first major independent visual effects company to focus on computer based technologies, Industrial Light and Magic, was founded by
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George Lucas in 1975 to provide optical visual effects for the first Star Wars movie, because 20th Century Fox had shut down its effects department (Edlund, 1983; Netzley, 2000). ILM shut down after the Star Wars project and was re-launched in 1979 in San Rafael, California. ILM was rapidly imitated by competitors in the American industry, including firms founded by former employees. Despite the emergence of visual effects firms, the majority of visual effects artists now work as independent contractors on a project by project basis, just has make-up artists, electricians and prop masters do. Looking back on the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there is a clear sense of the emergence of a new community of practice, expanding with extraordinary rapidity as old technologies and communities fell by the wayside. This sense of community, with all the expected enthusiasms and feuds, is revealed quite clearly in interviews and writings by the participants (Edlund, 1983; Goldman, 2007; Turner, 1983). This phase, characterized by intense mutual engagement within a densely connected cohort of participants, was short lived. Just as basic research in physics and other hard sciences has moved toward ‘Big Science’ (Knorr-Cetina, 1999), visual effects rapidly moved toward larger projects and production as an industrial rather than wholly artistic act. As digital effects technology matured and standardized, the visual effects industry began to globalize. The underlying computer science was already globally distributed, as was the pool of talented creative artists developing and using digital technologies. By 2005 more than half of visual effects firms were located outside the United States, and more than half of firm level credits were awarded on projects produced outside of Hollywood. The bulk of spending on effects, however, continues to come from Hollywood ‘blockbuster’ films, which tend to use a very large number of visual effects shots compared to other projects. Work on major project is usually split up among several effects firms, which are the only
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suppliers capable of producing large numbers of shots in short periods of time. A leading edge effects extravaganza can include as many as 2,000 effect shots, employ up to 10 firms, and, directly or indirectly employ hundreds of effects specialists. Lead times are often less than one year, which increases the pressure to parcel out work. The conditions for community are much different than they were in the 1970’s.
The Structure of Community within Visual Effects Firms The first fact about visual effects firms that most scholars encounter is that the great majority of firms are small, specialized and short lived, with no more than a handful of permanent employees. These firms are usually started by the former employees of major firms and are more similar to individuals working as independent contractors than they are to larger firms. For these firms community of practice is unlikely to be a meaningful construct, since persistent mutual engagement and the development of firm oriented practice are unlikely to occur. Instead the founders and employees of these ephemeral firms are more likely to develop advantage at the individual level by achieving competitive positions in the industry network (Bechky, 2006; DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998; Jones,1996; O’Mahony & Ferraro, 2007; Skilton & Bravo, 2008), by mastering technical expertise and the global communal practices of participation in motion picture projects. There are a few firms that are both large enough and long lived enough to be capable of developing competitive advantage on the basis of firm oriented communities of practice. The most important contextual criterion for competitive advantage in the basis of CoP is that there must be variation in the resource bases of competing firms. In this case the resource of interest is the community of practice, inferred retrospectively through patterns of structure in intra-firm relationship networks. If all firms exhibit similar structures, producing
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
Figure 1. The structure of persistent engagement within visual effects firms, 1985-2005a
similar capabilities, it would be difficult to claim that the CoPs that produced those structures create competitive advantage. As shown in Figure 1, which depicts the density and intensity of shared work among employees of the 17 most successful visual effects firms operating between 1985 and 2005, there is considerable variation in social network structure at the firm level. Once we observe this, the fact that not all CoPs are equally capable of creating competitive advantage comes into play. As noted above, the structural pattern most likely to be associated with CoPs that are capable of creating competitive advantage is persistent lateral mutual engagement among community members, with moderate levels of repeat collaboration. A CoP based in lateral, peer oriented mutual engagement should produce a structure of dense ties that is not constrained by the dominance of central players. This structural pattern and several others are immediately apparent in Figure 1.
Each node in Figure 1 represents an employee who has worked on at least three projects for one of the firms, so that these networks consist of relatively long term employees. The shape and color of each node identify the employee’s most recent company affiliation, since some individuals have worked for more than one of these firms. The thickness of the connecting lines (edges) reflects the strength of the dyadic relationships between individuals. In order to show the structure of persistent mutual engagement, the figure only includes connections between individuals who have worked on at least three projects together. The size of each node represents the employee’s tie to the firm, expressed as the percentage of the firm’s projects completed between 1985 and 2005 that the employee worked on. The variation in the network structures of these firms leads us to expect significant differences in the potential for the development of meta-capabilities on the basis of
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firm oriented communal practice. Table 1 gives related statistics describing each firm. Several of the firms shown in Figure 1 exhibit structures that are small, densely connected, dominated by individuals who work on the majority of the firm’s projects, and characterized by high levels of repeat collaboration. Examples of these are Metrolight Studios, Matte World Digital and VCE, all small firms that specialize in unique
technical aspects of visual effects creation. The presence of dominant central actors suggests that interactions will be somewhat hierarchical. Intensive repeat collaboration is consistent with communal practice that facilitates integration and coordination between technical areas, but is also associated with rigidity. The presence of dominant actors makes it more likely that these practices will be inward looking and idiosyncratic to the
Table 1. Network structure descriptive statistics, 17 most active firms Employees who worked on more than 2 projects with another employee
Most involved employee (% of projects)
Average involvement (% of projects)
Average repeat collaboration
Average degree (number of ties)
Average number of employees per project
Effective network size
C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures
20
40.91
20.23
3.24
4.50
6.32
16.231
Cinesite
76
45.57
7.53
4.02
10.29
9.32
39.337
CIS
17
41.18
22.18
3.16
5.06
6.71
39.325
Digiscope
19
47.62
18.03
3.58
4.74
5.62
27.527
Digital Domain
84
61.54
15.59
3.46
10.08
29.69
28.771
Dream Quest Images
38
51.85
12.87
4.01
29.95
8.63
11.105
Framestore CFC
38
25.00
10.77
3.29
7.26
13.53
15.411
Illusion Arts
15
68.97
24.60
4.20
6.40
4.41
14.611
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)
513
28.89
5.47
3.29
24.68
38.09
38.545
Matte World Digital
3
86.36
37.88
4.58
2.33
3.09
20.716
Metrolight Studios
15
95.83
31.94
4.99
4.40
6.63
34.874
Pacific Title Digital
14
29.23
10.37
4.10
2.93
2.65
36.805
PDI
10
33.33
20.00
3.32
2.40
7.44
4.8
Pixel Magic
17
64.52
22.96
3.84
5.18
4.39
29.578
Rhythm & Hues
103
73.33
10.75
3.19
6.73
24.13
25.027
Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI)
53
41.94
13.94
4.84
6.30
15.29
26.213
VCE
12
82.35
29.90
3.44
8.67
6.41
1
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Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
firm, but also creates a single contact point for the firm to interact with its environment. Innovation in these firms tends to occur within the technical specialization – Matte World is known for innovations in digitally painted mattes and backgrounds, and Metrolight Studios and VCE as developers of effects software. For these firms, a model based on theories of hierarchical stable work teams and the emergence of team mental models would appear to be adequate to explain the development of competitive advantage in their niche markets. While one could view these firms through a community of practice lens, these firms are so small and hierarchical that doing so does not create much additional insight. Figure 1 also contains much larger firms that are dominated by individuals, most notably Rhythm & Hues and Digital Domain. The population of employees is larger in these firms, which take on more complex projects for a variety of filmmakers and operate larger project crews. Like the small firms described in the previous paragraph, these firms are characterized by hierarchical structures with dominant central actors. The majority of strong connections are made between peripheral employees and these dominant figures, creating centralized network structures. As shown in Table 1, average degree (lateral connectedness) and average level of repeat collaboration are quite low, indicating that tenures are relatively short and that persistent lateral interactions are less common than in the smaller firms. Combined with high turnover, reliance on a few central individuals means that these firms are unlikely to develop meta-capabilities from CoPs, since it seems likely that, in the long run, practice will be dictated from the center. A model of capability based on hierarchy and individual integration expertise would seem to be more appropriate for these two firms than a model based on community of practice. Two of the firms shown in Figure 1 exhibit network structures that can be associated with CoPs capable of producing meta-capabilities for integration, coordination and innovation.
These are ILM, and Cinesite. These firms are not strongly dominated by central individuals, are densely laterally connected within firm and exhibit relatively low levels of repeat collaboration. The lack of centralization and low levels of repeat collaboration shown in Table 1 for these relatively large firms suggest that project teams are composed of people who understand firm level practice, but are not constrained by highly developed team level mental models or by ideas pushed from the center. ILM, which is by far the largest firm, is the least dominated by individuals and repeat collaboration, despite the very large size of its teams. It is worth noting that of the firms shown in Figure 1, ILM is the only one capable of routinely executing major Hollywood projects by itself. As the oldest firm in the industry, it has a long history of effective execution and innovation that is entirely consistent with an underlying community of practice that spans projects and technical specializations. Cinesite was originally a division of Kodak, operating in both Hollywood and London. The Hollywood branch was shut down in 2003 after several years of decline, but the London operation has become the major European competitor to ILM, acquiring several smaller firms and building a staff with dense connections and somewhat higher levels of hierarchy and repeat collaboration than ILM. Like ILM, Cinesite appears to have a structure that would support the kind of community of practice that would enable competitive advantage in the long term. Other firms in Figure 1 bear mentioning because of their intermediate structures. Sony Picture Imageworks (SPI), which is affiliated with the Sony entertainment conglomerate, has higher level of repeat collaboration on smaller teams, and as shown in Figure 1, a network structure with multiple central players who are densely connected to each other. SPI works exclusively on Sony projects, which may explain both its size and structure. Its structure suggests that the firm deploys a core team repeatedly, assisted
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Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
by a transient periphery. This structure could evolve either toward the ILM structure of dense connection with less hierarchy, or toward the Digital Domain type structure, with more clearly pronounced centralization. For this intermediate structure, some combination of theories of community, hierarchy and team would appear to be necessary. This intermediate structure would be most likely provide for advantage in coordination and integration within the firm, while the fact that it works only for Sony suggests superior integration between visual effects and other project functions. Digiscope is a smaller, newer firm with a moderately hierarchical structure that works on smaller projects or pieces of major projects. Like SPI, it could evolve down any of the pathways. The dominant actors in the firm do not appear to insert themselves into every project, which suggests that evolution toward a hierarchical structure is less likely than movement toward a structure based on lateral ties. Pacific Title Digital is a specialist in effects in digital title sequences. Although it works on a many projects, its teams are small and turnover is high, making the development of communal practice unlikely. The remaining firms shown in Figure1 are grouped in two multi-firm clusters characterized by ties between firms that are at least as prevalent as ties within firms. Dream Quest Images (DQI) was originally an independent competitor to ILM, located in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. Its relative isolation from Hollywood and the intense interactions among its talented staff created ideal conditions for the emergence of a firm based community of practice. This was reflected in a strong portfolio of films and awards, and led to the firm being acquired by Disney. When Disney began to work with Pixar, the unit was shut down, and the employees moved to other firms or into freelance work. PDI was acquired by the Dreamworks animation studio for its proprietary software. Illusion Arts and C.O.R.E. Digital are Toronto based, while CIS operates effects groups in London, Hollywood and Vancouver,
172
producing a split structure in Figure 1. For these small firms it is difficult to argue that persistent mutual engagement between employees is more important than participation in larger regional or occupational communities of visual effects artists. This suggests that a firm level community is unlikely to contribute to competitive advantage for these firms.
Regional Networks of Mutual Engagement Geographic boundaries have also developed between regional concentrations of visual effects firms. By the 1970’s there were two centers of special photographic effects – Hollywood and London. The origin of the digitally oriented visual effects community can be traced through Star Wars (produced in Los Angeles) to 2001: A Space Odyssey (produced in London). The emergent visual effects community in Los Angeles was initially centered on the personal relationships developed by Douglas Trumbull, who recommended his associates John Dykstra and Richard Edlund to run the Star Wars project and ILM. Other communities, notably the animation community centered around the Disney studio and the academic computer graphics community, contributed beliefs and practices to the Hollywood visual effects community (McClean, 2007). The point at which the California visual effects community began to fraction into regional communities of practice can be associated with the second founding of Industrial Light and Magic in San Rafael, California in 1979. At this time, John Dykstra and Douglas Trumbull both formed companies of their own (Apogee Inc. and Entertainment Effects Group respectively) in order to stay in Los Angeles and exploit their expertise with camera systems and motion control effects. In 1983, Richard Edlund moved back to Los Angeles from San Rafael, bought out Trumbull’s firm and founded Boss Films. Los Angeles was also home to the specialized firms that made the
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
transition from optical to digital production. In the San Francisco Bay Area, ILM spun off Pixar and sold it to Steve Jobs, Craig Barron founded Matte World Digital and Phil Tippet left ILM to found the Tippet Studio. To this day there continues to be a primary division between firms in the San Francisco Bay Area that primarily deal with animation, and firms in Los Angeles who tend to specialize in less obtrusive effects. Geographic vertical boundaries are associated with technical ones. As digital technology developed, separate centers emerged in the Soho district of London, in Toronto and Vancouver, and in various Indian film centers. The most notable recent development in terms of regional centers has been the forced growth of an industry center in New Zealand around Peter Jackson’s WETA firms, established to create the effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Within region, firms are often clustered in very close proximity. In Soho the four major firms have offices within an area of a square kilometer. In Los Angeles firms are clustered in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. This physical proximity further enhances ties between firm level communities and lessening the degree of control possible for managers in any one firm (Bresnen, Goussevskaia & Swan, 2005). This is important for the study of CoPs because, if we assume that CoPs are firm level phenomena, which is necessary if we expect managers to exert any control over them, we have to account for movement between firms. Very high levels of mobility would tend to suggest that the appropriate level of analysis might be the regional cluster rather than the firm (Almeida & Kogut, 1999; Schilling & Phelps, 2007). The implications of these clusters for competitive advantage based on communities of practice can be seen clearly in the careers of people who work in the visual effects industry. In examining the movement of specialists between the top 50 firms, we see that most of the flow between firms is very local. People who work in a region are far more likely to move to another local firm than to
another region, except in the case of the migration to New Zealand (which has been steadily reversing itself since production on Lord of the Rings ended). As shown in Table 2, this strongly implies that not only are there regional differences in what firms do, but also that connections between firm level communities are much stronger within than between regions. This means that knowledge flows, including knowledge of practices for integration, coordination and innovation are likely to be both widely disseminated within each cluster and relatively unique to each cluster. These knowledge spillovers mean that CoPs within firms within clusters shared practice to a larger extent than a strictly firm oriented view would tend to realize. Participation in a regional cluster may create competitive advantage relative to firms from other clusters. We can use a regional view of community to illustrate two other issues that are critical to visual effects and to other creative and project based industries. These are the presence of a large population of free-lance contract workers in the industry, and the sources of new entrants to the community. For most firms work is intermittent, so that retaining a permanent employee base is risky. Contract workers make it possible to scale up rapidly, so that one way to enhance a metacapability based on a within firm community of practice would be to develop complementary practices that facilitate rapid scale up. One way to accomplish this would be to maintain a strong presence in the regional community by maintaining ties through the Visual Effects Society, Web sites and services like Linkedin.com and through offline social interaction with the regional community (Spelthann & Haunschild, 2008). The major firms are all active as sponsors in these networks, and many encourage their employees to be highly involved. One area where regional boundaries appear to be regularly breached is in the entry of novices into firms. Firms from all regions compete vigorously to hire talent from a worldwide pool, so
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Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
Table 2. Visual effects specialist movement between firms within regions Company 1
Company 2
Employees shared
Note
Digital Domain
Cinesite Inc.
47
Mostly movement from Cinesite Hollywood to Digital Domain. Both in west LA.
Digital Domain
Blue Sky/VIFX
26
Movement when Bluesky/VIFX merged with Rhythm & Hues. Both in west LA
Digital Domain
Boss Film Studios
24
Core group moved to original Digital Domain when Boss shut down. Both in west LA.
Disney Feature Animation
Digital Domain
34
Mostly after shut down of Disney subsidiary, both in LA
Framestore CFC
Cinesite Inc.
39
Movement between Cinesite London and Framestore, also in London
Framestore CFC
Double Negative
32
Double Negative is another London based effects company
Industrial Light & Magic
Cinesite Inc.
44
Mostly ILM alumni working at Cinesite Hollywood
Industrial Light & Magic
Boss Film Studios
39
Boss was founded by ILM refugees
Industrial Light & Magic
Digital Domain
35
Most of the top management at DD was hired away from ILM
Industrial Light & Magic
Framestore CFC
28
Mostly ILM alumni moving to Europe
Industrial Light & Magic
Disney Feature Animation
26
Refugees from layoffs at Disney moved to ILM.
Industrial Light & Magic
ESC Entertainment
25
Movement mostly from ILM to ESC, founded by refugees
Magic Camera Co
Cinesite Inc.
27
Movement between competitors in London
Mill Film Ltd.
Cinesite Inc.
64
Movement between competitors in London
Mill Film Ltd.
Magic Camera Co
40
Movement between competitors in London
Mill Film Ltd.
Framestore CFC
40
Movement between competitors in London
Moving Picture Company
Framestore CFC
49
Movement between competitors in London
Moving Picture Company
Cinesite Inc.
39
Movement between competitors in London
Moving Picture Company
Mill Film Ltd.
37
Movement between competitors in London
Moving Picture Company
Double Negative
32
Movement between competitors in London
Rhythm & Hues
Digital Domain
88
Both on west side of Los Angeles
Rhythm & Hues
Blue Sky/VIFX
78
Merged (both Los Angeles)
Rhythm & Hues
Cinesite Inc.
57
Cinesite Hollywood to R&H and vice versa
Rhythm & Hues
Industrial Light & Magic
44
ILM alumni working at R&H
Rhythm & Hues
Disney Feature Animation
31
Moved to R&H mostly after consolidation in the Disney group.
Rhythm & Hues
Composite Image Systems
25
Movement from R&H to CIS Hollywood
continued on following page
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Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
Table 2. continued Company 1
Company 2
Employees shared
Note
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Rhythm & Hues
81
Both on west side of Los Angeles
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Digital Domain
79
Both on west side of Los Angeles
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Industrial Light & Magic
72
ILM alumni working at SPI
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Cinesite Inc.
50
Cinesite Hollywood to SPI and vice versa
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Boss Film Studios
40
Both on west side of Los Angeles; refugees from Boss after it shut down
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Disney Feature Animation
37
Refugees from layoffs at Disney.
Sony Pictures Imageworks
CFX
28
Both in LA. CFX (Centropolis FX) works nearly exclusively on SPI projects.
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Blue Sky/VIFX
27
Movement when Bluesky/VIFX merged with Rhythm & Hues. Both in west LA
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Asylum Visual Effects
22
Both on west side of Los Angeles.
The Orphanage
Industrial Light & Magic
38
Founded by ILM alumni, both in San Francisco area.
Tippett Studio
Industrial Light & Magic
48
Founded by ILM alumni, both in San Francisco area.
Weta Digital Ltd
Industrial Light & Magic
64
Movement by ILM alumni to New Zealand.
Weta Digital Ltd
Cinesite Inc.
51
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Sony Pictures Imageworks
38
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Moving Picture Company
37
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Digital Domain
35
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Rhythm & Hues
33
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Framestore CFC
30
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Tippett Studio
24
Moved to New Zealand
Weta Digital Ltd
Double Negative
23
Moved to New Zealand
that all regions are characterized by more ethnic and racial (but not gender) diversity than the local motion picture industry in which the effects community is embedded. Firms regularly recruit at festivals, academic and trade conferences, hold national and regional career fairs and recruit on college campuses worldwide. The new employees they find there typically move to one of the major regional centers, and among those who remain in
the industry, more than half become free-lance specialists.
Connecting to the Larger Context: The Visual Effects Supervisor as Connecting Role The lead role in visual effects production is the visual effects supervisor (Netzley, 2000). This title was used infrequently prior to 1980; the more 175
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
common credit in all types of projects was special photographic effects supervisor. The visual effects supervisor credit came into common usage in the early 1980’s and was routine by 1990. This shift in the wording of credits tracks closely with the separation of the visual effects community from the preceding camera oriented community. The new terminology makes final the separation between the traditional optically based craft practices of special photography, and the increasingly industrialized practice of creating visual effects. Because they inherited a position in the industry role structure, the pioneer visual effects supervisors were seen from the beginning as peers with other department heads. This was further reified in 2000 when visual effects supervisors formed the Visual Effects Society to represent their interests and formalize their expertise with awards and certifications. One of the important tasks for all of the visual effects supervisors working on a project is to pay close attention to the ways visual effects will be incorporated into the final product. This requires coordination and integration within and between effects firms, which is achieved partly through intense lateral engagement between supervisors. Supervisors normally observe filming as a group, regardless of their affiliations with firms. This kind of mutual engagement, combined with the fact that many supervisors work together repeatedly suggests that this role is critical to the development of connections between the firm level community and the larger visual effects world. As such, the role, rather than the individuals who fill it, spans the boundary between the firm and its environment. As in other environments, the role is associated with considerable power within the organization (Currie, Finn & Martin, 2008; Friedman & Podolny, 1992), and while it may control outward flows of knowledge and ideas, for this study we are primarily concerned with its function as an inbound conduit (Aldrich & Herker, 1977; Keller & Holland, 1975; Perrone, Zaheer & McEvily, 2003). Given the intensive interaction that takes
176
place among visual effects supervisors, new ideas and techniques should be relatively easy to observe in at least outward detail, one of the key conditions for knowledge acquisition (Winter, 1987; Zander & Kogut, 1995). As a result it should be possible to use the visual supervisor role to illustrate the structure of connections between the communities within visual effects firms and the larger visual effects industry. This is important because, as noted earlier, being connected to external sources of knowledge is critical for the absorption of new ideas. New ideas are equally important for keeping communal practice current relative to the competition and for the development of community based capabilities for innovation. The critical structural feature of communal connectedness to the larger environment is effective network size. This is because, unlike a brokerage context where a community might generate competitive advantage because it controls flows of information, what matters in this context is wide access to new ideas and new opportunities. The more widely an effects firm is connected to other firms through the shared work of visual effects supervisors, the more likely the firm is to have access to new and current ideas, methods and opportunities. Effective network size is a structural measure that adjusts the size of an ego actor’s directly connected network by controlling for the level of connectedness between the alter entities to which it is directly connected. As more of an ego’s alters are connected to each other, effective network size becomes smaller (Borgatti, 2000; Burt, 1992), since each connection contributes less unique access to ideas and practices. Figure 2a shows the network of visual effects firms where ties are based on supervisor to supervisor contact on projects during the years 20032005. In order to make Figure 2a more readable, connections to freelance supervisors have been excluded. The center of the network shown in Figure 2a is magnified in Figure 2b. The size of the firm names in Figure 2b reflect the effective
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
Figure 2. Supervisor to supervisor connections aggregated to the firm level. (a) Overall network; (b) Network detail. Label font size indicates relative effective network size.
network of each firm, which is also given in Table 1 for the firms used as examples in this case. The most salient feature of Figure 2 is that while the core of the network is densely connected, there are many peripheral firms whose connections are sparse. Most of the major firms discussed in this study have large effective networks and central
positions, as do some of the smaller firms (Pixel Magic, Digiscope, Metrolight Studios). This suggests that some smaller firms may achieve relative parity with larger firms because they are well connected. The effective networks for the Toronto firms (Illusion Arts and C.O.R.E digital) are small, suggesting that there could be a disadvantage to
177
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
belonging to a remote regional community. CIS Hollywood, which is widely connected, is positioned to provide access to ideas for its sibling organizations in London and Vancouver. Viewed as a network for knowledge flows, Figure 2 suggests is that it will be difficult to achieve a sustained advantage on the basis of technical knowledge, ideas or methods in this environment, since the structure of the industry network suggests that technological spillovers will occur rapidly. Firms with large effective networks are likely have access to innovations no matter where they occur. What matters for capability and competitive advantage is that firms with large effective networks and highly centralized structures (Digital Domain, for example) may be less able to absorb and exploit new ideas, because dominant actors within these firms may be more likely to cling to their own ways of doing things. The same may be true for smaller firms that are widely connected, such as CIS, Pixel Magic or Metrolight Studios, since their connections are typically through a few dominant individuals in the visual effects supervisor role. Finally, it seems likely that decentralized, densely connected firms characterized by low levels of repeat collaboration (e.g. ILM or Cinesite) will be uniquely suited to absorb and integrate ideas acquired through their large external networks. They access outsider knowledge through a large number of supervisors, who bring knowledge into an environment where it should flow easily and quickly. The capabilities resulting from these flows are likely to contribute to sustained competitive advantage by keeping the skills and knowledge that are integrated during the production of the firms outputs on the cutting edge. This would provide leverage for the integration and coordination capabilities that are most likely to be associated with mutual engagement in a decentralized structure in which levels of repeat collaboration are not high. In this type of CoP practices for integration and coordination would be widespread, while the community would
178
be open to new ideas because it is not overly constrained by entrenched relationships.
CONCLUSION The larger context matters in the study of communities of practice, particularly as CoPs relate to competitive advantage. CoPs develop within firms are embedded in larger networks of communities, institutions and relationships. The embedding context cannot be ignored if scholarship is to advance our understanding of what CoPs are, how they work and what managers and firms can do to benefit from them. Using the visual effects production industry as a descriptive case, we have linked community of practice and competitive advantage to context in three ways. First, this chapter has demonstrated that the patterns of network structure within firms vary greatly, which is a necessary pre-condition for the achievement of CoP based firm level competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is unlikely to develop in contexts where competitors all pursue the same strategies. Using data on the structure of networks of mutual engagement within effects firms, this chapter provides illustrations of a variety of structural patterns, including one that should be associated with enduring, decentralized communities of practitioners who share in and support practice for coordinating, integrating and developing the diverse knowledge bases that are deployed in motion picture projects. This structural pattern is contrasted with more centralized and rigid patterns of interaction on one hand, and less durable types of structure on the other. Doing so achieves two necessary steps for understanding how competitive advantage can be supported by CoPs within firms. First, it demonstrates that the necessary variation is in fact present, and second it illustrates the characteristics that should be associated with the achievement of competitive advantage.
Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
Second, this chapter has shown how regional clusters of firms appear to support regional occupational communities. The movement of employees between firms within clusters ensures that knowledge spillovers move the firms and their internal communities closer together. Regional communities provide pools of contingent workers that enable the rapid scalability of production. Participation in regional communities presumably allows contingent workers to participate at least partially in the norms and practices of regional firms, which should enhance participation in and contribution to integration and coordination processes when contingent employment occurs. Engagement with the regional context is therefore critical for the competitive survival of visual effects firms. An effective regional community could create a degree of competitive advantage for all the firms participating in it, as appears to be the case for the regional cluster in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Third, this chapter identifies a boundary spanning role, the visual effects supervisor, as critical to the flow of knowledge within the network of firms. Because the visual effects supervisor role is by nature integrative both within and between firms, knowledge and practice observed in external interactions is likely to become available within the firm. How effective this knowledge acquisition is may depend on the structure of community within the firm. What is certain is that, in the absence of effective connections to the industry context at this level, firms run the risk of falling behind the competition. Engagement with the industry context in is critical for the acquisition of new ideas and the exploitation of new opportunities. How can managers move toward competitive advantage by exploiting or supporting emergent communities of practice outside the firm? Answering this question highlights the need for managers and scholars of communities of practice to step back from the immediate issues of local community and see CoPs in context. Doing so leads to a variety of insights into how community, col-
lectivity, occupation and field relate to each other. These insights can be distilled into three critical prescriptions. •
•
•
Both centralization and the rigidity that comes with extended repeat collaboration must be avoided. Managers need to give up some of the certainty that comes from relying on star employees and teams, and extend participation to a wider pool of employees. Managers must recognize that CoPs within firms are connected to larger contexts. Developing practice that accommodates regional practice and contingent workers, buyers or suppliers can give a CoP based capability additional resilience. It should be useful to develop durable connections between the firm and the ecology of communities it is engaged with. While this need not involve an executive role, it would be better to build connections on the basis of role rather than individual personality. Doing so frees the firm from the idiosyncratic filtering that is the inevitable consequence of personalized gate-keeping.
Like any study of a single industry, this study suffers from limitations. The visual effects industry, like many other cultural industries, is project based, so that the ideas and conclusions advanced in this chapter may not be generalizable to settings in which production is continuous. The archival data used are only the reified traces of the actual interactions between participants in communities, making it difficult to come to a valid understanding of the actual micro-level processes that occur. For example, demonstrating an interaction between external connectedness and internal structure for any of these firms would require different data and analytic methods. What an archival approach permits is the comparison of structural patterns inherent in large numbers of interactions.
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Community and Advantage in the Effects Industry
In order to bring ideas about community of practice into a discussion of competitive advantage it is necessary to show how the CoP can be interpreted as an enduring, complex, valuable social entity that can serve as the foundation of dynamic meta-capabilities. These meta-capabilities enhance firm’s ability to integrate, coordinate and develop knowledge, using constantly changing mixes of employees, contract workers, buyers and suppliers. By building on this vision of the CoP as the foundation of meta-capability, this chapter has demonstrated how the competitive environment, regional clustering and industry network shape the development of competitive advantage in the visual effects industry.
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Knorr-Cetina, K. (1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lampel, J., & Bhalla, A. (2007). Let’s get natural: The discourse of community and the problem of transferring practices in knowledge management. Management Decision, 45(7), 1069. doi:10.1108/00251740710773916 Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Leonard-Barton, D. (1992). Core capabilities and core rigidities: A paradox in managing new product development. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 111–125. doi:10.1002/smj.4250131009 Liedtka, J. (1999). Linking competitive advantage with communities of practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 8, 5–16. doi:10.1177/105649269981002 Lindkvist, L. (2005). Knowledge communities and knowledge collectivities: A typology of knowledge work in groups. Journal of Management Studies, 42, 1189–1210. doi:10.1111/j.14676486.2005.00538.x Loyarte, E., & Rivera, O. (2007). Communities of practice: a model for their cultivation. Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(3), 67–77. doi:10.1108/13673270710752117 McClean, S. T. (2007). Digital Storytelling: The narrative power of visual effects in film. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Netzley, P. D. (2000). Encyclopedia of movie special effects. Phoenix: Oryx Press. Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5, 14–37. doi:10.1287/orsc.5.1.14 O’Mahony, S., & Ferraro, F. (2007). The emergence of governance in an open source community. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1079–1106.
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Patterson, R. (1983). Electronic and animation effects for Tron. In Turner, G. E. (Ed.), The ASC Treasury of Visual Effects (pp. 583–598). Hollywood, CA: American Society of Cinematographers. Perretti, F., & Negro, G. (2007). Mixing genres and matching people: A study in innovation and team composition in Hollywood. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 563–585. doi:10.1002/ job.464 Perrone, V., Zaheer, A., & McEvily, B. (2003). Free to be trusted? Organizational constraints on trust in boundary spanners. Organization Science, 14, 422–439. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.4.422.17487 Rickitt, R. (2000). Special effects: The history and technique. New York: Billboard Books. Schilling, M. A., & Phelps, C. C. (2007). Interfirm collaboration networks: The impact of large-scale network structure on firm innovation. Management Science, 53, 1113–1126. doi:10.1287/ mnsc.1060.0624 Skilton, P. F., & Bravo, J. (2008). Do social capital and project type vary across career paths in projectbased work? The case of Hollywood personal assistants. Career Development International, 13, 381–401. doi:10.1108/13620430810891437 Spelthann, V., & Haunschild, A. (2008). HR practice in a project heterarchy – the case of VFX production. Presented at the 24th EGOS colloquium, Amsterdam, July 2008, Sub-theme 44: Temporary and Project-Based Organizing. Swartz, C. S. (Ed.). (2005). Understanding digital cinema: A professional handbook. Boston: Focal Press. Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17 (Winter Special Issue), 27-44.
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Turner, G. E. (1983). The evolution of special visual effects. In Turner, G. E. (Ed.), The ASC Treasury of Visual Effects (pp. 15–82). Hollywood, CA: American Society of Cinematographers. Uzzi, B., & Spiro, J. (2005). Collaboration and creativity: The small world problem. American Journal of Sociology, 111, 447–504. doi:10.1086/432782 von Hippel, E. (1998). Economics of product development by users: The impact of sticky local information. Management Science, 44, 629–644. doi:10.1287/mnsc.44.5.629 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Winter, S. G. (1987). Knowledge and competence as strategic assets. In Teece, D. (Ed.), The Competitive Challenge: Strategies for Industrial Innovation and Renewal. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Yin, R. K. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Zander, U., & Kogut, B. (1995). Knowledge and the speed of the transfer and imitation of organizational capabilities: An empirical test. Organization Science, 6, 76–94. doi:10.1287/orsc.6.1.76 Zollo, M., & Winter, S. G. (2002). Deliberate learning and the evolution of dynamic capabilities. Organization Science, 13, 339–351. doi:10.1287/ orsc.13.3.339.2780
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Core: Central foundational part of a network, distinct from the periphery by a difference in nature. Edge: In social network theory, a connection between nodes reflecting an interdependency between actors.
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Node: In social network theory, an actor connected to a larger network of actors by converging interdependencies. Periphery: The outward part of a network, often sparsely connected.
Regional: Entities that are co-located in a physically bounded area. Role: A social expected pattern of participation, often associated with a particular part of an operation or process.
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Section 3
Performance and Innovation
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Chapter 11
People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium-High and High Technology Companies:
Organizational Facilitating Conditions and Impact on Innovation and Business Competitiveness Nekane Aramburu University of Deusto, Spain Josune Sáenz University of Deusto, Spain
ABSTRACT The aim of this chapter is to analyse the organizational conditions that foster the development of different people-focused knowledge sharing initiatives in medium-high and high technology companies, as well as the degree of influence of those initiatives on the ideation stage of innovation processes. Finally, considering that successful innovation is the one that helps to improve business competitiveness, the degree of influence of this innovation capability dimension on company performance is examined. For these relationships to be tested, an empirical study has been carried out among medium-high and high technology Spanish manufacturing firms with more than 50 employees and which carry out R&D activities. To this end, a questionnaire has been designed and submitted to the CEOs of the companies making up the target population of the research. Structural equation modelling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) has then been applied in order to test the main hypotheses of the research. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch011
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium-High and High Technology Companies
INTRODUCTION Since the last decade, the study of knowledge has been one of the most important topics in the management arena (Nonaka, 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Indeed, we are supposed to live in a “knowledge economy”, where intangible assets – and knowledge in particular – are the key sources for value creation (Brooking, 1996; Edvinsson & Malone, 1997; Stewart, 1997). This idea is clearly reinforced by the existing relationship between knowledge creation and innovation (Nonaka, 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). In today’s economy, innovation is one of the main driving forces behind business competitiveness (Drucker, 1988; Shapiro & Varian, 1998; Sveiby, 1997). Along these lines, it is generally assumed that innovation depends on the accumulation and development of relevant knowledge of a wide variety (Fischer, 2001). For new knowledge to be created, knowledge sharing between individuals is the key (Nonaka, 1991; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, von Krogh & Voelpel, 2006). As a consequence, the study of different mechanisms and initiatives which could facilitate knowledge sharing represents an extremely relevant research topic. Many of these mechanisms take advantage of information and communication technologies (i.e. they are “IT-based” – Dalkir, 2005; Davenport, 2007) whereas, in other cases, personal interaction between individuals is the key (i.e. “people-focused” knowledge management; Wiig, 2004). A review of early literature on knowledge management gives clear proof of the prevalence of information technology (IT) focused research in this domain (Swan, Robertson & Nevell, 2001). Taking this into consideration, the focus of this chapter will be on people-focused knowledge sharing (i.e. the type of knowledge sharing which involves personal or “face-to-face” interaction). In particular, the organizational conditions that foster the development of different people-focused
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knowledge sharing initiatives (e.g. communities of practice, coaching, mentoring, employee functional rotation and other initiatives for knowledge sharing with external stakeholders) will be analysed, as well as the degree of influence of those initiatives on the ideation stage of innovation processes. Finally, considering that successful innovation is the one that helps to improve business competitiveness, the degree of influence of this innovation capability dimension on company performance will be examined. In other words, it is assumed that business competitiveness is related to superior performance (Cantwell, 2005). Given their special focus on innovation, their extremely high knowledge intensity, and the degree of complexity of the knowledge being dealt with, medium-high and high technology companies will be under scrutiny in this research. As a result, these companies will be provided with a basic framework in order to shape their knowledge management strategies and in order to enhance their capability for generating new ideas and developing successful innovation.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS The Concept and Nature of Knowledge A single definition of “knowledge” does not exist, but it is quite common to approach this concept by starting out from the hierarchical distinction between data, information and knowledge highlighted by Davenport and Prusak in 1998. According to these authors, data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events; information is a message, usually in the form of a document or audible or visible communication; and knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual information and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.
People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium-High and High Technology Companies
Usually, a distinction is made between tacit and explicit knowledge. The concept of tacit knowledge was first coined by the philosopher Michael Polanyi in 1966, but it is thanks to the seminal works by Nonaka in 1991 and Nonaka and Takeuchi in 1995 that it has become extremely popular in management literature as well. However, the meaning attributed by Nonaka to this concept differs from the one attributed by Polany (Allee, 2003). For the latter, the tacit dimension of knowledge refers to innate intelligence, perception and capacities for reasoning, whereas for Nonaka, tacit knowledge is the type of knowledge which is personal, context-specific and, therefore, hard to formalize and communicate. Conversely, explicit or codified knowledge refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Hence, according to this perception, tacit knowledge tends to reside within the head of knowers, whereas explicit knowledge is usually contained within tangible or concrete media (Dalkir, 2005). In Nonaka’s view, tacit and explicit knowledge are not totally separate, but mutually complementary entities: human knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge. This interaction is called “knowledge conversion” and there are four types of it: from tacit to tacit (socialization); from tacit to explicit (externalization); from explicit to explicit (combination); and from explicit to tacit (internalization). Therefore, the possibility exists of transforming one type of knowledge (tacit or explicit) into the other. However, if the concept of tacit knowledge were the one advocated by Polanyi, such a possibility would not exist. As Allee (2003) points out, for Polanyi, tacit knowledge could never be made explicit. For him, when knowledge is shared, there is an articulated or explicit communication and an unspoken tacit communication going on at the same time. In any case, Nonaka’s point of view is the most widespread one in the knowledge management literature today. According to him, the tacit/
explicit interaction is continuous and dynamic and is shaped by shifts between the different modes of knowledge conversion, which gives rise to a “knowledge creation spiral”. As previously mentioned, socialization involves the conversion of tacit knowledge into a tacit one. This only can be achieved by a process of experience sharing. As a result of this, a set of shared mental models and technical skills will be obtained. In externalization, tacit knowledge is articulated into explicit concepts, using metaphors, analogies, hypotheses or models. This is triggered by dialogue or collective reflection. On the other hand, combination involves systemizing concepts into a knowledge system, which implies using different bodies of explicit knowledge. Documents, meetings, conversations or computerized communication networks could be used to this end. Finally, internalization is closely related to the idea of “learning by doing”, and it means embodying explicit knowledge into (a) tacit one. “For explicit knowledge to become tacit, it helps if the knowledge is verbalized or diagrammed into documents, manuals or oral stories” (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 69). As can be seen, in all the previously-mentioned processes knowledge sharing is involved, which means this is a critical aspect in enlarging organizational knowledge. In other words, the knowledge that the organization possesses cannot be amplified if the knowledge possessed by individuals is not shared. This shows us the social nature of knowledge. For this reason, different authors have been interested in the study of knowledge sharing mechanisms in organizations (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Nonaka, Toyama & Byosière, 2003). In the next section, we are going to take a closer look at this issue.
Knowledge Sharing As previously mentioned, in order to make knowledge sharing happen within and among organizations, several ad hoc mechanisms and
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initiatives have been proposed. Some of them are IT-based (email; on-line discussion forums and/or blogs; intranets; extranets; groupware tools; and on-line knowledge repositories), whereas in other cases, personal interaction between individuals is the key (communities of practice, coaching, mentoring, and employee functional rotation, to name but a few). Early literature on knowledge management shows a clear prevalence of the information technology perspective. In a survey reported by Swan, Robertson & Newell in 2001, it was proven that the dominant discourse in this domain was not related to the role of people in organizations, but to technologies that facilitate the acquisition, codification and exploitation of knowledge. However, although IT-based practices could help in the exchange and assimilation of explicit knowledge (i.e. internalization and combination processes), they leave aside “social construction” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) and the organizational learning processes underlying socialization. As Allee points out (2003), “in all types of knowledge work, even where technology is very helpful, people require conversation, experimentation and experiences shared with other people who do what they do” (p. 113). In this chapter, the focus will be on this second perspective: that is, on social interaction-based (i.e. people-focused) knowledge sharing. In particular, the following knowledge sharing initiatives will be considered: communities of practice, coaching and mentoring, employee functional rotation and meeting events and/or workshops in order to promote reflection as well as knowledge and experience sharing with external agents. Among the previously-mentioned mechanisms, communities of practice are of special relevance (Dalkir, 2005; Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2003). They refer to a group or network of individuals who share a concern, a set of problems or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting with each other on an ongoing basis (Wenger,
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McDermott & Snyder, 2002). Along these lines, “the critical component of a community lies in the sharing of common work problems between members, a membership that sees the clear benefits of sharing knowledge among themselves” (Dalkir, 2005, p.123).Therefore, communities of practice are a vehicle for increasing knowledge creation as well as for expanding the extent and accelerating the speed at which knowledge is exchanged across the organization (Saint-Onge & Wallace, 2003, p.12). On the other hand, coaching, mentoring and employee functional rotation facilitate learning and socialization processes across the organization as well. In particular, they are used to allow the transmission of knowledge that is grounded on experience (i.e. tacit knowledge). According to action learning theory (Revans, 1983), individuals learn through experience within a social context. This type of experience-grounded learning is quite difficult to transmit to others because of its tacit nature. For this reason, a social context is needed to allow this transmission. As workbased learning theory maintains (Raelin, 2000), individuals learn in their work environment, which constitutes the immediate social context in which they gain experience. In this context, individuals not only gain experience, but also share it with others. Hence, socialization processes (i.e. tacit knowledge sharing) take place. Finally, the mobilization of external knowledge held by outside stakeholders is also an essential aspect for knowledge creation to occur (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Almeida, Anupama & Grant, 2003). In other words, the exchange of knowledge with external agents is a key element for creating new knowledge. As Maznevski & Athanassiou (2007) point out, “the scope and breadth of knowledge available from outside sources is generally much greater than that available from inside sources” (p. 69). Therefore, meeting events and/or workshops in order to promote reflection as well as knowledge and experience sharing with external agents constitute other relevant
People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium-High and High Technology Companies
social interaction-based mechanisms to enable knowledge sharing and subsequent knowledge creation to take place. On the other hand, for knowledge sharing to occur, specific spaces should be created within the organization, where knowledge exchange among people would be facilitated. These particular spaces are what Nonaka et alter called “ba” (Nonaka, Reinmoeller & Senoo, 1998). According to these authors, the ba is the physical and/or virtual space where knowledge exchange and generation take place. As stated by Nonaka, Toyama & Hirata (2008), it is “an existential place where participants share contexts and create new meanings through interactions”(p.34). More precisely, the physical ba refers to those organizational conditions which can promote or, on the contrary, hinder the exchange of knowledge. In particular, organizational design and technological infrastructure are included within this category (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). On the other hand, the virtual ba (i.e. the mental space for knowledge sharing) is linked to organizational culture or the set of shared values assumed by the members of the organization. Sharing a specific set of values generates a collective mental space which facilitates mutual understanding among people and, hence, mutual interaction and knowledge sharing. In this research, the influence of different organizational conditions (i.e. ba components) on people-based knowledge sharing is analysed.
Knowledge Sharing and its Relationship with Knowledge Creation and Innovation Since the seminal works by Nonaka in 1991, and Nonaka & Takeuchi in 1995, the concept of innovation has been closely related to that of “knowledge creation”. Along these lines, it is generally assumed that the process of innovation consists of an ongoing pursuit of harnessing new and unique knowledge (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005).
According to Nonaka, von Krogh and Voelpel (2006), knowledge creation involves a continuous process through which one overcomes the individual boundaries and constraints imposed by information and past learning by acquiring a new context, a new view of the world and new knowledge. By interacting and sharing tacit and explicit knowledge with others, the individual enhances the capacity to define a situation or problem, and apply his or her knowledge so as to act and specifically solve the problem. In the case of organizational knowledge creation, this means making available and amplifying the knowledge created by individuals as well as crystallizing and connecting it with the organization’s knowledge system (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, von Krogh & Voelpel, 2006). Therefore, knowledge sharing and diffusion are both essential in order to create new knowledge and produce innovation (Dalkir, 2005). On the other hand, innovation is a dynamic capability (i.e. a capability which allows the company to create, extend or modify its resource base – Helfat et alter, 2007) with multiple dimensions. The first one is that of ideation (Davila, Epstein & Shelton, 2006), which involves new idea generation and selection. Selected new ideas should then be put into practice (Van de Ven & Angle, 2000). This brings us to the execution phase. In this phase, managing innovation projects effectively should be combined with the ability to fit them into budgeted costs and deadlines (i.e. timeliness and cost efficiency). Finally, all the aforementioned dimensions should lead to value creation. Considering that the generation and selection of new ideas is the first step in order to achieve successful innovation and that this is something not specifically addressed by previous research (which in many cases assesses innovation capability in terms of the outcomes it produces, instead of measuring the capability itself), in this chapter the focus will be on the ideation phase of innovation processes and on value creation. In particular, the impact of people-focused knowledge sharing
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initiatives on the generation of new ideas will be examined, as well as the impact of the latter on firm performance.
DEVELOPING A RESEARCH MODEL FOR ANALYSING THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CONDITIONS ON PEOPLE-FOCUSED KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND THE IMPACT OF THE LATTER ON THE GENERATION OF NEW IDEAS AND ON COMPANY PERFORMANCE In this section, a research model will be proposed in order to analyse the degree of influence of different organizational dimensions (i.e. organizational design, organizational culture and information and communication technology infrastructure) on the degree of success of different people-focused knowledge sharing initiatives and their impact on the generation of new ideas and company performance. This model will allow us to answer the following questions: •
•
•
Are all organizational dimensions considered equally important in order to support people-focused knowledge sharing initiatives? What is the degree of influence of those initiatives when it comes to enhancing the generation of new ideas and, therefore, the innovation capability of firms? What is the degree of relevance of this dimension (i.e. ideation) in successful innovation (i.e. in the improvement of business competitiveness)?
The answers to these questions will provide companies with important clues so as to shape their knowledge management and innovation strategies. As regards the different knowledge sharing catalysts considered, the first one is organizational
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design. This refers to the type of organizational structure in place within the company, to the communication channels (both vertical and horizontal) that link different organizational units and teams, and to the physical design of the workplace. As regards organizational structure, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), and Nonaka, Toyama and Byosière (2003) advocate the fact that certain types of structure facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge creation processes more than others (i.e. they are more “learning supportive”). In particular, they defend the hypertext type of organization as the most suitable one in order to foster knowledge sharing and creation. Likewise, communication channels could play a substantial role in fostering knowledge sharing and subsequent knowledge creation. As Kalla (2005) points out, knowledge sharing is a function of integrated internal communications. Hence, it is assumed that vertical and horizontal communication channels act as catalysts for knowledge sharing. Finally, physical design of the workplace is the last element making up organizational design that could promote or, on the contrary, hinder the knowledge sharing processes. According to Nonaka, Schamer and Toyama (2001), “the single most important factor shaping the quality of knowledge is the quality of place” (p. 233). In accordance with the prominent role that, from a theoretical point of view, organizational design could play in knowledge sharing, the following hypothesis has been formulated: H1: Organizational design acts as a catalyst for knowledge sharing that takes place through different people-focused initiatives. Organizational culture is the second organizational dimension considered that, according to literature, could have a significant influence on knowledge sharing. As Dalkir (2005) points out, “corporate culture is a key component in ensuring that critical knowledge and information flow
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within an organization” (p. 185). In particular, the creation of an organizational culture based on trust and commitment on the part of individuals is essential (Argyris, 1990; Argyris & Schön, 1978, 1996; Allee, 2003; Friedman, Lipshitz & Overmeer, 2003; Wiig, 2004). All this gives rise to the second research hypothesis: H2: Organizational culture is a catalyst for knowledge sharing that takes place through different people-focused initiatives. Finally, information and communication technologies can also contribute to a great extent to knowledge sharing (Davenport, 2007). According to Allee (2003), “there must be a technology infrastructure in place that really supports the right kind of conversations and connections” (p.89). In particular, the existence of specific technological tools that foster the capturing and storing of knowledge, as well as the connection between individuals and groups(,) may be very helpful (Dalkir, 2005). Therefore, the following hypothesis has been formulated:
H3: Information and communication technologies facilitate knowledge sharing that takes place through different people-focused initiatives. Additionally, and considering the theoretical foundations explained in previous sections, the following hypotheses have been formulated: H4: People-focused knowledge sharing initiatives have a positive impact on the generation of new ideas. H5: Managing the generation of new ideas effectively improves business competitiveness. Figure 1 summarizes the model proposed.
TESTING THE RESEARCH MODEL Research Method The research model previously outlined has been tested in a sample of Spanish firms. In particular, the population subject to study was made up of medium-high and high technology Spanish
Figure 1. Research model
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manufacturing firms with over 50 employees and which carry out R&D activities. The companies making up the target population were identified thanks to the use of the SABI data base (“Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibéricos” / System of Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis), which contains the registered annual accounts of over 190,000 Spanish companies, selecting only those firms which had included their expenses on R&D in their balance sheet. In order to gather information about the relevant variables of the research, a questionnaire was designed and submitted to the CEOs of the companies making up the target population by the end of the year 2006 and the beginning of the year 2007. 75 answers out 446 were obtained, which means an average response rate of 17%. The sample size obtained is large enough to carry out a statistical study based on structural equation modelling (partial least squares approach) by means of PLS-Graph software (Chin & Frye, 2003). According to the complexity level of the model to be tested, the minimum sample size required was calculated, and this was made up of 40 firms. Structural equation modelling (SEM) constitutes a second generation of multivariate analysis which combines multiple regression concerns (by examining dependency relationships) and factor analysis (by representing unobserved variables by means of multiple observed measures), in order to estimate a set of dependency relationships which are all simultaneously interrelated. When applying SEM, two approaches can be used: the covariance-based approach and the partial least squares (PLS) approach. In the first case, the aim is to minimize the difference between the sample covariances and those predicted by the model. This approach is mainly used for confirmatory analysis. In the second case, however, the aim is to obtain determinate values of the latent variables for predictive purposes. This approach is very useful for exploratory research, as is the case in this chapter (Wold, 1985).
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A PLS model is analysed and interpreted in two stages: firstly, the assessment of the reliability and validity of the measurement model and secondly, the assessment of the structural model. This sequence ensures that the constructs’ measures are valid and reliable before attempting to draw conclusions regarding relationships among constructs (Barclay et al., 1995). In the next section, the measurement model is presented in more detail.
Constructs and Measures The exogenous constructs of the research are those related to the different organizational enablers considered. The first one within this category is Organizational design. This construct is made up of four formative indicators which give rise to the existence of an organizational design which favours organizational learning and knowledge sharing. The first indicator refers to the type of organizational structure in place. For the purposes of this research, organizational structures have been classified into three different categories: level 1 learning supportive (i.e. the least learning supportive) organizational structures (that is, functional, divisional or matrix-type structures with no process- or project-based axis); level 2 learning supportive organizational structures (that is, process-based structures or matrixtype structures with a process-based axis); and level 3 learning supportive (i.e. the most learning supportive) organizational structures (that is, project-based structures or matrix-type structures with a project-based axis). The second and third indicators refer to the extent to which vertical and horizontal communication channels allow the flow of ideas, initiatives and points of view in an agile and fluid way, whereas the last one measures the extent to which the physical design of the work environment favours communication and dialogue among all the members of the company. These last three indicators have been measured by means of 1 to 7 Likert scales.
People-Focused Knowledge Sharing Initiatives in Medium-High and High Technology Companies
Organizational culture is the second exogenous construct of the research. As has been explained in the theoretical framework, this is linked to the degree of presence within the company of different values and attitudes which are related to a culture of knowledge sharing. The degree of presence of the aforementioned values and attitudes (trust, transparency, open mentality, mistakes considered as learning opportunities, and cooperation and mutual help) has been measured by means of 1 to 7 Likert scales. All the indicators considered are reflective in nature, as they show the type of organizational culture in place within the company. Finally, Information and communication technologies encompass three reflective indicators that show the extent to which the company is equipped with ICT systems which facilitate knowledge sharing and permanent connection with different agents. In particular, these indicators refer to the extent to which ICT systems in place facilitate the storage of organizational knowledge and its easy access by the members of the company; to the extent to which they allow permanent connection among all members of the organization; and to the extent to which they facilitate continued action and joint work with external agents. All of these indicators have been measured by means of 1 to 7 Likert scales. On the other hand, People-focused knowledge sharing is the first endogenous construct of the research. In this case, the degree of use of different mechanisms in order to promote social interaction among individuals has been measured (Wiig, 2004): communities of practice and/or meetings by field of interest; coaching and/or mentoring; employee functional rotation; and meeting events and/or workshops in order to promote reflection as well as knowledge and experience sharing with external agents. All of these indicators have been measured by means of 1 to 7 Likert scales and are formative in nature: that is, the use of the different initiatives mentioned gives rise to the existence of knowledge sharing (i.e. the latent variable being studied).
New idea generation is then the second endogenous construct of the research. In this case, the following items have been checked, all of them referring to the last 5 years: whether the company has been able to identify numerous opportunities for incremental/radical improvement; whether the firm has been able to identify many alternative and new uses for already existing technologies; whether the new idea generation process has been managed in a conscious and effective way; and whether the company has been able to clearly distinguish which of the new opportunities identified had a greater potential for development. Once more, these indicators have been measured by means of 1 to 7 Likert scales and, in this case, they are reflective in nature: that is, they reflect the effectiveness of the new idea generation process. To bring the presentation of the measurement model to a close, only the Business competitiveness construct remains to be explained. With a 5 year scope and using again 1 to 7 Likert scales, the following reflective measures have been chosen: whether incremental/radical innovation projects carried out have shown expected results; whether innovation outcomes have had a very positive impact on the company’s income statement; whether innovation outcomes have had a very positive impact on the company’s competitive position; and whether innovation outcomes have allowed the company to grow and improve its market share.
MEASUREMENT MODEL EVALUATION Following the sequence previously described in the method section, an analysis of the results obtained should begin with the evaluation of the measurement model. This assessment differs depending on the nature of the construct under scrutiny. In the case of constructs made up of reflective indicators (i.e. when the measures observed are the consequence of the latent vari-
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able and, therefore, should be highly correlated), individual item reliability, construct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity should be checked. However, in the case of constructs made up of formative indicators (i.e. when the measures observed give rise to the existence of the latent variable), multicolinearity problems should be explored. As regards the reflective constructs of the model (the ones related to organizational culture, information and communication technologies, new idea generation and business competitiveness) all the tests carried out have shown satisfactory results. Indicator loadings (individual item reliability) are greater than 0.7, with a single exception: the one referring to the extent to which the firm has been able to identify many alternative and new uses for already existing technologies, whose loading is 0.6791. Given that the aforementioned value is not too far from the right limit, the decision has been made to keep the indicator in the model. On the other hand, composite reliability (which measures construct reliability) is higher than 0.8 in all cases; average variance extracted (which measures convergent validity) is greater than 0.5 in all constructs; and discriminant validity is excellent too. As regards formative constructs (i.e. the rest of the constructs of the model), multicolinearity problems have not been identified. Once the quality of the measurement model has been guaranteed by means of the previouslymentioned tests, the quality of the structural model should then be assessed. This refers to the strength of the research hypotheses and to the
amount of variance explained (R2) in the case of endogenous constructs, as well as to an analysis of the predictive power achieved.
STRUCTURAL MODEL EVALUATION In order to assess the research hypotheses, path coefficient levels should be examined, as well as their degree of significance, by means of bootstrapping techniques. Tables 1, 2 and 3 summarize the results obtained. In these tables, we can also see the contribution of each exogenous construct to the amount of variance explained (which has been obtained by multiplying correlation and path coefficients), as well as the predictive power achieved. The latter has been confirmed by means of a Stone Geiser test, where cross-validated redundancy (Q2) must be higher than 0 in order to consider that the model has predictive power for that specific construct. According to the figures contained in Table 1, we can conclude that the three organizational factors considered (organizational design, organizational culture and information and communication technologies) contribute to a great extent to the knowledge sharing which takes place through different people-focused initiatives in medium-high and high technology firms (amount of variance explained: 42%). Indeed, all path coefficients are statistically significant and, hence, hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 are clearly supported. As regards the degree of relevance of each explanatory factor in order to enhance this type
Table 1. Structural model evaluation – Impact of organizational conditions on people-focused knowledge sharing Organizational design
Organizational culture
ICT systems
Path
0.241*
0.334***
0.248**
Correlation
0.521
0.544
0.450
R
12.56%
18.17%
11.16%
2
Notes***p 0.5), the index of I i will tend to majority rule.
Discussion and Comparisons The reason for using both TOPSIS and VIKOR is due to the different effects of this study’s criteria.
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For example, when case A gets high grades in most criteria (scores of 80 in 15 criteria), but one criteria grade is very low (score of 50 in 1 criterion), its final value is 1250. In contrast, when case B gets average grades in all criteria (scores of 70 in 16 criteria), its final value is 1120. From the organization’s viewpoint, case B is preferable to A. However, one might choose case A over B based on SAW (1250>1120). Therefore, this study uses both TOPSIS and VIKOR to set rankings, where Si is the sum of the distance from PIS and Ri is the sum of the distance from NIS; the rankings will thus provide two reference numbers. Finally, set ν to 0.5; we will consider both majority rule and high than the lower value. This proves that TOPSIS and VIKOR together have better distinguishing ability than does traditional SAW for clarifying assessment results.
Establishing CoPs Based Performance Evaluation Framework A multi criteria assessment model has been constructed including established analytical procedures, a hierarchy structure, questionnaire formats, participants’ selections, and performance alternatives for CoPs predetermined on Section 2.
Building Up the Evaluation Model The aim of this section is to build a multi-objective and multi-standard evaluation model for CoPs performance. Three steps are included in the model: (1) Describe the situation. (2) Establish the multi-goal construction and tree-shape correlation. (3) Evaluate the results. First of all, several experts in CoPs area have been invited to brainstorm and discuss the potential dimensions and criteria to fulfill CoPs. This chapter combines experts’ consensus and literature review (Nicolini et al., 2003; ITRI KM Task Force; Mintzberg (1991); Skyrme (2001); Chu et al., 2007) to create four dimensions - Leadership Locus, Incentive Mechanism, Member Interac-
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
tion, and Complementary Assets and construct the second-tier criteria under each dimension. Namely, dimension of Leadership Locus contains four criteria: Top-Down Assigning, Bottom-Up Teaming, Total Execution, and Partial Pilot run; Dimension of Incentive Mechanism contains four criteria: Substantive Reward, Psychological Encouragement, Achievements Appraisal Basis, and Peer Reputation; Dimension of Member Interaction contains four criteria: Homogeneity of Members, Differential Members, Security Emphasis, and Cross-domain Sharing; Dimension of Complementary Assets contains four criteria: Give Extra Resources, Just Daily Work, Integrated IT Platform, and Independent IT platform. To reach the target of this research, the first layer dimensions and the second layer criteria are adopted to establish the hierarchy model of CoPs performance evaluation as shown in Figure 2. As shown in Figure 2, a brief explanation is described in terms of fours dimensions and sixteen criteria can be seen in Table 2 and 3.
Acquiring the Weight of Hierarchy Model Seventy-five questionnaires are distributed to the experts with CoPs experience in a large R&D organization. After collecting sixty-two questionnaires, and deleting five that were invalid, fiftyseven effective questionnaires are adopted with a return-ratio of approximately 76%. Utilizing AHP technique to measure the weight and average effective value, the weighted dimensions and criteria are shown in Table 4.
Computation Examples of TOPSIS and VIKOR OPSIS Example To simplify the following calculation and example, our study used a practice example of TOPSIS where c1 ~ c16 was the criteria and w j was the simple average weight. According to the weights in Table 2 and Formula 1, we established a normalized matrix in the third array; rij repre-
Figure 2. The hierarchy model of CoPs performance evaluation
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Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 2. Four dimensions of CoPs evaluation model Dimension
Explanation
Locus of Leadership
The managers show the leadership in terms of imposing enforcement or volunteer oriented for CoPs development, executing a whole or partial CoPs implementation.
Incentive Mechanism
How the CoPs system motivates members to share knowledge through various tools within organization.
Member Interaction
Focus on the issues such as teaming of CoPs members from similar or different background, and members emphasize knowledge sharing or security protection in their interaction.
Complementary Asset
What kind of infrastructure and resource will be given to support CoPs development?
Table 3. Sixteen criteria of CoPs evaluation model Criteria
Explanation
Top-down Assigning
Organization initiates CoPs from top down strategy.
Bottom-up Teaming
CoPs are created by the need from members spontaneously.
Total Execution
While implementing CoPs, The whole organization employs the transformation at the same time.
Partial Pilot Run
CoPs start with some pilot run projects.
Substantive Reward
CoPs members are rewarded by momentary items like cash or increase salary when they share knowledge.
Psychological Encourage
When members share knowledge, the organization provides spiritual reward like honour position or award.
Achievements Appraisal Basis
The participation of CoPs is adopted in the employees’ performance evaluation periodically.
Peers Reputation
CoPs enthusiasts can obtain the recognition as the domain expert from their colleagues.
Homogeneity Member
CoPs members prefer to collaborate with whom have similar background to get the consensus quickly.
Differential Member
Diversified members are more welcome to create new thinking from various domains.
Emphasize Security
Members prefer to develop a secure system not to release valuable knowledge.
Emphasize Cross-Domain Sharing
Members focus on knowledge sharing in their interaction within CoPs
Given Extra Resources
The top management will provide additional support to develop CoPs.
Just Daily Work
There is no extra resources will be given but regard CoPs as essential task in employee’s daily work.
Integrated IT Platform
The KM system should integrate with other existing IT systems.
Independent IT Platform
The KM system should be stand-alone architecture to simplify the complex.
sents the criteria value. The fourth array will get the weighting value matrix vij , which is w j multiple rij . Then, on the basis of Formulas 3 and 4, we obtained PIS ( A*j ), NIS ( A-j ), the distance from PIS ( Si* ), the distance from NIS ( Si- ), and the relative approximate value (C i* ) and ranking as Table 5.
210
VIKOR Example This research assumed there are n CoPs achievements to assess. We used 16 average-weight (c1 ~ c16) follow Figure 2 and Table 2, and combined the values acquired by AHP. We derived the PIS and NIS from Table 6 and then put the values into Formulas 8, 9, and 10. We computed the distance from each value to PIS
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 4. Weighted dimensions and criteria of retrieved questionnaires Weight Dimension/Criteria
Weight of Each dimension
Locus of Leadership
0.215
Weight of Inter dimension (Ranking)
Weight of cross dimension (Ranking)
€€€€Top-Down Assigning
0.348 (1)
€€€€€€€€€0.075 (4)
€€€€Bottom-Up Teaming
0.174 (4)
€€€€€€€€€0.037 (15)
€€€€Total Execution
0.204 (3)
€€€€€€€€€0.044 (13)
€€€€Partial Pilot run
0.274 (2)
€€€€€€€€€0.059 (9)
€€€€Substantive Reward
0.280 (2)
€€€€€€€€€0.074 (5)
€€€€Psychological Encouragement
0.158 (4)
€€€€€€€€€0.042 (14)
€€€€Achievements Appraisal Basis
0.361 (1)
€€€€€€€€€0.095 (2)
0.201 (3)
€€€€€€€€€0.053 (11)
€€€€Homogeneity of members
0.190 (4)
€€€€€€€€€0.055 (10)
€€€€Differential members
0.236 (2)
€€€€€€€€€0.068 (6)
€€€€Emphasis on Security
0.233 (3)
€€€€€€€€€0.067 (7)
0.341 (1)
€€€€€€€€€0.098 (1)
€€€€Supplying Extra Resources
0.285 (2)
€€€€€€€€€0.067 (7)
€€€€Routine Daily Work
0.191 (3)
€€€€€€€€€0.045 (12)
€€€€Integrated IT Platform
0.367 (1)
€€€€€€€€€0.086 (3)
€€€€Independent IT platform
0.157 (4)
€€€€€€€€€0.037 (15)
Incentive Mechanisms
0.264
€€€€Peer Approval Member Interaction
0.287
€€€€Emphasis on Cross-Domain Sharing Complementary assets
based on Formulas 11 and 12. Table 7 represents the preferred CoPs achievements by ranking the results. Wherever ν is larger(>0.5), the index of Ii will prefer majority rule, and vice versa. Therefore, decision-makers should adjust the ν reference; it is ordinarily 0.5, which means we might use VIKOR when many people are involved in assessment but use TOPSIS when few are involved.
Results and Findings In this section, CoPs performance is assessed and the results and findings are interpreted. Firstly, the average weight of criteria from Table 4 is adopted. Secondly, the values, PIS, NIS, and distances
0.234
are calculated. Finally, the CoPs final value and ranking can be obtained.
Effective Value of Various CoPs Performance Based on the result of Table 4, among the 16 criteria weights, the Cross-Domain Sharing score was the highest (0.098), followed by those of Achievements Appraisal Basis (0.095) and Integrated IT Platform (0.086), while Independent IT Platform was the lowest (0.037). Subsequently, the effective value for four kinds CoPs performance has been calculated as shown in Table 8.
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Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 5. TOPSIS practice designs Item/Criteria
Weighted value (vij)
c2
c3
c4
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10
c11
c12
c13
c14
c15
c16
w1
w2
w3
w4
w5
w6
w7
w8
w9
w10
w11
w12
w13
w14
w15
w16
1
r11
r12
r13
r14
r15
r16
r17
r18
r19
r110
r111
r112
r113
r114
r115
r116
2
r21
r22
r23
r24
r25
r26
r27
r28
r29
r210
r211
r212
r213
r214
r215
r216
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
n
r n1
r n2
r n3
r n4
r n5
r n6
r n7
r n8
r n9
r n10
r n11
r n12
r n13
r n14
r n15
r n16
1
v11
v12
v13
v14
v15
v16
v17
v18
v19
v110
v111
v112
v113
v114
v115
v116
2
v21
v22
v23
v24
v25
v26
v27
v28
v29
v210
v211
v212
v213
v214
v215
v216
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
n
vn1
vn2
vn3
vn4
vn5
vn6
vn7
vn8
vn9
vn10
vn11
vn12
vn13
vn14
vn15
vn16
SAW (wj) Criteria value (rij)
c1
(PIS) Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
Aj*
(NIS) Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Aj-
Options
Si-
Si *
c1
c2
c3
c4
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10
c11
c12
c13
c14
c15
c16
1
S1i-
S1i*
s11
s12
s13
s14
s15
s16
s17
s18
s19
s110
s111
s112
s113
s114
s115
s116
2
S2i
S2i*
s21
s22
s23
s24
s25
s26
s27
s28
s29
s210
s211
s212
s213
s214
s215
s216
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
m
Smi-
Smi*
sm1
sm2
sm3
sm4
sm5
sm6
sm7
sm8
sm9
sm10
sm11
sm12
sm13
sm14
sm15
sm16
-
Table 6. VIKOR practice designs Item/Criteria
c1
c2
c3
c4
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10
c11
c12
c13
c14
c15
c16
Average Weight
w1
w2
w3
w4
w5
w6
w7
w8
w9
w10
w11
w12
w13
w14
w15
w16
Value
f11
f12
f13
f14
f15
f16
f17
f18
f19
f110
f111
f112
f113
f114
f115
f116
1 2
f21
f22
f23
f24
f25
f26
f27
f28
f29
f210
f211
f212
f213
f214
f215
f216
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
n
fn1
fn2
fn3
fn4
fn5
fn6
fn7
fn8
fn9
fn10
fn11
fn12
fn13
fn14
fn15
fn16
PIS
fj*
fj*
f j*
f j*
fj*
f j*
fj*
f j*
f j*
fj*
f j*
fj*
f j*
fj*
f j*
f j*
NIS
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
fj—
c1
c2
c3
c4
c5
c6
c7
c8
c9
c10
c11
c12
c13
c14
c15
c16
s12
s13
s14
s15
s16
s17
s18
s19
s110
s111
s112
s113
s114
s115
s116
COPS
Distance Of NIS Ri
1
R1j
S1j
s11
2
R2j
S2j
s21
s22
s23
s24
s25
s26
s27
s28
s29
s210
s211
s212
s213
s214
s215
s216
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
n
Rnj
Snj
Sn1
Sn2
Sn3
Sn4
Sn5
Sn6
Sn7
Sn8
Sn9
Sn10
Sn11
Sn12
Sn13
Sn14
Sn15
Sn16
212
Distance Of PIS Si
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 7. CoPs Final value ranking CoPs Achievements/ Final value (ranking)/v value
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5*
0.6
0.7
0.8
€€€€€€1
I1
I1
I1
I1
I1
I1
I1
I1
€€€€€€2
I2
I2
I2
I2
I2
I2
I2
I2
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
€€€€€€n
In
In
In
In
In
In
In
In
* ν ordinary value setting
Table 8. Effective values of four CoPs performance Induced Innovative Learning
Promoted Responsiveness
Increased Core Competency
Enhanced Working Efficiency
Top-Down Assigning
66
70
79
77
Bottom-Up Teaming
79
72
72
70
Total Execution
63
72
72
74
Partial Pilot run
75
68
75
71
Substantive Reward
70
69
75
77
Psychological encouragement
78
72
72
74
Achievements Appraisal Basis
70
74
77
79
Group/Weight (Rank)/Criteria
Leadership Locus
Incentive Mechanism
Member Interaction
Complementary Assets
Peer reputation
78
72
73
80
Homogeneity of members
58
67
72
75
Differential member
82
68
70
67
Security emphasis
56
57
67
63
Cross-domain sharing
83
75
75
70
Give Extra Resource
74
72
75
74
Just Daily Work
59
66
67
70
Integrated IT Platform
76
77
77
80
Independent IT platform
66
66
69
65
Distances from PIS and NIS
VIKOR Computation
TOPSIS Computation
Each COPS achievement will be computed in this step by VIKOR. First, add the distances from the ideal solution, then obtain the distances from PIS (Si) and NIS (Ri) (See Table 11).
The best and worst values will be acquired in this step so as to calculate the distances. Table 9 and 10 explains the distances from PIS and NIS.
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Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 9. PIS and NIS regarding 16 criteria Criteria
Leadership Locus Top-Down Assigning
PIS
Bottom-Up Teaming
Total Execution
Partial Pilot run
79
79
74
75
NIS
70
70
63
68
Criteria
Incentive Mechanism Substantive Reward
Psychological encouragement
Achievements Appraisal Basis
Peer reputation
77
78
79
80
NIS
69
72
70
72
Criteria
Member Interaction Homogeneity Member
Differential Member
Security Emphasis
Cross-domain Sharing
75
82
67
83
NIS
58
67
56
70
Criteria
Complementary Assets Just Daily Work
Integrated IT Platform
Independent IT platform
PIS
PIS
Give Extra Resource PIS
75
70
80
69
NIS
72
59
76
65
Table 10. Distance from PIS and NIS (by TOPSIS) Group/Weight (Rank)/Criteria
Leadership Locus
Incentive Mechanism
Member Interaction
Complementary Assets
214
Induced innovative learning
Promoted responsiveness
Increased core competency
Enhance Working Efficiency
Distance from NIS
0.000143
0.000045
0.000179
0.000180
Distance from PIS
0.000201
0.000188
0.000077
0.000136
Top-Down Assigning
0.075
0.049
0.000
0.011
Bottom-Up Teaming
0.000
0.030
0.030
0.037
Total Execution
0.044
0.006
0.006
0.000
Partial Pilot run
0.000
0.059
0.000
0.032
Substantive Reward
0.070
0.074
0.024
0.000
Psychological encouragement
0.000
0.042
0.039
0.028
Achievements Appraisal Basis
0.095
0.061
0.023
0.000
Peer reputation
0.016
0.053
0.044
0.000
Homogeneity member
0.055
0.025
0.009
0.000
Differential member
0.000
0.060
0.051
0.068
Security emphasis
0.067
0.062
0.000
0.022
Cross-domain sharing
0.000
0.063
0.061
0.098
Give Extra Resource
0.019
0.067
0.000
0.005
Just Daily Work
0.045
0.017
0.011
0.000
Integrated IT Platform
0.086
0.068
0.068
0.000
Independent IT platform
0.031
0.031
0.000
0.037
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 11. Distances from PIS and NIS (by VIKOR) Group/Weight (Rank)/Criteria
Induced innovative learning
Promoted responsiveness
Increased core competency
Enhanced Working Efficiency
0.095
0.074
0.068
0.098
Distance from NIS Distance from PIS Leadership Locus
Incentive Mechanism
Member Interaction
Complementary Assets
0.602
0.764
0.365
0.338
Top-Down Assigning
0.075
0.049
0.000
0.011
Bottom-Up Teaming
0.000
0.030
0.030
0.037
Total Execution
0.044
0.006
0.006
0.000
Partial Pilot run
0.000
0.059
0.000
0.032
Substantive Reward
0.070
0.074
0.024
0.000
Psychological encouragement
0.000
0.042
0.039
0.028
Achievements Appraisal Basis
0.095
0.061
0.023
0.000
Peer reputation
0.016
0.053
0.044
0.000
Homogeneity of members
0.055
0.025
0.009
0.000
Differential member
0.000
0.060
0.051
0.068
Security emphasis
0.067
0.062
0.000
0.022
Cross-domain sharing
0.000
0.063
0.061
0.098
Give Extra Resource
0.019
0.067
0.000
0.005
Just Daily Work
0.045
0.017
0.011
0.000
Integrated IT Platform
0.086
0.068
0.068
0.000
Independent IT platform
0.031
0.031
0.000
0.037
Final Values and Ranking ν value was set from 0.1 to 1.0 to calculate and rank our findings (Tables 12 and 13). According to VIKOR, when ν is larger(>0.5), the Ii index will prefer majority rule. Our study set ν = 0.5 to get the final value and ranking: (1) Increased core competency, (2) Promoted responsiveness, (3) Enhanced Working efficiency, (4) Induced innovative learning.
Discussion Our Group decision analysis utilizes the same dimensions and criteria to assess CoPs achievements. Our analysis can meet the appraisal goal based on the same baseline, but the weight importance will differ depending on the nature of each CoPs. In sum, our study used a real case to prove that
the model combines theory and practical experience. Our approach is applicable and feasible, and closes the gap between anticipated results and actual problem solving. We also completed the comparison analysis among TOPSIS, VIKOR, and SAW methods. The findings further demonstrated that Increased Core Competency was the highest among the three methods. Even though the ranking outcomes were the same, TOPSIS and VIKOR were both better at clarifying the differences between alternatives than SAW could. Our results prove that traditional methods are not better than TOPSIS or VIKOR for getting clear CoPs results. TOPSIS is one of the evaluation methods that used a compromise solution. TOPSIS should satisfy the closest to the positive ideal solution and the farthest from the negative ideal solution. We achieved the final value to implement the multi-
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Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 12. Final values and rankings using TOPSIS Achievements/Final values and rankings
Positive Ideal Solution
Negative Ideal Solution
Final Value
Ranking
Induced innovative learning
0.000201
0.000143
0.415
3
Promoted responsiveness
0.000188
0.000045
0.192
4
Increased core competency
0.000077
0.000179
0.700
1
Enhanced Working Efficiency
0.000136
0.000180
0.569
2
Table 13. Final values and rankings using VIKOR Achievements/ Final values / v values
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5*
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
Induced innovative learning
0.120 (3)
0.149 (4)
0.177 (4)
0.206 (4)
0.235 (4)
0.264 (4)
0.293 (4)
0.322 (4)
0.351 (4)
0.380 (4)
Promoted responsiveness
0.712 (1)
0.688 (1)
0.665 (1)
0.642 (2)
0.618 (2)
0.595 (3)
0.572 (3)
0.548 (3)
0.525 (3)
0.502 (3)
Increased core competency
0.382 (2)
0.499 (2)
0.616 (2)
0.733 (1)
0.850 (1)
0.967 (1)
1.084 (1)
1.201 (1)
1.319 (1)
1.436 (1)
Enhanced Working Efficiency
0.100 (4)
0.200 (3)
0.300 (3)
0.400 (3)
0.500 (3)
0.600 (2)
0.700 (2)
0.800 (2)
0.900 (2)
1.000 (2)
* ν value was set 0.5
goal group decisions by calculating the comparative distance from the ideal solution. TOPSIS set p=2 to express the largest Max-Min variance to find the solution. In contrast, VIKOR set p=1 (each variance had the same weight) and p=∞ (to only express the weight of the largest variance) to find the two distances and to set weight v and 1-v to justify all possible combinations. Carrying on the priority analysis using VIKOR, the minority bias was avoided and the majority opinions were represented. VIKOR may be used in the multi-goal decision-making for many reasons. First, it helps to find the final decision index as does TOPSIS, but VIKOR also takes the side effects into consideration. Second, VIKOR uses relative distances and different computing modes and weights to formulate an overall target minority injury are smallest when considering the side effect in situation. There are PIS but no NIS in VIKOR. When comparing TOPSIS and VIKOR, there are two major differences.
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1. TOPSIS considers majority rule while VIKOR considers the smallest injures, and 2. TOPSIS adds weight in the distance calculation while VIKOR adds weight in the final value. The rankings will be almost identical if the processes follow the same weight between TOPSIS and VIKOR, but there will be different results when VIKOR is designed to give more choices for decision-makers. In sum, when there are explicit parameters, we should use VIKOR, but when we lack an explicit v value, we should use TOPSIS. The priority settings are the same between TOPSIS and SAW, but SAW values are all extremely close and so it is hard to identify the differences. Our study compared the three methods that we hope will give policy-makers more informed choices (see Table 14).
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Table 14. Four final values and rankings by three methods Achievements/Final Values (Ranking)/ Methods
TOPSIS
VIKOR (v=0.5)
SAW
Induced innovative learning
0.415(3)
0.235(4)
71.36(3)
Promoted responsiveness
0.192(4)
0.618(2)
70.16(4)
Increased core competency
0.700(1)
0.850(1)
73.52(1)
Enhanced Working Efficiency
0.569(2)
0.500(3)
73.38(2)
FUTURE RESEARCH KFN (Knowledge Flow Networks) is to develop actual human networks which can then be used in design of human-centred social agents for creation, learning, processing and sharing of knowledge (Davenport et al., 2004; Malhotra, 2004; Ratcliffe-Martin et al., 2000; Nissen, 2002; Nonaka, 1994; Thomas et al., 2004; Zhuge., 2003; Desouza, 2003). KFN not only falls within the scope of managers, information technologists and knowledge workers but involves CoPs in an organization (Lesser, 2001). Most of the existing work on knowledge flow networks has centered around linking people based on organization structure, tasks, and knowledge compatibility (Zhuge, 2006). Existing research does not throw adequate light on the need that knowledge flow occurs between knowledge workers outside traditional organizational structure, business functions and organizational boundaries. In the future, the researchers can propose to enhance in design of KFN by modeling them based on CoPs in an organisation. In CoPs, like in KFN, people with a common goal come together to create, learn, process and share knowledge based on best practices. In this research, a CoPs model has been defined, which constitutes sixteen criteria along four performance measurement dimensions. These criteria and dimensions can be used to identify common interaction factors (beliefs and attitudes) which link and facilitate effective knowledge sharing between knowledge workers in a KFN. These factors and the CoPs model can
be validated using a large multinational organization as a case study. Given that, knowledge flow is dynamic phenomena in an organization, then it would be interesting if a dynamic model can be defined for analyzing knowledge flow activities like knowledge sharing, knowledge discovery, and knowledge creation. It can be assumed that design of KFN is driven by the need to develop effective knowledge sharing and KM mechanisms in order to enable organizations to compete in a knowledge based economy.
CONCLUSION CoPs are commonly used as an essential approach to facilitate cross-domain integration and access core competency. While designing specific infrastructures to implement CoPs, organizations probably need to decide which performance can be achieved in terms of CoPs, and let that goal drive the decision properly. The principal goal of this chapter is to construct a performance evaluation model to enhance knowledge sharing within CoPs. In order to realize this target, Leadership Locus, Incentive Mechanism, Member Interaction, and Complementary Assets should be taken into consideration in CoPs based performance evaluation. This chapter analyzes the weights and values of four dimensions and 16 criteria with an actual case, conducts real diagnostic analysis, and discussed validity and usability. We hope our research can help provide firms with valuable references when implementing CoPs.
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Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Knowledge management can greatly facilitate an organization’s learning via strategic insight. Assessing the performance of CoPs includes both a theoretical basis and practical aspect; however, a cautionary word is in order, because using improper measurements will increase complexity and reduce applicability. Group decision-making, the essence of CoPs, lets one considers multidimensional problems for the decision-maker, sets priorities for each decision factor, and assesses rankings for all alternatives. The purpose of this study is to establish the objective and measurable patterns to obtain anticipated performance of CoPs through conducting a group-decision comparison. The three multiple-criteria evaluation methods are used in this chapter, Simple Average Weight (SAW), “Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution” (TOPSIS) and “VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje” (VIKOR), are based on an aggregating function representing “closeness to the ideal point.” The TOPSIS and VIKOR methods were used to highlight our innovative idea, academic analysis, and practical appliance value. SAW is known to be a common method to get the preliminary outcome. Our study provides a comparison analysis of the above-three methods. An empirical case is illustrated to demonstrate the overall CoPs achievements, showing their similarities and differences to achieve group decisions. The results showed that TOPSIS and SAW had identical rankings overall, but TOPSIS had better distinguishing capability. TOPSIS and VIKOR had almost the same success setting priorities by weight. However, VIKOR produced different rankings than those from TOPSIS and SAW, and VIKOR also made it easy to choose appropriate strategies. Both the TOPSIS and VIKOR methods are suitable for assessing similar problems, provide excellent results close to reality, and grant superior analysis. Furthermore, for TOPSIS and SAW, the results showed that the utility value of Increased Core Competency was highest, followed in order by that
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of Enhanced Work Efficiency, Induced Innovative Learning, and Promoted Responsiveness. For VIKOR, the results showed that the utility value of Increased Core Competency was highest, followed by that of Enhanced Work Efficiency, Promoted Responsiveness, and Induced Innovative Learning. From the above three methods, the ranking and priorities of TOPSIS and SAW were found to be the same, but TOPSIS and VIKOR had better distinguishing abilities. The results revealed that when CoPs takes different approaches, their implementation orientations and major impacts differ. In the context of strategic goals and transformation, choosing different CoPs performance alternatives will also influence resource allocation and overall achievement success. In particular, using improper measurements will increase complexity and reduce applicability, which will mislead to set wrong priorities for each corresponding factor, and fail to assess proper rankings for decision making.
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Davenport, T. H., Jarvenpaa, S. I., & Beer, M. C. (2004). Improving Knowledge Work Process. Sloan Management Review, 34(4), 53–65.
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Gartner Group. (1999). Knowledge Management: Understanding the Core Value and Science. Business Technology Journal. Hwang, C. L., & Yoon, K. (1981). Multi-objective Decision Making – Methods and Application, A State-of-the-Art Study. New York: SpringerVerlag. ITRI Experience of Knowledge Management, Task Force of ITRI-KM. (2003). Unpublished Results, (In Chinese). Kerzner, H. (1989). A System Approach to Planning Scheduling and Controlling, Project Management (pp. 759–764). New York: Van No Strand Reinhold. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lee, Z. Y., Tzeng, G. H., & Yu, H. C. (2001). Fuzzy MCDM Approach for IC Company’s Strategy in the Semiconductor Industry. IEEE Transactions on Technology Management. Lesser, E. L., & Storck, J. (2001). Communities of Practice and Organizational Performance. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4). doi:10.1147/sj.404.0831 Lesser, E. L., & Storck, J. (2001). Communities of Practice and Organizational Performance. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4). doi:10.1147/sj.404.0831 Malhotra, Y. (2004). Why Knowledge Management Systems Fail? Enablers and Constraints of Knowledge Management in Human Enterprises, American Society for Information Science and Technology Monograph Series, 87-112.
Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D. (2003). Knowing in Organization: A Practice-Based Approach. London: M. E. Sharpe. Nissen, M. E. (2002). An Extended Model of Knowledge Flow Dynamics. CACM, 8, 251–266. Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. doi:10.1287/orsc.5.1.14 O’Leary, D. (1998). Knowledge Management Systems: Converting and Connecting. IEEE, Intelligent Systems Journal. Opricovic, S. (1998). Multi-criteria Optimization of Civil Engineering Systems. Belgrade: Faculty of Civil Engineering. Opricovic, S., & Tzeng, G. H. (2002). Multicriteria Planning of post-earthquake Sustainable Reconstruction. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 17, 211–220. doi:10.1111/14678667.00269 Perez, (1995). Some Comments on Saaty’s AHP. Management Science, 41(8), 1091-1095. Ratcliffe-Martin, V., Coakes, E., & Sugden, G. (2000). Knowledge Management Issues in Universities. Vine Journal, 121, 14–19. doi:10.1108/ eb040770 Saaty, T. L. (1977). A Scaling Method for Priorities in Hierarchical Structures. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 15(2), 234–281. doi:10.1016/0022-2496(77)90033-5 Saaty, T. L. (1980). The Analytic Hierarchy Process. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Skyrme, D. F. (2001). Knowledge Inside-Out: Exploiting Your Knowledge Assets, available at http://www.skyrme.com/pubs/kin_out.htm
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The Distant Consulting Company. (2001). Community of Practice: Overview. Retrieved from http://home.att.net/~discon/km/COPS.htm Thomas, J. C., Kellog, W. A., & Erickson, T. (2001). The Knowledge Management Puzzle: Human and Social factors in Knowledge Management. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 863–884. doi:10.1147/sj.404.0863 Tzeng, G. H. (1977). A Study on the PATTERN Method for the Decision Process in the Public System. Japan Journal of Behavior Metrics, 4(2), 29–44. Tzeng, G. H., & Shiau, T. A. (1987). Energy Conservation Strategies in Urban Transportation: Application of Multiple Criteria Decision-Making. Energy Systems and Policy, 11(1), 1–19. U. S. Department of Commerce. Virginia, (1965). National Technical Information Service. NASA, PATTERN Relevance Guide, 3. Verna Allee. (2000). Knowledge Networks and Communities of Practice. OD Practitioner Online, 32(4). Walsh, D. (1998). Knowledge Value Added: Assessing Both Fixed and Variable Value. Retrieved from http://www.businessprocessaudits.com/ kvawalsh.htm. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
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Zhuge, H. (2003). Component-based Workflow Systems Design. Decision Support Systems, 35(4), 517–536. doi:10.1016/S0167-9236(02)00127-6 Zhuge, H. (2006). Knowledge Flow Network Planning and Simulation. Decision Support Systems, 42, 571–592. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2005.03.007
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Communities of Practice (CoPs): CoPs are informal groups where knowledge workers can share knowledge and common interests based on specific domain and critical elements. Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM): MADM is one of the quantitative research methods. It can give managers many dimensions to consider related elements, and evaluate all possible options under variable degrees. Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS): It is one of group decision-making approach which can help to make compromise solution. It is based on the idea that the chosen alternative should have the shortest distance from the positive ideal solution and the farthest from the negative-ideal solution for solving multi criteria decision making problems. VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR): Means multi-criteria optimization and compromise Solution. The minority bias can be avoided and the majority opinions can be represented using VIKOR.
Communities of Practice Based Business Performance Evaluation
Simple Average Weight (SAW): It is widely used to be one of the mathematical techniques to calculate an average result. Knowledge Flow Network (KFN): The purpose for designing a KFN is to develop actual
human networks which can then be used in design of human-centred social agents for creation, learning, processing and sharing of knowledge.
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Chapter 13
Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation Athanasios Hadjimanolis European University Cyprus, Cyprus
ABSTRACT This chapter introduces communities of practice (CoPs) as a useful framework for the elucidation of the innovation process in organizations. It argues that CoPs contribute to innovation through being more efficient than formal organizational structures. Innovation, however, comes in different forms and types and internal CoPs are more relevant for incremental innovation, while inter-organizational communities are more important for radical innovation. Furthermore the chapter focuses on a critical evaluation of the concept of community of practice through the lens of the management fashion theory and an assessment of the role of CoPs in knowledge creation and exchange at the various stages of the innovation process. It aims to provide an assessment of the contribution of communities of practice to innovation success and organizational performance and to summarize the current trends and future developments especially in inter-organizational virtual innovation communities.
INTRODUCTION In a globalized knowledge-based economy and in an era of fast technological change, changing market needs and shorter product life cycles, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch013
there is a more pressing need for innovation in organizations than ever before (Afuah, 2003; Harmaakorpi & Mutanen, 2008). It is well documented that learning and knowledge generation, transfer, and utilization, have a central place in innovation processes (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Spender, 1996; von Krogh et al. 2000).
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Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation
The systemic or holistic approach of innovation considers the various interactions between persons, groups, and organizations in the complex process of innovation. The study of innovation systems is made at various levels from the organizational to regional, national, and transnational (Tidd et al, 2005). Apart from the technical aspects of introducing new products or processes the social aspects of the innovation process (like connectivity and inter-relationships between the various actors, level of trust, and information exchange) have received increasing attention in recent years (Steinberg, 2007). The network approach is an important framework for studying the social aspects of innovation including the various types of social structures involved (Kilduff & Tsai, 2003). Consequently, in view of the importance of knowledge and learning for the development of innovations, the evolution and contribution of knowledge management to knowledge utilization and its relation to innovation activities have also to be considered. While initially the focus of knowledge management was on management of the existing knowledge, attention is increasingly paid to how knowledge is created and shared (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). The theory of organizational knowledge creation is closely related to both knowledge management and innovation (Nonaka et al, 2006) and is briefly outlined in the following sections. Communities of practice, with their emphasis on learning during day-to-day work activities, have been introduced as a new approach in organizational learning that can explain the mechanisms of social interaction and help understand complex innovation activities (Brown & Duguid, 1991). CoPs are currently widely promoted as a useful tool in managerial practice within the broader network approach. The basic question, to be tackled in this chapter, is how and to what extent can the integration of the process of knowledge acquisition and creation with the innovation process be achieved in practice.
The purpose of the chapter is to describe and integrate the results of research on the existing links between communities of practice, innovation, and organizational performance and especially discuss the managerial implications and lessons for innovation practice. More specifically it tries to illuminate the process by which CoPs shape or affect innovation output and organizational performance. While the role of CoPs in innovation is widely debated in the literature, many articles, especially those written by consultants, overemphasize the positive aspects of CoPs. A balanced and critical perspective is adopted here and the “management of fashion” approach is used as a framework for evaluation of CoPs in section 3. The contribution to the literature involves then the evaluation of the current status of CoPs as innovation management tools and some practical recommendations for their use. The next section 2 discusses first the process of innovation and the role of learning and knowledge in it and then introduces the concept of the community of practice and its features and typologies. The relevance of this concept to innovation is then discussed and illustrated with examples. Section 3 considers the evaluation of CoPs in relation to innovation and performance. Section 4 considers future trends in the economy and society and potential developments of CoPs due to these trends and especially the development of virtual communities and their relevance for innovation. Finally Section 5 summarizes the conclusions, offers some proposals for future research, and makes recommendations for managers and policy makers.
BACKGROUND TO COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT Innovation Process What is innovation? This question causes a lot of confusion among academics and practitioners
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and has been answered in many different ways. For the purposes of this chapter “innovation is the use of new knowledge to offer a new product or service that customers want” (Afuah, 2003, p.13). It is a combination of invention and commercialization. In an era of continuous change and knowledge-based competition sustainable competitive advantage cannot usually be achieved without continuous innovation (Blomqvist & Levy, 2006). There is a lot of discussion in the literature regarding the classification of innovation. The main types of innovation include product, process, and organizational innovation. The focus here is mainly on product innovation. Innovation is also differentiated according to its degree of novelty into incremental and radical or breakthrough innovation (Tidd et al, 2005). Incremental innovation refers to a relatively low degree of novelty and small changes to products or processes mainly through application of existing technologies (e.g. a shampoo with a new formulation or packaging). It is considered as competence enhancing innovation, for example Sony’s portable radio or Cannon’s small copier. Radical innovation is usually based on new technology and is frequently competence destroying innovation. An example of radical innovation is the replacement of vacuum tube with transistor. While “Mode 1 knowledge” (i.e. based on single discipline research) can support and produce radical innovation, it seems that “Mode 2 knowledge”, i.e. practice-oriented, multi-disciplinary knowledge according to the terminology of Gibbons et al (1994), is increasingly required. Examples include biotechnology, which involves knowledge from genetics, chemistry, and information science and nanotechnology using knowledge from chemistry, physics, and materials science. The process of innovation can be described as an interactive group process including a sequence of tasks (Harmaakorpi & Mutanen, 2008). It involves various stages from idea generation, to prototype development, up to the commercialization stage.
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It is largely unpredictable and is triggered by an opportunity or a performance gap. Examples of innovation problems and issues include the reduction of product development time, the improvement of the quality of products, and product differentiation against competitors. Managers are trying to reduce the uncertainty of the process and increase its efficiency. Innovation experts have suggested specific methods, techniques, and heuristic rules to stimulate individual phases of the innovation process. Methods include the creation of an open organizational culture tolerating experimentation and failure and a variety of structural means, such as inter-functional project and task teams. Communities of practice as explained below can be considered as one of these methods or according to some of its supporters set even a substitute for most of them. Innovation research since the 1990s has concentrated on studies of internal factors of innovating firms, especially on knowledge generation and learning mechanisms and how they create technological and innovation competences. Innovation is based on creativity, learning, and knowledge and since an individual or a group rarely possesses all the necessary knowledge, innovation in firms involves various types of collaborative learning and specific types of collaboration. Innovation demands not only knowledge acquisition or transfer (usually from external sources), but also dynamic knowledge creation and sharing (diffusion) within the organization (Steinberg, 2007). Lester & Piore (2004) suggested that innovation theory and practice has so far been dominated by “analysis” a process focusing on rational decision making and problem solving. They propose more attention to be paid to the missing dimension of “interpretation”, which has to do with insights about products, markets, etc. Interpretation is based on conversation and exchange of ideas between people of different backgrounds. Communities of practice, as explained below, offer an ideal forum for such exchanges.
Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation
Learning and Knowledge Knowledge is defined as a justified true belief that increases an entity’s capacity for effective action (Huber, 1991; Nonaka 1994; Alavi & Leidner, 2001). It can be seen as a strategic source of competitive advantage especially within the resource based view of strategy (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). It is usually classified into tacit and explicit. Tacit is the type of knowledge that is uncoded and cannot usually be transmitted solely through written documents. Tacit knowledge is personal, hard to formalize, difficult to communicate or to share with others (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). It is usually related to experience and skills, therefore it is hard to transfer and is described as sticky (Szulanski, 1996). Due to the above characteristics tacit knowledge is also difficult for competitors to imitate and is a valuable resource for the firm contributing to its sustainable competitive advantage (Bueno Campos & Salmador Sanchez, 2003). Explicit knowledge can be codified into documents or databases and is assumedly easier to transfer. The distinction is important since transmission of tacit knowledge usually involves social interaction and frequently demands face–to-face contact, therefore involves learning in a social context. Communities of practice, as further discussed below, offer the possibility for such knowledge transfer. Since knowledge also relates to defining a situation for subsequent action (rather than solving predetermined problems) communities are vehicles of knowledge creation (Nonaka et al, 2006). “New knowledge is created through processes of conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge” (Erden et al, 2008, p. 5). The continuous interaction of tacit and explicit knowledge has been illustrated through a four stage conversion process model: the dynamic SECI model (socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization) (Nonaka, 1994). While socialization refers to sharing of tacit knowledge among
individuals, externalization aims at articulating tacit knowledge into explicit. Then combination means combining different types of external knowledge and internalization is the reverse of the second stage (embodying explicit into tacit knowledge (Nonaka et al, 2006). The model has been empirically validated in some studies (Schulze & Hoegl, 2006). There is, however, significant critique of the SECI model in the literature. It has been suggested that tacit and explicit knowledge are not two separate forms of knowledge, but inseparable and necessary components of all knowledge (Tsoukas, 2003). Problem finding, an important part of innovation, is also missing from the SECI model (Engelstroem, 1999). SECI is based on the assumption that workers learn within parameters set by managers and neglects self-organized learning emphasized by the CoP concept (Gourlay, 2006). Obtaining the necessary knowledge about user needs, market developments, and competitor activities includes getting critical knowledge from outside the organization, movement of knowledgeable individuals within and between organizations, and collaborative knowledge production in internal or inter-organizational networks. Knowledge as a self-existing entity that can be classified into types and exchanged or be transformed from the one type into the other has been compared to knowing in action (Cook & Brown 1999; Amin & Roberts, 2008). The latter concept refers to the dynamic social process of knowledge creation and sharing. In view of the importance of knowledge, and the potential of information technology for its organization, storage, and retrieval, “Knowledge Management” (KM) has been developed mainly in the 1990s. The main aim of KM is to integrate the knowledge of the firm into its value chain. While initially the focus of KM was on technology and technical solutions, human related aspects of KM have recently received increasing attention (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Communities of practice deal with the human related aspects of KM and can be
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seen as complementary to its technical methods. Nonaka et al (2006, p. 1183) have introduced the concept of an organizational knowledge system (OKS) that “captures the organization’s global learning”. The OKS is linked to the vision of the organization and its culture that orients individual values, choices, and actions. It incorporates the knowledge management system, and its backbone the information system, which facilitates knowledge conversion. Learning, as already mentioned above, is an essential aspect of the OKS. While individual workplace learning has been widely studied, it was later realized that learning can also take place at group level or even at organizational level. Organizational learning, a form of “group learning”, refers to collective learning taking place in a social context and based on continuous interactions of people within a system (Fenwick, 2008). Learning is therefore frequently collaborative involving interaction with other actors (users, suppliers, etc.). Collaborative learning is especially important for the transfer of tacit knowledge and sometimes takes place in informal groups called communities.
Community of Practice: Definition and Features The concept of “community of practice” is part of a major recent trend in management and organizational research toward the relational perspective (Borgatti & Foster, 2003; Blomqvist & Levy, 2006). A community of practice (CoP) is defined as “a system of relationships between people, activities and the world, developing with time, and in relation to other tangential and overlapping communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p.98). CoPs bring together people with a common interest in a particular topic, knowledge domain or work task. Domains can be technologies, processes (like customer management process) methods (like product management), personal experiences
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(stress, leadership) or ethical issues (Luebcke & Ahrens, 2003). Interaction in communities is either face–to-face, through electronic means or a combination of them and is based on mutual trust. Communities create a social identity and a sense of belonging for their participants. Social identity formation and exchange of knowledge can be compared with the socialization stage of the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) model mentioned above. The three main attributes, which characterize a CoP, are (Wenger, 1998): • • •
mutual engagement sense of joint enterprise shared repertoire
Mutual engagement is the aspect of “function” or the specific activities in the community to solve problems and share and build knowledge. Joint enterprise is the common identity or common purpose, a dimension that includes the sense of shared values and interests and the feature that differentiates the community from other communities or groups. Shared repertoire is the extent to which members share the social and physical resources of the community. Resources include artifacts like conceptual tools and stories. The shared repertoire refers also to routines, sensibilities, and a common vocabulary. It has to be noted that these characteristics are interrelated. Both the shared repertoire and the joint enterprise are developed through mutual engagement, while perhaps some joint enterprise aspects form a prerequisite for the community formation. The newer definition of CoPs is much more specific than the above cited one and takes into account the above three attributes. CoPs are: “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger et al, 2002, p.4)
Management Fads, Communities of Practice and Innovation
Communities of practice are informal and selforganizing, crossing divisions and hierarchies. The informal nature of communities differentiates them from project groups or other work teams. The concept of community is connected to that of situated collective learning and exchange of knowledge based on work experience. The main features of CoPs are summarized in Table 1 below. Metrics for quantitative features depend on the type of community and its context. Wenger (1998, p. 58) has defined the concept of reification as “the process of giving form to experience by producing objects”. These objects or artifacts, e.g. tools, symbols, stories are contained in the shared repertoire (Amin & Roberts, 2008). They are included in the “epistemic components” by Thompson (2005). Successful exchange of knowledge in communities is based on analogies and stories shared between members (Wenger and Snyder, 2000). The willingness of community members to participate and exchange knowledge is based on a number of external and especially internal motivation factors. Extrinsic motivation includes financial benefits (direct and indirect), while intrinsic motivation includes several expected participant benefits. The latter could be social benefits, like group membership communication and contacts, feeling of companionship, and enhanced personal status and organizational benefits like direct use of knowledge to own work and acknowledgement of expertise. The interaction of members over time creates expectations of obligation and reciprocity
between them (Mc Lure Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Free-riders (people getting benefits, but not reciprocating) will eventually face social sanctions and expulsion from the community. It is usually assumed that a new member joins the community as a peripheral (i.e. not central) member (Lesser & Storck, 2001).The concept of “legitimate peripheral participation” was central in the early writings on CoPs (Lave & Wenger, 1991).Therefore newcomers have initially a low status, and this increases over time. This assumption may be true for employees in the very early stages of their career, but for experienced employees moving to a new organization their experience in CoPs of their previous employers and inter-organizational CoPs may contribute to a higher status from the start. The identification of CoPs is based on participant accounts of who belongs to the community. Significant overlap of their views is taken as indication of the existence of the community. Wenger (1998) has proposed a detailed list of several criteria of community identification based on the above mentioned features of CoPs. Such criteria include sustained mutual relationships, rapid flow of information and propagation of innovation, knowing of who knows what, specific tools, shared stories, and a specific jargon. The criteria refer therefore to evidence of long term relationships, joint action, and shared symbols. Apparently a group has to meet the majority, if not all of these criteria to be called a community of practice. On the other hand the same author claims elsewhere
Table 1. Main features of communities Main features Quantitative
Qualitative
Number of members
Atmosphere of openness and trust between members
Membership growth rate
Reification (artifacts like tools and symbols)
Intensity of interaction (duration and frequency)
Norms, roles, routines
Community age (years)
Feedback from other group members
Source: Compiled by the author from the literature
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that there are several communities of practice in almost every organization (Wenger et al, 2002). There is therefore a contradiction in that either a narrow definition is applied with several criteria excluding many loosely connected groups or a broader definition is used classifying many groups as communities. The community boundaries are anyway determined by the participants’ perceptions of identity and are therefore rather fuzzy. It is basically the notion of situated learning through interpersonal contact, which fundamentally distinguishes communities of practice from other groups (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Another important issue in the consideration of CoPs is their relationship to the wider organization (Venters & Wood, 2007). Organizations can be thought as constellations of communities. Community and hierarchy can be seen as complementary rather than competing coordination mechanisms. At the same time the very nature of communities creates potential problems of controllability and compatibility with organizational structures like project teams, work groups, etc. Table 2 describes the different priorities of communities and organizations. The classical examples of the literature describing communities of practice are not directly related to innovation, at least its radical type. These are the fist two cases below. They are face-to-face communities focused on working practices, i.e. mostly knowledge transfer rather than innovation. New practices may emerge through problem solving, i.e. incremental innovation is possible, but is
not the main target. The next two examples include both conventional face-to-face and virtual communities again focused on knowledge sharing. Therefore only a very brief description is given here as indicative cases. More examples related to innovation are discussed in the next section. 1. Photocopying technicians (Orr, 1996). Orr studied the working practices of photocopying technicians in charge of repairing Xerox photocopiers and their learning modes through sharing of experiences, stories, and problem solving approaches. 2. Claim processors (Wenger, 1998). Claim processors working in a large insurance company belonged to a relatively closely knit work group. Newcomers learned details of their work, developed a sense of identity, and formed perceptions of the company through this community. 3. Web design teams (Thompson, 2005). The community of web-site designers was sponsored by the parent organization. Difficulties were observed when the organization encouraged a large number of new staff to join the existing community. 4. Information technology specialists (Kohlbacher & Mukai, 2007). The authors have identified two separate types of communities of practice (learning communities in their terminology) in Hewlett-Packard Consulting and Integration. The first type refers to employees sharing similar business
Table 2. Priorities of CoPs vs. priorities of organization Priorities of CoPs
Priorities of organization
Free participation
Strategic importance of discussion themes for the firm
Personal interest
Use of resources
Low degree of structure
Expectation of results
No hierarchy
Short term performance
Community crossing departments and hierarchy levels
Need for control
Source: Compiled by the author from the literature
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practices and working mostly in the same business unit, e.g. Enterprise Application Services. The second type is a global virtual community for employees in the same type of profession.
CoP Typologies Amin and Roberts (2008) propose a useful tentative typology of CoPs based on the nature of the exchanged knowledge: 1. Craft-task based (like the crafts of naval quartermasters or midwives originally studied by Lave & Wenger, 1991) 2. Professional CoPs like those found in public sector services and business organizations (health and education professionals, accountants, etc.) 3. Expert/creative CoPs (expert e.g. epistemic communities like a community of physicists or one of geneticists and creative like communities of musicians etc.) 4. Virtual CoPs (communities using mainly electronic communication means) The typology has some limitations since there is overlap between categories, e.g. professional and expert on the one hand, virtual with both expert and professional on the other. The criteria for classification are also not very clear (a combination of knowledge type and proximity). Despite the above shortcomings the typology is very useful as explained below, since it makes easier to see the consequences for innovation when the nature of practice is specified. A second, complementary to the above, classification relevant for innovation is that which distinguishes between intra- and inter-organizational communities. While initially communities within organizations were usually studied, more recently attention has shifted to inter-organizational communities of practice (IOCoPs). The latter bring together people from different organizations,
spanning the boundaries of individual firms. Inter-organizational communities are of particular interest for innovation, since they are better placed to utilize diverse knowledge from various sources. Virtual communities are mostly, although not necessarily, inter-organizational communities. The role of both types of communities is further discussed in Section three.
Alternative theories to CoPs Social network theory (Kilduff & Tsai, 2003) has seen a tremendous growth in the last 30 years with applications in many fields including that of management and organizations, which is of particular interest here. While it is impossible to give even a brief description of this theory here, some essential elements include nodes (individual actors), ties (relationships between actors) and the social network (a map of all ties). Network analysis focuses on determining node size, density, and link strength. A network example from the field of innovation could be that of producers and users, who exchange experiences and learn through use and change (Castells, 2000). While strong ties were initially thought as important, Granovetter (1973) emphasized the value of weak ties, e.g. with casual acquaintances. Weak ties are of particular importance when network actors are faced with novel situations and need information and knowledge not available within their close circle of strong ties. According to Wenger (1998) networks merely define who knows whom, while communities focus on practice, learning, and action. Communities are closed entities requiring conformance of their members to social rules and norms, whereas networks are relatively open and exploitable by their actors for their self interest (Dal Fiore, 2007). The idea of exploitation is expressed by the concept of social capital as defined below. In my opinion communities can be seen as a special case of networks and the wider network theory can be used in their study. Social network analysis, which analyses
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the structure of networks (size, connectivity) and the position of individuals in network topology, can also be used for analysis of communities at least for their structural characteristics (Coakes & Smith, 2007; Steinberg, 2007). Social capital is a central concept of network theory and has been used as an integrative framework for explanation of knowledge creation and sharing in organizations (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). It is defined as: “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources, which are linked to the possession of a durable network of more or less, institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 249). The propensity of CoP members to voluntary cooperation can be seen as a form of structural social capital.
Innovation and CoPs The main issues regarding the connection of communities of practice and innovation are: •
• •
Does the presence of communities of practice increase the firm’s probability to innovate? Does the presence of communities of practice increase innovation efficiency? How do communities of practice affect innovation (especially product innovation) at its various stages and where is this impact more important (idea stage or prototype development, etc)?
There is no consensus in the literature regarding the exact effect of communities of practice on innovation, although several authors claim a positive effect (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Coakes & Smith, 2007). Others differentiate the effect according to innovation type, i.e. incremental and radical and claim that communities have a positive effect on incremental innovation, but no effect or even a negative one on radical innovation (Amin
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& Roberts, 2008; Swan et al, 2002). The effect on the latter is further discussed below. Innovation requires the simultaneous use of different competences and complementary knowledge from various sources, e.g. from universities, research institutes, and suppliers. Communities of practice could then facilitate intra and inter-organizational collaboration and knowledge flow and therefore innovation. CoPs through their trust building and free exchange of opinions and knowledge contribute to the idea stage of innovation. Techclubs at Chrysler, an automotive manufacturer, is an example of CoPs contributing to ideas for innovation (Wenger et al, 2002). They were formed by various engineering disciplines at Chrysler in the early 90s. These communities involved the shared monitoring and appraisal of emergent technologies and their potential implementation in the company. Schulze & Hoegl (2006) have found that socialization (exchange of tacit knowledge) during the concept (or idea) phase is positively related to new product success. Socialization is greatly facilitated by the internal interaction within communities of practice. In the development phase, where the product concept is materialized into specific design characteristics, a combination of various types of explicit knowledge from different sources is needed to solve specific technical problems. An example could be the development of a new “smart” mobile phone with a unique set of materials, colors, aesthetic, and technical features (Schulze & Hoegl, 2006). Internal communities of practice are perhaps of less relevance here, although inter-organizational communities may play a significant role. Formal co-ordination is vital at the development stage, while trust developed in CoPs may also play a role through its effect on innovation culture. The involvement of customer or user communities of practice will enhance the commercialization stage of innovation through feedback. There is, however, the possibility that the homogeneous environment of a CoP reduces
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creativity and incentives to innovate and also reduces the variety of available knowledge. Furthermore conformance to social group norms could limit member initiatives. How the quality of group knowledge developed within CoPs affects innovation and the place of CoPs in collaborative innovation networks are controversial issues in the literature (Erden et al, 2008). Coakes and Smith (2007) claim that CoPs can act as a supporting organizational form for innovation and propose communities of innovation (CoInvs) dedicated to support innovation as a special case of communities of practice. Some key individuals play a crucial role in knowledge creation and exchange and therefore innovation success. Community leaders have a high degree of centrality (i.e. occupy central positions with many connections to other community members) and play an active role as innovation champions, while members (experts) play more passive roles (Hauschildt, 2003). Innovation champions use their social capital in order to initiate and maintain innovative change (Coakes & Smith, 2007). Social network analysis can be used to identify innovation champions through analyzing their position within the community of practice. These leaders, and sometimes other members, serve as boundary spanners (i.e. individuals bridging different communities by being members to both) especially if they are at the same time members of internal and external (or interorganizational) communities. Research has tried to investigate leader traits and the exact role of innovation champions in overcoming barriers to innovation. Community leaders have, for example, a central role in directing the attention of members to specific goals and tasks (Erden et al, 2008). Another important issue is that of scale (e.g. critical mass or the required number of participants), i.e. if communities of practice are also relevant for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), which form the vast majority of firms in many countries. SMEs have fewer problems of internal knowledge sharing and communication
problems (Hutchinson & Quintas, 2008). At the same time their knowledge processes are informal and have a higher need for external knowledge in order to develop innovations. Inter-organizational communities of practice are therefore of special importance for them.
Radical Innovation and CoPs The stages of the radical innovation process are much more fluid and overlapping than those of incremental innovation. The idea for a breakthrough product, for example, is initially vague and ill-defined and involves the close cooperation of people from different backgrounds (Piore & Lester, 2004). Furthermore idea generation and opportunity recognition do not occur at the front end only, but throughout the process in response to abrupt environmental, technological, etc. changes (Majchrzak et al, 2004). Intra-organizational CoPs have been criticized that they may act as barriers to radical innovation due to their mainly internal focus, while external knowledge and boundary spanning are the critical elements for success. Learning within them could also prove dysfunctional and counter-productive due to changing environmental conditions. Amin and Roberts (2008) suggest that new communities are needed for radical innovation, which extend beyond boundaries of a single organization and create spaces of relational proximity which are not geographically bound (Delemarle & Laredo, 2008). The high degree of novelty of knowledge in radical innovation increases the complexity of crossing boundaries of communities. While CoPs are, however, important in the exploration phase they are not effective in the narrowing down process to a single dominant design that could lead to exploitation of the innovation (March, 1991). There are contradictions in the literature regarding the required strength of community ties. The dynamics of breakthrough innovation are connected to “strong” communities
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of practice (Delemarle & Laredo, 2008), although Brown & Duguid (2001) suggest that loose occupational and professional communities of practice are vital in radical innovation. In contrast Swan et al (2002) claim that communities of practice are most relevant for incremental rather than radical innovation.
Empirical Studies (CoPs and Innovation) The main research methods for the study of CoPs in general and their role in innovation in particular are mainly ethnographic methods and case studies. Surveys have been used to a minor extent due to data availability difficulties (Lorenz & Barlatier, 2007). Most reported empirical studies of CoPs are not directly related to innovation. Some typical empirical studies that concentrate on innovation include: •
•
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Swan et al’s (2002) case study of a medical innovation. They explored attempts by management to construct a CoP in order to promote innovation in a health related context and the barriers to community formation. This is a case of radical innovation in a professional context. The authors emphasize the political aspects of innovation and the conflicts of interest arising out of them. Managers used the community of practice as a “rhetorical device” to encourage the multi-disciplinary team of health professionals to focus on the treatment of the disease and overcome their resistance to changes in their work practices. Hadjimanolis (2006) study of SME – university collaboration. The project aimed at the development of innovative, environmentally-friendly, agrochemical formulations. The study has identified major barriers of the relationship type. They include differences in values, time horizons, and motivations between university re-
•
•
searchers and firm executives, which created difficulties and occasionally tensions in their cooperation. Institutional barriers, like structural and bureaucracy based ones, were of much smaller significance. Barriers were dynamic and hard to predict from the start of the cooperation. They illustrate the difficulties in crossing boundaries in inter-organizational communities of practice. Von Krogh et al’s (2003) study of innovation processes in a virtual community. The authors have studied the creation of Freenet, an electronic file sharing network, a case of open source software innovation. They have examined the joining behavior of new members in the developer community and the barriers to their integration to the community. New members should have specialized knowledge in order to overcome the initial contribution barriers and be accepted by the other community participants. Newcomers derive benefits from their participation including direct and specific feedback and reviews from the other group members. Franke and Shah’s (2003) statistical study of four sports-related user-innovator communities. These are virtual communities bringing together users interested in developing new products for the sport they favor. Although these communities do not operate within firms their study is interesting for two reasons. On the one hand it illuminates the flow of information, knowledge sharing, and diffusion of the resulting innovations in such voluntary communities. On the other hand firms have to adapt to the new reality and try to interact with and take advantage of user innovation communities.
The first two studies refer to conventional faceto-face communities, the first intra-organizational
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and the second inter-organizational, and examine the barriers to community formation, motivation to participate, and political aspects of innovation. The last two cases focus on virtual communities. Both are examples of open innovation communities, the first related to open source software innovation and the second to consumer goods ‘user initiated’ innovation. They examine the joining behavior and acceptance of new members, i.e. processes of community formation. The above studies illuminate the role of CoPs in different contexts of innovation. A more detailed evaluation of this role is attempted in the next section.
EVALUATION OF CoPs Evaluation Issues After the introduction of the concept of community of practice and its features and the discussion of the role of CoPs in innovation processes, the present section attempts to evaluate critically the community of practice approach and consider the impact of communities on innovation and organizational performance in greater depth. The main evaluation issues are considered first, followed by a short summary of the criticism of CoPs. The
“management fashion” theory is then used as an evaluation framework. Evaluation of communities is a difficult exercise and should take place at different levels (participant, implementation, system). Some of the main issues to be considered in an evaluation are included in Table 3. Most writers on CoPs paint a rosy picture of them emphasizing trust, collaboration, mutual benefits, etc. They seem to ignore the dark side of human nature, which includes suspicion towards strangers, greed, power games, and resistance to change. The volitional character of participation is emphasized, but for newcomers to an organization there is frequently little choice, but to join one or more established communities in order to get acceptance and integration. Power relations and organizational politics in a community form issues that are frequently underestimated, while they are apparently essential for the successful operation of communities (Fox, 2000; Swan et al, 2002). The socio-political approach to the analysis of CoPs emphasizes issues like negotiation of knowledge and potential conflict regarding knowledge claims, instead of assuming harmony in knowledge production within CoPs (Koch, 2002). Another related issue is the potential conflict between overlapping CoPs within an organization.
Table 3. Main evaluation issues of CoPs Creation of organizational value
Do CoPs create organizational value? Can the creation of social capital be seen as a foundation for creating value?
CoPs as knowledge transfer means
Evaluation of the efficiency of CoPs as knowledge transfer means. What are the critical success factors (e.g. usability of communication technology, power relations, and cross-cultural issues)?
Manageability of CoPs
The role of managers as agents (management of time and resources, alignment of various communities and management of conflict between them, etc.) Selection of practical ways to support CoPs, e.g. creation of suitable conditions and a fertile environment for community emergence.
The impact of CoPs on organizational climate
The impact of CoPs on employee satisfaction, innovation performance, and strategic performance (costs and benefits).
The scope of application of CoPs
Applicability of CoPs [Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), private for profit organizations, public organizations, etc.]
Source: Compiled by the author from the literature
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The “management fashion” theory is used here as a suitable framework for a literature-based evaluation of the evolution and the current stage of CoP, as an idea and practice, especially in relation to its application into innovation. Wherever possible CoP is compared to other fads, especially knowledge management a closely related, but broader concept, since succeeding fashions build on previous ones (Clark, 2004). The theory of management fashions, which builds on broader neo-institutional theories, provides an explanation to the rise and fall of the popularity of management concepts and techniques (Benders & van Veen, 2001). Abrahamson (1996, p. 257) defines management fashion as “… a relatively transitory collective belief, disseminated by management fashion setters, that a management technique leads rational management progress”. The definition emphasizes the transient nature, although transience is not clearly measured, but fashions do not necessarily disappear even after they are partially substituted by newer ones. The term “fad” is treated here as a synonym with “fashion”, although a fad may typically have a shorter life cycle than a fashion (Ponzi & Koenig, 2002). Fad is not necessarily a derisory and dismissive term. Fads like total quality management can profoundly change companies and introduce useful ideas for incorporation in practice (Miller & Hartwick, 2002). The theoretical framework of management fashions is applied by focusing on the following dimensions: 1. Origin of concept. 2. Evolution process. 3. Supply and demand forces shaping the evolution of the fashion 4. Institutional aspects. 5. Evaluation of outcomes and shifts in research agenda The origin of the CoP concept was in the field of social anthropology and the study of social
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learning. The influential book of Lave and Wenger “Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation” appeared in 1991 (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The book was based on an ethnographic account and the observation of practice in intra-organizational groups. The concept was later expanded and used in the field of management. The expansion of the original concept to inter-organizational groups, e.g. virtual communities where communication is electronically mediated rather than face-to-face, is of particular importance. Abrahamson (1996) claims that exogenous (outside the knowledge-management market) and endogenous factors affect the appearance and the life-cycle of management fashions. The rapid acceptance of the CoP concept is probably connected to more general trends like globalization, faster product cycles, and changes associated with the “knowledge economy”. Exchange of experience and insights in a practice context are recognized as major components of knowledge (Ekbia & Hara, 2008). There has also been a generic trend towards less hierarchy. Business firms felt the need to adapt their operations to these trends. The fact that other fads like total quality management (TQM) and business process reengineering (BPR) were already in the decline phase after 1995 and had to be replaced by newer concepts may have contributed to the growth of the CoP concept (Ponzi & Koenig, 2002). The collapse of prior fashions and existing performance gaps trigger new fashion booms according to the management fashion theory (Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999, David & Strang, 2006). Endogenous forces include the natural tendency of management to seek new techniques to differentiate their organization from its competitors. Regarding its distinguishing characteristics the CoP concept is relatively simple and has “interpretative viability”, that is it can be interpreted differently by different actors (Benders & van Veen, 2001). This conceptual ambiguity is positive, in the sense that, it is adaptable to different contexts and needs. CoP was therefore compatible
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to more general trends and had close association with knowledge management and network theory. A management fashion goes through different stages from its introduction and slow growth to a rapid growth phase and then a plateau before decline. A period of dormancy is followed by a bell shaped popularity curve (Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999). Gill and Whittle (1993) mention the following life cycle stages of a management fashion: birth phase, adolescence phase, maturity, and decline phase. At the same time there is transformation of the original concept and practices over the years. CoP as further discussed below has probably gone through a fast growth phase after the year 2000 (Amin & Roberts, 2008). The usual techniques for assessment of a fashions’ evolution include bibliometric techniques, content analysis of texts, interviews with managers and sometimes counting the number of copies sold of popular management books like “Cultivating communities of practice” of Wenger et al (2002). Bibliometric evidence refers to the number of publications in academic journals, the trade press, and other outlets. Conference papers and reports are usually not taken into account. It is assumed that the number of publications is connected to the degree of acceptance of the management fashion by managers and other user groups. The multidisciplinary nature of CoP and the need to consider business, management, computer science, and information system journals complicates further the search for print media publication records. Citations, especially of academic articles, are not necessarily a good indicator of actual adoption and implementation (Benders & van Veen, 2001). The decision to adopt is influenced by many other factors apart from the popularity of the concept. Knowledge management (KM) has been found in an empirical bibliometric study (Ponzi & Koenig, 2002) as living longer than typical fads (like quality circles and BPR, which peak in approximately five years). The same authors found that the popularity of KM had a slow growth till the mid nineties and then expanded rapidly between 1997
and 1999, contracted in 2000, and rebounded in 2001. According to newer data the annual output of scholarly articles for KM has been increasing, at least, until 2004 (Guo and Sheffield, 2006). Amin and Roberts (2008) present data from a search of the term “communities of practice” in the EBSCO database in May 2006. A large number of references (425 papers) have been found with a fast growth phase after the year 2000. Abrahamson (1996) has analyzed the supply and demand forces in the evolution of fashions. The supply side includes several actors, who act as idea champions or knowledge entrepreneurs and have commercial motives (Nijholt & Benders, 2007). Prominent among them as “fashion setters” are consultants, academics, gurus, and professional organizations. Change agents within and around organizations act as intermediaries in the promotion of these ideas (Nijholt & Benders, 2007). In the case of CoPs consultants, like Wenger and others, have been instrumental in the articulation of the concept and the description of CoP features. Later they developed CoP taxonomies, identified organizational benefits from their operation, and relatively recently offered detailed recipes for their cultivation and nurture, if not design (Wenger et al, 2002). Demand side forces include those affecting the consumption behavior of managers for new ideas and concepts. Managers are assumed to be “fashion followers” and passive consumers of managerial concepts. The theory neglects the interaction of knowledge entrepreneurs and managers in the implementation of the concept. Managers, however, do not necessarily believe all the claims about the new concept, but may be pragmatic and reflective about its use, selecting particular aspects of the concept most relevant to their particular circumstances (Benders & van Veen, 2001). Partial implementation of CoPs is possible to close critical performance gaps of the organization. Adoption can be substantive and lead to entrenchment, i.e. incorporation into the standard operational procedures or rhetoric, i.e.
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adopting the trappings and not the substance of the CoP concept. Managers tend to accept managerial fashions under institutional pressures to imitate concepts and techniques used by others in their industrial sector (Perkham, 2008). Once a management concept starts to be more widely known, the “bandwagon effect” promotes its fast further growth (Benders & van Veen, 2001). The influence of partners in networks of firms may also play a role in fashion adoption. Cultural aspects in particular countries may favor participative work forms and be compatible with the core idea of CoP (Nijholt & Benders, 2007). Regarding the evaluation of outcomes for a management fashion, it is first recognized that, apart from its other effects, a management fashion can have a positive effect as an orientation device and a motivating force. Evaluation of outcomes is usually made through surveys on the rate of use of the particular management tool or technique. One such survey on “Knowledge Management” has shown relatively low utilization rates and satisfaction scores among managers (Rigby, 2001). Consultants usually present successful cases of application in large and prestigious American companies, e.g. CoPs in Xerox and Chrysler as mentioned above in section 2. The translation of data in certain cases into “evidence” of success is open to debate (Ekbia & Hara, 2008). While most of the literature refers to successful examples of CoPs, there are few reported studies of dysfunctional communities or difficulties in community design. Among the exceptions
is Venters & Wood (2007), who refer to such a failure in CoP emergence, despite the fact that implementers were aware of the barriers in the community formation. According to the literature on management fashions, it is a sign of the decline phase and the disenchantment with the particular concept when there are increasing numbers of publications referring to failure in its application or negative results (Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999). Measuring the value of CoPs is difficult since it has to consider both tangible outcomes and intangible outcomes in a short term, but also a long-term horizon. Such outcomes could be the creation and transfer of knowledge as measured by change in knowledge levels or changes in performance level (Argote & Ingram, 2000). Some real and potential benefits or advantages of CoPs versus potential costs and disadvantages, as summarized in the literature, are presented in Table 4. Regarding the scope of application of the CoP concept there has been a large diversity in the communities studied and some of them are not very relevant to business firms. Most management fashions claim their universal relevance and application (Miller & Hartwick, 2002). There is no doubt that the concept can be applied to many sectors including public services (education, healthcare, etc.) and organizations like the army or the media. The effectiveness of CoPs, as producers of knowledge and eventually innovation, is connected to organizational performance (as measured by market share, profitability, etc.). The link is, however, indirect and inadequately researched
Table 4. Advantages and disadvantages of CoPs Advantages
Disadvantages
Improvement of internal communication
No clear responsibility assigned to members
Promotion of mutual help
Not always producing clear results
Stimulation of creativity
Tension between self-organizing and organizational objectives
Reinforcement of innovation capability
Potential conflict between community members
Source: Compiled by the author from the literature
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(Argote & Ingram, 2000). Lesser and Storck (2001) have investigated the links between successful communities of practice and organizational performance by focusing on such measures of the latter like reduction of project delivery time, development of new business capabilities and faster response time to customer problems. They suggest that development of social capital is an intermediate step in the creation of value by communities. CoPs may also contribute to performance through problem solving and job performance of employees. The CoP approach to the explanation of organizational performance is compatible with the resource based view of the firm and similar approaches like the dynamic capability and competence based views. All these approaches emphasize firm-specific internal issues, rather than environmental factors, as bases of competitiveness and eventually performance (Blomqvist & Levy, 2006). Summarizing the above discussion it can be said that the “community of practice” concept offers a useful framework for a deeper understanding of the social aspects of knowledge creation. CoPs can also serve as valuable structures and tools in innovation, either alone or complementing more traditional structures like teams, provided that their potential disadvantages are realized. CoPs have also been rather successfully anchored to more widely acceptable discourses like networks (Perkman, 2008). Their life cycle has apparently not yet been completed, but they are probably included in the small minority of fashions, which become institutionalized in the terminology of Abrahamson and Fairchild (1999). Although the concept of communities of practice cannot be definitely rated as fad or not at present, there is no doubt that a lot of hype surrounds it especially in articles written by consultants. The proliferation of similar terms like networks of practice, innovation communities etc., adds to the ambiguity in conceptualization.
The next section considers briefly some future trends, especially regarding inter-organizational communities and their increasing importance in radical innovation and new innovation paradigms, like open innovation.
FUTURE TRENDS Environmental Changes Technological changes in information and communication systems (websites, electronic bulletin boards, etc.) have an important impact on CoPs (especially virtual ones). The recent trend towards complex products e.g. household appliances incorporating electronic devices or service innovations present new requirements in terms of knowledge from various sources, and increase the relevance of CoPs especially inter-organizational ones in innovation. The increasing attention to the importance of users in innovation from the early stages of its design is also an important development. User initiated or dominated innovation is frequently happening not only in the design of software, but also sometimes consumer goods. The effect of globalization and human resources diversity on CoPs, e.g. within multinational firms, is increasingly important and has to be analyzed. At the same time there is a lot of work on new indicators for CoP activity measurement. Among these indicators the potential contribution of social network analysis (SNA) and visualization techniques based on SNA has to be mentioned (Coakes & Smith, 2007; Steinberg, 2007).
Virtual Communities Virtual communities are mainly based on electronic communication and due to the above mentioned developments in the technology of communication systems are becoming increasingly important. Some of their characteristics include the potential participation and contribution of large numbers of
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people in the same or different organizations. There are indications that the reproduction cycle of such communities is probably shorter. The richness of communication in communities based exclusively on electronic communication is probably lower. Similarly the degree of social contact between members is lower. Virtual inter-organizational communities are of special importance for innovation, especially the radical type that needs multiple sources of knowledge. While there are special difficulties of researching virtual communities from an ethnographic perspective, the availability of data about the group (number of interactions, contributions by each member, etc.) make the use of surveys feasible in the study of such communities (Lorenz & Barlatier, 2007).
Open Source Innovation in Virtual Communities An important new trend in recent years is the increase of globally distributed, intentionally created, online CoPs developing open source software (e.g. Linux, Appache, etc.), which could revolutionize the information technology industry. Because of this trend there is a movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and into communities spanning their boundaries (Lakhani & von Hippel, 2003). Open source communities present an example of “open innovation communities” (OIC) where users themselves are developing new products. The emergence of such communities and their unique innovation and product development strategies has attracted the interest of researchers (Franke & Shah, 2003). The challenge for firms is whether they will try to create their own OICs, look for existing ones and take advantage of them if possible or use intermediaries. An example of dealing with existing OICs is the interaction of information technology firms with free and open source software communities.
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion The concept of communities of practice, with its emphasis on the social aspects of learning and knowledge exchange, forms a useful perspective to comprehend organizational processes and outcomes. There is, however, an over-enthusiastic approach in the literature tending to extend the concept far beyond its limits, exaggerating the benefits of communities of practice and remaining silent about their potential problems. The claim for instance of Brown & Duguid (2001) that CoP can serve as a “unifying unit of analysis” for understanding knowledge in the firm is perhaps exaggerated, because knowledge transfer is not necessarily occurring within or between communities, especially in cases like licensing. The concept is particularly useful for the study of innovation, if it is placed in the broader context of the network approach. Communities of practice within organizations offer significant benefits. They overcome, to a considerable extent, the constraints of hierarchy and formal organizational rules especially in relation to innovation and accelerate organizational learning (Amin & Roberts, 2008). They also offer a forum for a free exchange of ideas, creation of knowledge, and development of identity of their members (Wenger, 1998). New employees are given the opportunity to integrate faster into the social fabric of the organization. If successful, communities eventually create intellectual capital and comparative advantage for the organization. They also allow more autonomy and empowerment of employees thus improving the organizational climate (Wenger et al, 2002). The question whether CoPs are fads or not, especially in the context of innovation, can not be answered in the current stage of their lifecycle. Some of their characteristics and the link of the concept to widely accepted organizational
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theories, like network theory, tend to suggest that CoPs will eventually become a permanent feature of organizational practice. The emergence of communities can to some extent be facilitated by careful observation of existing patterns of interaction and creation of suitable enabling conditions including provision of time, technical infrastructure, and other resources. A new form of management is required, which focuses on supporting and encouraging self-managing teams instead of trying to impose hierarchical control. Future research should concentrate on the interface of innovation and communities of practice, especially inter-organizational ones. Further development of theory for the explanation of the social and learning aspects of innovation should consider the role of communities. There are many other issues for further research, but this topic is outside the scope of this chapter. By way of example, the “framing effect” of leaders on communities should be investigated, i.e. the way leaders present a problem to be solved may influence the cognitive schemas (ways of thought) of other community members (Elsbach et al, 2005).
Recommendations While detailed guidelines for cultivating communities are difficult to establish, and are anyway beyond the scope of this chapter, some simple advice can be offered to managers. They should start with mapping existing networks perhaps with the help of independent consultants. The second step is that of identifying existing and potential leaders. When encouraging the formation of new communities they should be aware of issues of stress and tension of involvement of leaders in many communities. The relationships of formal project teams and communities should be carefully considered to avoid disruption of existing communities during organizational change. Managers should also be careful and discreet in their
intervention to avoid criticism of manipulation (Fox, 2000). While design of communities in the traditional sense would possibly contradict their voluntary self-managing nature, support and facilitation can be provided in many forms. Managers can create favorable and suitable starting conditions for emerging communities by encouraging their leaders, providing resources, especially time and tolerating the time consuming face-to-face contacts, especially during the formation phase. Despite the benefits of having efficient communities of practice managers should not overlook the risks, especially of inter-organizational communities, like leakage of internal knowledge to competitors and therefore loss of intellectual property (Loyarte & Rivera, 2007). In several sectors and especially in that of information technology and other high tech industries, building customer/user communities of practice to provide early feedback is an important step to improve the chances for innovation success. The availability of internet creates new opportunities to form virtual user communities including early adopters and enthusiasts. Lessons can also be drawn for policy makers at regional and national levels, since communities play an important role in regional innovation. A national innovation policy should take into account their importance by designing programs to support existing and encourage the formation of new inter-organizational communities.
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Von Krogh, G., Spaeth, S., & Lakhani, K. (2003). Community joining and specialization in open software innovation: a case study. Research Policy, 32(7), 1217–1241. doi:10.1016/S00487333(03)00050-7 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–145.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Community of Practice: Group of people with common purpose sharing knowledge in a context of practice.
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Fad: New management concept or tool with a short life-cycle. Innovation: New products, services or processes introduced to market or commercially developed, not just invented. Knowledge Management: Management of knowledge within an organization using suitable technologies and tools. Open Source Innovation: New products developed by users Open Source Software: Software created as public good, i.e. available to all without restrictions. Radical Innovation: Products new to the world Social Network: Set of people knowing each other Social Capital: Advantage got by being member of a social network Virtual Communities: Communities of practice using mainly, but not exclusively electronic communication in their contacts.
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Chapter 14
Triple Helix Organisations, Communities of Practice and Time Kathryn J. Hayes University of Western Sydney, Australia
ABSTRACT Commercialisation activities require knowledge sharing between groups such as researchers and commercial managers. The existence of research based Knowledge-stewarding Communities of Practice (CoPs) within industry/research/government innovation collaborations has important implications for innovation management practice. The context of the study is four Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) composed of academic, government and industry personnel. Semi-structured interviews with a total of twenty scientists, engineers and managers explored collectively shared and dissimilar perceptions of time in commercialisation activities. Knowledge-stewarding CoP members and commercial participants in triple helix organisations working to commercialise inventions report differing temporal perceptions. Commercial and research groups described distinctively different views of pace and flexibility, contributing to tension, distrust and negatively influencing knowledge sharing, communication and commercialisation outcomes. Management techniques in use in the four CRCs and an agenda for future research conclude the chapter. This chapter contributes to the literature on collaborative innovation management and inter-organisational CoPs. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch014
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INTRODUCTION This chapter reports research identifying interorganisational Communities of Practice (CoP) within triple helix organisations engaged in collaborative innovation. The chapter is intended for an audience that is familiar with Knowledge Management concepts and is interested in their application to collaborative innovation management. From the 1980s, governments of industrialised economies have looked to innovations involving the generation of, and reconfiguration of knowledge as a means of maintaining their competitive advantage (Gibbons et al., 1994; Lehrer & Asakawa, 2004; Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2001; Premus, 2002). From a business perspective, the attractions of entering a collaborative research organisation include access to complementary physical and intellectual assets, reduced time and costs for product development, and increased organisational and financial flexibility (Senker & Sharpe, 1997). The creation of hybrid organisations that use resources and/or governance structures from more than one existing organisation (Borys & Jemison, 1989), has been a feature of the organisational response to government and business pressures. These triple helix organisations draw their members from three discrete sectors: government, academia and industry. This chapter recognises an organisational feature and management challenge not previously addressed in the collaborative innovation literature; the potential for organisation-spanning, Knowledge-stewarding CoP (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) to form within, or be imported into triple helix organisations. Knowledge-stewarding CoPs act primarily to connect people with a shared knowledge domain and then collect, organise and share that information and knowledge (Vestal, 2003). Managers identified challenges in guiding the Knowledge-stewarding CoP that existed in each CRC towards producing commercial outcomes, but they also recognised the vital role the CoP played in their organisation’s innovation
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efforts. Recommendations based upon theory and reported practices are provided to assist managers to succeed in the extreme conditions of triple helix and other industry-research collaborations. The chapter commences with a review of the role of triple helix organisations (Etkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000) within National Systems of Innovation. Research evidence is presented that identifies a Knowledge-stewarding CoP within each of four Australian triple helix organisations. Commercial managers and the researchers who comprised the Knowledge-stewarding CoP in each CRC held disparate perceptions of time and timed events. These differences are examined in detail. Implications for management in triple helix organisations are next explored, including advice regarding the management of boundaries between organisational and occupational groups. The chapter focuses on management techniques, based on those in practice in four Australian hybrid industryresearch organisations and recommendations from recent research (Davis, 2008; Garavan, Carbery, & Murphy, 2007; Hayes & Fitzgerald, 2007). The chapter concludes with an agenda for future research into the role of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs in triple helix innovation collaborations.
Triple Helix Organisations and National Systems of Innovation Governments have recently looked to innovation as a means of developing or maintaining competitive advantage. The rapid spread of triple helix organisations, in which private firms and publicly funded research groups collaborate, has been traced across Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia (Etkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). In these organisations, the initial stages of knowledge management, including the identification, capture and evaluation of innovations, are increasingly conducted across occupational and organisational boundaries. In Australia alone, a total of A$925.9 million is being provided for administered grants between 2006–07 and 2010–11 (Department of
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Education Science and Training, 2005). Significant financial and intellectual investments exist in triple helix organisations, yet previous research has not recognised inter-organisational CoPs existing within their boundaries, nor addressed the impact of differing temporal schemas within innovation collaborations. This is despite their potential to positively or negatively influence knowledge sharing and commercialisation. I argue, based on interviews with scientists, engineers and managers, that differences in the temporal perceptions of occupational groups within hybrid industry-research organisations create barriers to knowledge sharing, the development of trust, and successful commercialisation. Members of research and commercial groups in the four Australian triple helix organisations studied display distinctive approaches to time, and place conflicting priorities on pace and flexibility. Hybrid industry-research organisations share some of the management challenges encountered by joint-venture partners operating in the same industry. Boundary issues between the partner organisations, threats to the hybrid organisation’s stability from the sovereignty of member organisations, and the challenge of reconciling at times disparate goals, technologies and organisational cultures can occur when commercial organisations, in the same industry, combine, as has occurred with HP and Compaq in the IT industry (Borys & Jemison, 1989; Burgelman & McKinney, 2006). Organisations that represent temporary collaborations between industrial and research partners are likely to encounter even more complex structural, managerial and organisational cultural challenges than those that make mergers and acquisitions into high-risk endeavours (Barringer & Harrison, 2000). In collaborative innovation ventures and particularly in triple helix organisations, complex organisational and occupational boundaries coupled with funding uncertainties may produce management challenges akin to those of extreme sports. Extreme sports present a higher degree
of challenge than traditional sporting activities and hazards often occur in the form of environmental obstacles that are difficult to predict or control. In the case of triple helix organisations, a multi-dimensional matrix of occupational and organisational boundaries has to be navigated and, as described later in the chapter, managers often find they can only attempt to exercise influence, rather than wield formal authority. If managing joint-ventures between industry partners is recognised as difficult, then managing triple helix organisations, particularly if founded on a voluntarily constituted, Knowledge-stewarding CoP, can be categorised as extreme management. The context of the research reported in this chapter is four organisations in the Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program. CRCs are composed of individuals from academia, government and industry, working together to bring an invention to market. The activities of Australian CRCs are increasingly directed towards the commercialisation stage of the innovation process (Department of Education Science and Training & Howard Partners, 2003), bridging basic and applied spheres of research activity and spanning the creation and technological application of knowledge. Commercialisation is defined as ‘the process of transforming ideas, knowledge and inventions into greater wealth for individuals, businesses and/or society at large’ (Prime Minister’s Science Engineering and Innovation Council, 2001, p. 9). This commercialisation phase, when participants seek a financial return on research, forms the focus of activities in the four CRCs examined in this chapter. The potential for CoPs to exist and influence commercialisation outcomes has been overlooked despite nearly two decades of government policies promoting collaboration through industryresearch alliances. Examining temporal perceptions within occupational groupings in CRCs extends existing research into CoPs, triple helix organisations and innovation and may possibly improve commercialisation outcomes.
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CRCS and Communities of Practice To date, groups of researchers joining forces with government and business entities to bid for research funding have been the driving force in creating Australian CRCs. In the early years of the CRC program over eighty per cent of CRC professionals had a research background, with a thirteen per cent minority drawn from industrial and government sectors (Liyanage & Mitchell, 1993). While recent evaluations of the program recommended an increased focus on the management and production of commercial outcomes (Department of Education Science and Training & Howard Partners, 2003) it is clear that research groups pursuing knowledge production have been the driving force behind many CRCs. CoPs are characterised as voluntary groups who work and learn together, distinguished by their passion for a particular knowledge domain, sharing similar roles and skills and possessing a common bond (Wenger et al., 2002). In addition CoPs do not necessarily work to produce defined outcomes or operate with a definite agenda or timetable (Wenger & Snyder, 2006). CoPs last as long as members want them to and, because they are populated by volunteers, do not respond well to management supervision (Wenger & Snyder, 2006). While managers may regard research groups working within CRCs as a specialised technical team, researchers describe attitudes, beliefs and assumptions that suggest they comprise a separate CoP inside each CRC. In particular, although the knowledge domain of each CRC depends upon the organisation’s commercialisation project, CRC researchers share: a common language based upon their field of expertise, occupation specific rituals, comprise the exclusive audience for, and judges of, each other’s work and have been socialised to subscribe to free sharing of findings, disinterestedness and organised scepticism (Geraci, 2002; Merton, 1957; Steiner, 2000; Tullock, 1993). Regardless of working in government, business or academic settings,
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the common focus on contributing to knowledge in a particular domain, and sharing that knowledge in exchange for recognition rather than recompense can unify scientists and other researchers into an inter-organisational Knowledge-Stewarding CoP. Wenger et al. (2002) expand upon the four different strategies to encourage the development of CoPs first identified by the American Productivity and Quality Centre. These are Helping, Knowledge-stewarding, Best-Practice and Innovation CoPs. Knowledge-stewarding CoPs are primarily devoted to organising, upgrading and distributing knowledge frequently used by members. Innovation CoPs are intentionally crossfunctional in composition, and ‘intentionally cross boundaries to mix members who have different perspectives’(Wenger et al., 2002, p. 77). While the deliberate combining of the knowledge and skill sets of research and business personnel in triple helix organisations such as CRCs are suggestive of an Innovation CoP, the presence of managers, creation of the CRC through legal contracts and overt expectations of commercially valuable results negate this possibility. This chapter questions the homogeneity of CRCs, proposing that research-domain specific Knowledge-stewarding CoPs are embedded within CRCs, spanning organisational boundaries as shown in Figure 1. The size of each of the ovals in Figure 1 approximates the relative proportion of individuals participating from government, research and industry sectors in Australian CRCs. Research groups working within triple helix organisations meet the criteria for Knowledgestewarding CoPs (Wenger et al., 2002), through sharing a specific knowledge domain, learning through interaction and working in a joint enterprise that happens to span organisational and public/private sector boundaries. The distinctly different views of time held by research and industry members of the same hybrid industry-research organisations illustrate one the differences between CoP members and non-members. Disparate perceptions of time and timed events can
Triple Helix Organisations, Communities of Practice and Time
Figure 1. Cooperative research centre and knowledge-stewarding CoP
impact trust and communication between groups (Macduff, 2006), and therefore have the potential to influence knowledge sharing and commercialisation outcomes.
Extant Research on Time and Innovation Innovation is inextricably bound to notions of time (Hellstrom & Hellstrom, 2002). Early work (Dubinskas, 1988) identified that even when working as part of a single, commercial enterprise, commercial managers focussed on short term plans and goals while researchers favoured the pursuit of long term objectives. In addition, the management legacies of Taylorism and time-andmotion studies have been revealed to conflict with the desires of researchers to experience “timeless time” immersed in their own research (Ylijoki & Mantyla, 2003). Specifically, Ylijoki and Mantyla identify four core time perspectives in the context of university based research: … scheduled time, timeless time, contracted time and personal time. Scheduled time refers to the accelerating pace of work, timeless time to transcending time through immersion in work, contracted time to short-term employment with limited future prospects and finally, personal
time to one’s temporality and the role of work in it. (Ylijoki & Mantyla, 2003, p.555) Despite evidence of differing temporal perceptions between research and commercial groups working in the same organisation, the existence and impact of occupationally based temporal schemas in triple helix organisations engaged in innovation activities have not been previously explored.
METHODOLOGY Qualitative research methods were used to explore temporal norms and assumptions, and permit the investigation of themes as they arose. As social activities occurring within organisational and national cultures, commercialisation processes in complex social systems suit holistic investigation using qualitative methods. This qualitative research was conducted without a priori theory, allowing themes to emerge from the data rather than specify hypotheses in advance (Eisenhardt, 1989). It is acknowledged that qualitative research is limited by time, the nature of individual perspectives and the interpretive approach used to analyse the interviews.
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Twenty scientists, engineers and business managers were recruited from four CRCs. Two of these CRCs were from the Information and Communications Technology sector and two were from the Biomedical sector. The organisations’ ages ranged from newly formed with a few years of operation to twenty years of operation for a publicly listed company that developed out of the CRC program. Each of the four CRCs constituted a bounded system for study in its own right and was part of a set of collective cases. Stake (2000) has commented that, while permitting less inherent interest in each organisation, collective case studies do provide the opportunity to investigate, and gain insight into an issue of interest. In addition, the choice of four organisations reduced the possibility of patterns stemming from factors unique to one organisation mistakenly being viewed as representative of interactions in other CRCs. For example, the idiosyncratic actions of a particular individual would not appear in all four CRCs. Care was taken to ensure a mix of research and commercial personnel were interviewed from each CRC. Table 1 shows the occupation and the total number of respondents from each CRC. A total of thirty-six interviews occurred with the informants. A single retrospective interview occurred with members of the two CRCs that had graduated from the program, and three longitudinal interviews were held with informants in currently funded organisations. The participants’ perceptions of temporal norms held by research
and commercial members of the CRC were recorded and transcribed verbatim. QSR N-Vivo® software was used to aid detailed coding and analysis of the collected research material, facilitating the interpretation process. Through the analytic phase of the project, the research material was found to cluster around a number of themes related to collectively shared perceptions of time. Through a reflective, iterative process, interview extracts pertaining to time were grouped into themes, which were then compared within interviews, between interviews, between organisations and between occupations. Member checks, in which interview transcripts and interpretations were provided to participants for correction, verification and challenge, increase the credibility of the research. Exploratory interviews conducted to assist question development had foreshadowed planning horizon as a potential source of tension in commercialisation. As the interviews progressed, a nuanced view of two different constellations of temporal perceptions emerged, driving purposive sampling decisions and increased focus on temporal perceptions in later interviews. Despite the suitability of the selected methodology, the research findings depend upon the memory, insightfulness, and honesty of the interviewees. The findings are also constrained by time, place, and the changeable nature of individual perspectives. Consequently, the findings may not be readily extrapolated to other contexts. However, as the following section illustrates, the
Table 1. Self reported occupational membership CRC
Researcher
Manager
TOTAL
IT Graduate
2
1
3
IT Current
2
4
6
Biomed. Graduate
3
2
5
Biomed. Current
1
2
3
Interviews Outside CRCs
2
1
3
TOTAL
10
10
20
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insights provided by the interviewees extends existing theory to consider the potential impact of the temporal schemas of CoPs on the functioning of hybrid industry-research centres and in other commercialisation contexts.
RESULTS A description of how research groups working in the CRCs function as CoPs is now presented, followed by a summary of the key features of the temporal schema characteristic of research and commercial groups. There was unanimous agreement that two distinctive groups exist in the organisations studied, broadly based upon membership of research or commercial occupations. Within each of the four CRCs, participants clearly identified an embedded Knowledge-stewarding CoP whose members actively pursued knowledge expansion, at times in direct conflict with the commercial goals of management personnel. The key boundaries emerging from analysis and comparisons of the interviews are invisible, existing in the beliefs, values and assumptions held by the two communities. Differing views of time and timed events were reported by informants to hinder, and at times obstruct commercialisation outcomes.
Evidence of CoPs in Four Australian CRCs As described by Wenger et al. (2002), Knowledgestewarding CoPs are characterised by a passion for their particular area of knowledge, voluntary association and an emphasis upon knowledge production. Research interviewees’ comments strongly support identification of their groups as Knowledge-stewarding CoPs. For example, a researcher volunteered the need to support members not required for immediate tasks:
“…[we] maintain involvement of many, many researchers who you might wonder why they’re there because they’re not playing part of a coherent project at any particular time, [but] they’re part of a family…” Similarly, other researchers described committed, tight-knit, social groups that worked together for ten years before joining industry and government partners to create a CRC: “We had parties and we boozed hard, but that was a real team and we all knew where we were going and we were excited by it and we were successful …” Researchers have the autonomy to choose whether and when to join a CRC, and when to leave. The inability to control staff participation frustrates managers used to having clear authority over employment. A researcher commenting on the role of CRC managers advised: “… you could have a [government research institution] person go back to “Mum” and all that did was create people issues, so it was a very, very difficult role trying to run one insofar as you ended up with the responsibility for having a positive outcome when everyone else was in there for their own interests.” Furthermore, CoP members identified different forms of debate within their CoP and the wider CRC. They modified their language and rhetorical conventions when commercial managers were present. A research manager commented: “I’m just conscious that if I’m having a debate with scientists, even scientists from [industry member of CRC], I’m happy to be quite open. Whereas if I’m having a discussion with the business people from the company then I’m going to be much more careful in how I say things so as not to overly
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worry them about things which indeed are a very small worry, but could be taken out of context.” The above comments provide examples of voluntary and social connections between CoP members and their shared repertoire of behaviours and attitudes. These examples demonstrate the mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and shared repertoire characteristic of a CoP (Wenger 1998). Temporal perceptions are examined in detail in the following sections. All informants freely identified a research based, Knowledge-stewarding CoP embedded within each CRC. Researchers with enthusiasm for a common knowledge domain voluntarily built connections between academic, industrial and government researchers (see Figure 1), prior to the existence of the CRC. This shared pre-history strengthened the associations between the researchers who made up the Knowledge-stewarding CoP in each CRC. In contrast, CoP members identified commercial members as “outsiders” through reference to their lower level of educational qualification, language norms and other attributes, in addition to their temporal schema.
Temporal Perceptions in Research and Commercial Groups Assumptions and beliefs about the nature of time mark one boundary between commercial and research groups working in CRCs. In presenting the results, I have adopted the categories Brislin and Kim (2003) developed from their research of time and national culture. While other classification schemes exist, the constellations of perceptions that Brislin and Kim categorise as pace and flexibility correspond most closely to the temporal schemas described by the informants. Pace incorporates group beliefs and norms about planning horizons, speed, time as a symbol, and efficiency. Flexibility includes attitudes towards punctuality and preferences for polychronic
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(multiple tasks handled at the same time) or monochronic (sequential) time use. Examples of attitudes toward pace and flexibility identified by interviewees as typical of their own, and the other group follow, and illustrate some barriers to knowledge sharing between research based, Knowledge-stewarding CoP members and commercial managers and engineers.
Pace Members of both commercial and research groups reported that at times, business managers would attempt to manipulate the speed of work and increase activity in the CRC by setting overly ambitious project schedules. Several researchers perceived this as unproductive and somewhat unethical. Conversely, attributions of research institutions attempting to place inflated monetary values on know-how and shared equipment or double-bill their time were cited as unethical by business respondents. These dissimilar interpretations of project plans and budgeting processes reduced trust between the two groups. Working at a rapid pace can have differing implications for the careers of researchers and commercial managers. A researcher’s professional reputation rests upon thorough understanding. If they publish or go to market with premature, incorrect results, the impact can be severe. In contrast, businesses time market entry to exploit market opportunities rather than meet criteria of excellence. A researcher demonstrated a clear understanding of the opposing forces, saying: “It’s quite likely that tensions will arise between the need to be sure you’re getting the right results, the need to be sure you’re understanding what you’re doing and the need to meet their [business] timelines.” One business attempted to increase the pace of CRC biomedical research by independently recruiting patients and directing them to the
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research organisation. A researcher’s comments show evidence of negative perceptions between the partner organisations: “We found it a bit absurd. The manufacturer tended to take a view of, ‘We’re sick of trying to work through the professionals because they’ll work at their own pace. Why don’t we try and drive the clients into the clinics and that’ll force them to lift their game.’ The problem was it was sending as many wrong clients as right clients into our clinics. We believe there’s a role for us to do it right.” These conflicting assessments of the value of rapid work pace contribute to tension, distrust and difficulties in communication between research and commercial groups in the four CRCs.
Planning Horizon Agreement existed amongst all interviewees that businesses, and especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hold a short-term view while researchers make longer-term plans. Researchers who had successfully worked with businesses explained that excellence in a specialised research area was insufficient to overcome the barrier of missing market driven deadlines. A government manager identified the translation of businesses’ financial pressure into short-term goals: “…the dimension of timeliness and urgency … is not there in the universities’ psyche whereas it is paramount from the point of view of the commercial player because they’ve got real dollars at stake, they’ve got real commercial interests at stake … whereas the university has none of that.” A manager from a private company concurred: “… in the private sector, some have a very short term perspective, looking for a return on investment in a financial period which is very ambitious.
Obviously the university people are looking at it differently. They’re more attuned to research cycles or the next major conference which in a lot of the disciplines is every four years.” In one Biomedical CRC, a mismatch between the planning horizons of the research CoP and the commercial managers was particularly evident. A researcher explained the scientific work “was always going to take ten years”. However, two business managers, interviewed separately, commented on their perception that work was progressing too slowly and that the scientists needed a deadline to either present a working prototype or else have the research project terminated. At the time of interview, most of the original research members were still in the organisation, while the business members reported “three entire sets” of managers had been recruited and departed since the organisation’s creation. This is consistent with previous research (Dubinskas, 1988) showing commercial and research communities work to different planning horizons. When working together on a commercialisation project, disparate time scales can contribute to conflict.
Time as a Symbol for Money Individuals in both commercial and research groups used Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism “Time is money” during interviews, suggesting a common view of time as a scarce resource and expectations of a shared sense of urgency. However, both research and business interviewees concurred that the rewards of the research CoP do not come primarily in monetary form. To enlist another aphorism, “Money isn’t everything”. The lower priority placed upon monetary rewards by researchers is consistent with previous studies regarding the reward systems of scientific communities (Merton, 1957; Steiner, 2000). However, the research community is not immune to, or unaware of the issues of power
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and status associated with research grants. While individual researchers appear to place a low value on moneymaking, interviewees agree that research organisations spend large amounts of time in attempts to attract funds to ensure their survival. While both groups agreed, “Time is money” they do not act with the same priorities, due to differences in occupationally based motivation and reward systems.
Efficient Use of Time Expectations about whether discussions should conclude within a set time, and produce clear action plans differed between commercial and research groups. A commercial engineer clearly viewed knowledge sharing activities by the research CoP in his organisation as unproductive: “They would sit and talk about the latest discoveries in the field; it was just a big chinwag. And that was work. Because they were scientists…they’d talk about the latest things in the field and if it didn’t relate to the thing I was trying to make I couldn’t care less. … [the] meetings to me were a waste of time.” Business and research interviewees in all four CRCs reported differences in their judgements of time use. Researchers stated that tasks take as long as necessary to achieve a high quality result, and knowledge sharing is a vital and valid use of time. Business managers expressed efficiency in terms of meeting minimum criteria by project deadlines. Differences in the type of work performed contribute to perceptions of inappropriate attitudes toward time, which are explored next using the temporal category of flexibility.
Flexibility Flexibility incorporates punctuality, patterns of time use and the blurring of work and social time. Business managers frequently deal with routine
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tasks, with a focus on doing more of the same, but more quickly (Vinton, 1992). In general, the industry members of the CRCs viewed meeting project deadlines and working quickly to get a product to market as being of vital importance. Conversely, members of research groups expressed a more relaxed attitude to schedules and deadlines. Whilst supporting the use of project plans and schedules, and saying they did their best to meet deadlines, the Knowledge-stewarding CoP members viewed the non-routine nature of discovery work, the importance of making novel and significant findings and the need for complete comprehension prior to publication as combining to produce unavoidable, and justifiable delays.
Punctuality Punctually meeting project milestones was the aspect of flexibility most frequently discussed, and was controversial. A manager described the importance of, and the financial impact of missing project milestones: “We won’t pay until they meet their milestones, and they can’t run over budget. One of our projects had a delayed start … so I reported that straight to the board, [and from there to] the Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research at the university. He looked at it and said straight away ‘I’ll get onto this, this is not good enough.’” In response, a researcher offered: “Scientists can get disturbed that the business people have set a clear path with an overly optimistic view that everything will run according to the schedule. We may strike unexpected difficulties that can delay the whole thing or we may get some unexpected results which suggest that the path we’re taking is not the one we want to take anymore, and yet the business plans may be predicated on that sort of thing not happening.”
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When asked if commercial and scientific groups hold different attitudes to time, the same researcher explained: “Yes but I don’t know that either of them is right or wrong, they’re just different. If something doesn’t happen on time commercial people lose dollars. Whereas a researcher sees it as their job to find out how, why and the truth of something. If that takes twelve months instead of six months, well if the thing they found out was sufficiently worth while, I could easily justify it [by] saying ‘That was time very well spent. The fact it was 12 months instead of 6 months and it took twice as long? Well, in that 6 months you would have had nothing.’” While intellectual understanding of the differing perceptions exists in both communities, the resulting and disparate attitudes are hard to reconcile, with informants reporting impatience and frustration.
Monochronicity and Polychronicity Respondents agreed, with one exception, that members of commercial groups would focus on one major activity and move sequentially between activities as they were completed. In contrast, researchers reported keeping a number of projects active at a time. For example, from a researcher: “…businesses, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises … they say ‘This particular technique is the focus at the moment’. They can just do one thing at a time. That could be the difference between business and us. We keep being told that we academics are meant to do three major tasks: teaching, research and administration. You can’t say ‘Well, right now I am interested in this research; I want to focus on that.’ It’s simply not possible. So it seems that the academics, they tend to do things in a parallel manner rather than a serial manner.”
Commercial managers held the same view; that researchers engage in several projects concurrently. An apparent inability or unwillingness to focus attention on one task can contribute to business members’ doubts about the sincerity of their research partners’ commitment to delivering outcomes in accordance with project schedules.
Pervasiveness of Temporal Barriers to Commercialisation The experience of each CRC or other industryresearch collaboration will be unique, with time pressures, organisational culture and many other factors all varying in their direction, intensity and impact. However, for one commercial engineer, temporal factors dominated his experience of working in the CRC. When asked for a metaphor to describe the whole CRC organisation that employed him, he likened it to Samuel Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot”: “… you realize at the end of the play that this whole thing has occurred while waiting for something else, and Godot never arrives. That was kind of what the CRC was like because we were always talking about what was going to happen ….” He continued to explain his frustration with waiting, with repeated delays and being unable to act without information from the Knowledgestewarding CoP members. In the case of his particular organisation, commercialisation stalled and the company now exists only as a portfolio of technology patents
Barriers to Knowledge Sharing At least three clear barriers to knowledge sharing are evident in the disparate temporal perspectives described above. First, differing norms about the “right” pace of work and mismatched planning horizons create perceptions that the other group is working in an “unacceptable” way; either look-
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ing too far to the future and taking too long to get there, or forcing the achievement of short-term tactical goals at the expense of more important long-term objectives. Second, disparate motivation and reward systems contribute to perceptions of inefficient time use. Third, Knowledgestewarding CoPs and commercial groups view project plans and focussing on one role at a time as either optional or essential. These differences in temporal perceptions combine to create barriers to knowledge sharing and the translation of tacit to explicit knowledge.
Commercialisation, Knowledge Sharing and Externalisation The preceding sections of this chapter have elucidated differences in the temporal perceptions of members of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs and commercial participants in the four CRCs studied. An important question arising from these differences concerns their influence on knowledge sharing as a precursor to successful commercialisation. As Grant (2007) has reiterated, Polanyi’s (1958) conception of personal knowledge incorporates the simultaneous existence of tacit and explicit components (see Figure 2 on the next
page). Varying proportions of tacit and explicit knowledge will be present, and be dominant in various social contexts. Applying Polanyi’s theoretical framework to CoPs, Grant asserts that within a CoP specialised language and a shared knowledge domain will produce conditions where knowledge is “Explicit to Experts”. However, in triple helix collaborations, commercial and government participants while expert in their own occupational domains may not share the language norms (Hayes & Fitzgerald, 2008), or prerequisite technical knowledge to work as an integrated team with Knowledge-stewarding CoP members. Incidents reported within the CRCs illustrate knowledge sharing attempts between members of the Knowledge-stewarding CoPs and commercial personnel. For example, an engineer described the difficulty of extracting and understanding information from a CoP member: “It was hard. It was hard for me to understand how you could control something so small, you almost had an act of faith. The scientists and the chemist believed that they knew what was going on at a molecular level. They could wax lyrical for hours about what was happening in these five molecule layers.”
Figure 2. The Tacit/Explicit Dimension, modified from Grant (2007, p. 177), derived from Polanyi (1958)
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Without the knowledge shared by all members of the Knowledge-stewarding CoP, the commercial engineer could not start to build a commercially viable product: “To get a product out, the first thing I had to make, the first of these five molecular layers, is a layer of gold. So, I went in and spoke to the world’s authority on gold for probably an hour, and came out no wiser. And he had spoken to me constantly about how the quality of the end product was absolutely reliant on the quality of the layer of gold, but he couldn’t tell me what constituted a good layer of gold. There were no metrics.” The inability of the scientist to explain, or the incapacity of the engineer to grasp what was being told to him represents a failure to bridge the gap between tacit and explicit forms of knowledge. Interactions between members of the Knowledge-stewarding CoPs and commercial personnel can be characterised as occurring in the externalisation quadrant of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) knowledge spiral, or SECI model of knowledge conversion in innovation (Figure 3). Tacit and
explicit knowledge are theorised to interact in the creation of organisational knowledge through four patterns of conversion: Socialization (tacit to tacit), Externalization (tacit to explicit), Combination (explicit to explicit) and Internalization (explicit to tacit), as represented in Figure 3. Many commercialisation activities occur in the tacit to explicit, externalization quadrant. In this externalisation quadrant knowledge is theorised to be “converted” from tacit to explicit, and become more accessible to other individuals. Grant (2007) portrays this as knowledge moving from an “Explicit to Experts” position, further towards the dominance of explicit knowledge and the “Explicit to Most” sector at the right hand side of the continuum (Figure 2). The research results reported here provide evidence of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs in four Australian CRCs. Disparate temporal schemas illustrate one dimension of difference that can hinder knowledge sharing between members of CoPs and commercial personnel in commercialisation activities. Members of the Knowledge-stewarding CoP showed similar views of time and timed events, distinct from those reported by members
Figure 3. Nonaka and Takeuchi’s SECI Knowledge Spiral (1995, p. 71)
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of commercial and management occupations. Specifically, differences were reported in relation to mono and polychronic work patterns, punctuality in the context of project schedules, what constitutes an efficient use of time, appropriate planning horizons and work pace. Discrepancies in temporal perceptions were reported to hamper knowledge-sharing efforts and have negative impacts on commercialisation outcomes.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The already high failure rate of new businesses is increased by working with new technologies or in emerging industries (Singh, 2003). If starting a new company in a high technology or emerging field were not sufficiently daunting, the core business of CRCs and other triple helix organisations is innovation. Movement from tacit to explicit knowledge in the externalisation quadrant of the SECI model is required in the commercialisation phase of innovation and is notably difficult. CRCs work on non-routine tasks under conditions of uncertainty, and typically run a number of commercialisation projects concurrently. It is sobering to consider the findings of Barnett and Freeman (2001); organisational mortality rates increase with the simultaneous introduction of multiple products. Finally, because CRCs are a form of organisational alliance, they face additional risks of dissolution (Barringer & Harrison, 2000). In the face of such odds, reports that ‘many of these alliances simply do not work’ (Cyert & Goodman, 1997, p. 45) are not surprising. Hence, environmental and organisational factors underpinning the commercialisation activities of CRCs combine to represent an extreme challenge to managers. The following section provides theoretical and practical approaches to address some of the challenges to knowledge sharing identified above.
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Management Strategies and Techniques for Triple Helix Organisations The recommendations of the 2003 evaluation report of the Australian CRC program (Department of Education Science and Training & Howard Partners) emphasise measurement, inspection and reporting activities with the objective of increasing commercial adoption and financial returns from public research in Australia. Over half of the recommendations deal with inspecting the strength of investment propositions submitted, reporting CRC outputs and outcomes and ‘assessing the achievements of the CRC against credible milestones’ (Department of Education Science and Training & Howard Partners, 2003, p. xxii). Following the recommendations of this report, common management and CoP interactions within CRCs will involve the inspection and reporting of results, the project management of schedules and the financial management of budgets. In this environment, managerial orientations towards control, communication and coordination are likely to be evident. However, there are dangers in adopting “micro-management” techniques when attempting to nurture CoP (Wenger, 2004; Wenger & Snyder, 2000). The pursuit of commercially valuable outcomes may be better served by different approaches that encourage practitioners to actively manage their knowledge assets, rather than increasing managerial scrutiny. As Wenger (2004, p. 2) states. ‘Communities of practice manage their knowledge. If you had enough knowledge to micro-manage communities of practice, you would not need them.’ The existence of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management” might suggest that knowledge management, which it defines as the ‘systematic processes by which knowledge needed for an organization to succeed is created, captured, shared and leveraged’ (Rumizen, 2002, p. 8) is well understood and techniques for successful implementation easily accessible. The CoP man-
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agement recommendations in Rumizen’s work are solid, but appear to assume that the CoP is active within a single organisation. For instance, while Rumizen highlights the value of social events and the vital importance of an active, well connected community coordinator, the advice is directed towards large organisations seeking to encourage the growth of internal CoPs. The examples of CoP development provided are drawn from multinationals such as Schlumberger and SAP. Similarly Garavan, Carbury and Murphy (2007) describe management strategies CoP managers used to develop trust, facilitate collaboration and shared meanings and manage power issues, but these techniques could apply equally to a range of work groups. Probst and Borzillo (2008) list their ten commandments for the successful development of intra-organisational CoP and five main reasons for failure, however, a more testing environment awaits managers of triple helix organisations and their embedded, organisationspanning, Knowledge-stewarding CoPs. Over sixty private companies, eleven academic institutions and thirteen government bodies are represented in the four CRCs explored in this research. Several interviewees spoke of chaos and the challenge of managing organisational webs of “many to many relationships” that spanned occupations, organisations, public and private sectors. There is a clear need for CoP management techniques that address the organisational complexity and operational novelty of innovation efforts in industry-research collaborations. Boundary and network management techniques are required to assist in orchestrating innovation in the context of triple helix organisations or other industry-research collaborations. Previous research (Hayes & Fitzgerald, 2007), reported respondents from all four CRCs using the boundary crosser and boundary object strategies advocated by Kuhn (2002) to lessen the impact of occupational and organisational boundaries. Four interviewees displayed characteristics of boundary-crossers: key individuals who are
skilled and often certified (holding educational and professional qualifications) in two distinct bodies of knowledge, and who translate the behaviour, knowledge-systems and social values of one group for the other. In addition to boundary crossers, one CRC used a formal innovation management process as a boundary object to link the Knowledge-stewarding CoP and commercial groups. This process, a variant of the Stage-Gate® new product process, tracks the development of initial research ideas, manages what is included and what is left out of prototypes and moves control of the product from research to design engineering then to production engineering, and finally to business unit management. This process, in addition to performing technical functions such as testing and validation, clearly performed bridging functions between organisational and occupational cultures and between the Knowledge-stewarding CoP and non-members. For example, it functioned as a transition mechanism through the “grey area” when research exploration activities decline and commercial exploitation activities became dominant. This grey area may correspond to the externalization quadrant of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) Knowledge Spiral. In addition to boundary crosser and boundary object techniques, the informants described a range of other management practices. These include: feedback loops to provide recognition to the research team at the conclusion of commercialisation projects, promotion of the CRC name and identity as a way of defusing inter-university rivalries about which institution is seen as pre-eminent, offering recognition and prestige as inducements to researchers to work in commercial collaborations, using different versions of the same business plan for different audiences and using a mix of monetary incentives, coercion, persuasion and contact to engage Knowledge-stewarding CoP members. At least two tactics pre-empted inter-occupational tension by arranging for research and commercial groups to work independently. Separate industry and research committees worked autonomously
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and gave direct advice to the board in one CRC, and a researcher from another CRC explained that his colleagues had avoided conflict by developing fledgling organisations completely within the boundaries of the CoP, and then made a clean break when selling them off to commercial entities. Consistent with commercial desires for cohesion and conformity (Pech, 2001), the CEO in one CRC was identified as using political processes to preempt conflict occurring but dissatisfaction with this political approach was evident. In addition, a researcher advocated selecting only low risk, highly certain projects for research and industry collaborations. However, in his view, the cost of this compromise was a reduction in the chance of performing breakthrough research. Recent longitudinal research (Davis, 2008) also emphasises the need for conscious management of the network of connections and relationships involved in collaborative innovation. Studying collaborations between firms in the computing and communications industry, Davis reports that managers of successful collaborations actively work to change the network of connections across organisational boundaries. Pruning connections that act as information bottlenecks and encouraging new links between actors with complementary knowledge (competency pairing) reshapes the network of connections between collaborating organisations. When the network has been renovated, the managers of successful innovation collaborations acted to encourage an increase in the density of the boundary spanning links within the innovation collaboration. The management techniques used in the CRCs, including separation, acknowledging and accommodating dissimilar occupational and organisational cultural norms and political methods of pre-empting discord indicate recognition of the challenges of managing inter-organisational and inter-occupational collaborations. The range of formal and informal approaches in use indicates attempts by managers to “read” and match their activities to the particular characteristics of the
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networks of organisations and individuals engaged in the innovation effort.
Agenda for Future Research This research identifies a need to explicitly consider the existence and influence of Knowledgestewarding CoPs in triple helix innovation efforts. Further research is required to explore the extent of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs in triple helix collaborations and to harness their potential. Efforts are required to replicate both the identification of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs in triple helix organisations, and the disparate temporal schema reported in this research. Ideally, these investigations would occur within other Australian CRCs, in other hybrid industry-research collaborations in Australia and in other countries. Extension of the research methods to include quantitative measures of differences between CoP and non-CoP members could be useful in gauging the size of the differences reported in this research. In addition, the classification of boundary and network management techniques and monitoring the frequency with which they are used compared to more traditional intra-organisation management tactics, in triple helix and other industry-research collaborations could provide valuable information for future management practice. Furthermore, commercialisation processes in triple-helix organisations may well provide a fertile research setting for inspection and testing of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) conceptualisation of tacit to explicit knowledge conversion, through the externalisation quadrant of their knowledge spiral.
CONCLUSION Members of research based, Knowledge-stewarding CoPs within the CRCs expressed distinctly different views of the importance of pace, punctuality, planning horizon and preferences for polychronic
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or monochronic modes of activity. The different norms held by research and commercial groups regarding the “right” way to order temporal affairs can result in perceptions of incompetence and feelings of frustration in both communities. It can be queried whether the CRC program provides research based CoPs with opportunities to obtain the organisational legitimacy and on-going funding that they previously lacked. In contrast to intentional efforts to create CoPs within large organisations (Probst & Borzillo, 2008; Rumizen, 2002) the CRC program and similar programs in other nations may have unintentionally promoted the growth of inter-organisational Knowledgestewarding CoPs based on a particular research domain. In Australia and possibly other countries, National Systems of Innovation have contributed to the development of vibrant CoPs, spanning institutions and sectors and possessing high economic potential. However, to release that potential, recognition of the characteristics of research based, Knowledge-stewarding CoPs working within triple helix organisations, and sympathetic management, particularly in relation to time and timed events, is required. As has been recognised in the context of inter-cultural negotiation, perceptions of time can become inadvertent obstacles if left unacknowledged or deliberately manipulated by one of the parties (Macduff, 2006). As Figure 1 shows, some individuals are simultaneously members of the Knowledge-stewarding CoP and business or government institutions. These boundary-spanners may have significant roles to play in translating the temporal norms of researchers and commercial personnel, as has been proposed for groups of scholars and practitioners (Kuhn, 2002). CRCs appear to have provided one avenue for Knowledge-stewarding, research based CoPs to obtain funding and an independent organisational expression. The fact that researchers have been able to develop CoPs that span disciplines and institutions augurs well for knowledge production,
but to gain a financial return from these CoPs requires special management skills. Some of the skills required include: persuasion, sensitivity to the occupational norms and motivations of researchers, a willingness to acknowledge and negotiate compromises between the temporal constellations of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs and commercial partners in the CRC and actively managing the network of relationships and their boundaries. Further investigation of the collective temporal perceptions of Knowledge-stewarding CoPs and commercial groups provides the chance to develop management training to build these specific skills, while contributing to both knowledge management and innovation theory.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am grateful to my informants for their generosity in allowing me to benefit from their time and their experience. Without their permission, openness and support this research could not exist. In addition, I thank Ian Caddy for his valuable comments and suggestions.
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Prime Minister’s Science Engineering and Innovation Council. (2001). Commercialisation of Public Sector Research. Retrieved September 20, 2006, from http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/science_innovation/science_agencies_committees/ prime_ministers_science_engineering_innovation_council/meetings/seventh_meeting.htm Probst, G., & Borzillo, S. (2008). Why Communities of Practice Succeed and Why They Fail. European Management Journal, 26, 335–347. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2008.05.003 Rumizen, M. C. (2002). The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management. Madison, WI: CWL Publishing Enterprises. Senker, J., & Sharpe, M. (1997). Organizational Learning in Cooperative Alliances: Some Case Studies in Biotechnology. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 9(1), 35–51. doi:10.1080/09537329708524268 Singh, R. P. (2003). Improving Technology Transfer Through the Management of Stakeholder Networks: Theoretical Perspectives. International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, 2(1), 1–17. doi:10.1504/ IJTTC.2003.001798 Stake, R. E. (2000). Case Studies. In Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 435–454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Steiner, C. (2000). Teaching Scientists to Be Incompetent: Educating for Industry Work. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 20(2), 123–132. doi:10.1177/027046760002000206 Tullock, G. (1993). Are Scientists Different? Journal of Economic Studies, 20(4, 5), 90-106. Vestal, W. (2003). Ten Traits for a Successful Community of Practice Knowledge. Management Review, 5(6), 6.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS From Scott, J., & Marshall, G. (2005). A Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Management: Either the process of supervision, control, and co-ordination of productive activity in industrial and other formal organizations, or the persons performing these functions.
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Time: One of the central organizing features of social life. Social time is concerned with the nature, construction, and consequences of human activities organized around giving meaning to time. This can include the study of … daily rounds of activities including the creation of timetables and time-lines. Innovation: The economic application of a new idea. A Dictionary of Economics. John Black. Oxford University Press, 2002. Triple helix innovation: A process by which academia, government, and industry collaborate (mutually beneficial leveraging of resources) to create or discover new knowledge, technology, or products and services that are transmitted to intended final users in fulfilment of a social need. The Institute for Triple Helix Innovation www. triplehelixinstitute.org. CoP: A group of people who have a common interest or who confront a common problem and who collaborate over an extended period of time to share knowledge, find solutions to difficulties, and generate innovations. Occupations can form communities of practice and the concept has been used to shed light on the informal development and sharing of knowledge within occupational groups. An objective of knowledge management is often to form a community of practice within organizations. A virtual community of practice is one that exists in cyberspace: constructed and reproduced by people using the internet. A Dictionary of Human Resource Management. Edmund Heery and Mike Noon. Oxford University Press, 2008. Commercialisation: The stage in the development of a new product during which a decision is made to embark on its full-scale production and distribution. A Dictionary of Business and Management. Ed. Jonathan Law. Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Chapter 15
Cross-Organization Virtual CoP: A Field Study in an InformationBased Industry Demosthenes Akoumianakis Technological Education Institution of Crete, Greece
ABSTRACT The chapter motivates and presents an approach for assembling innovative information-based products and services by virtual cross-organization communities of practice. Using a case study on assembling vacation packages, we describe the cross-organizational virtual partnership, the mechanics allowing it to operate as a virtual community of practice and how collective intelligence of the members is appropriated to ensemble innovative information-based products for tourists. The results provide useful insights into innovating through virtual networking as well as the ICT tools that may be used to foster value-creating networks of practice in boundary spanning domains.
INTRODUCTION Recently, an increasing number of studies in the literature on knowledge management seek to explore the design of unified collaborative spaces and information infrastructures through which virtual communities of practice (Wenger & Snyder, 2000) engage in distributed collective practices (Turner DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch015
et al., 2006) to assemble innovative products and services. This chapter will continue this line of research focusing on how cross-organization virtual communities of practice appropriate ICT tools and infrastructure to assemble information-based and non-material (intangible) products whose competitive advantage results primarily from the availability of information and knowledge. Our primary interest is to demonstrate a design case in which collective intelligence of a bound-
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ary spanning virtual group is codified to support distributed collective practices for assembling families of vacation packages for tourists. The approach followed is rooted in the design science paradigm for information systems research (Hevner et al., 2004). Specifically, a novel virtual practice of vacation package assembly was devised so as to foster virtualization of the operations of boundary-spanning alliances (Akoumianakis, 2009; 2010). It turns out that the innovative character of the products assembled through this practice is due not only to the way in which they are compiled (i.e., factory-based assembly line), but also to their plasticity which allows them to exhibit both locality and boundary function. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. The next section reviews related work with the aim to assess emerging trends in virtual communities of practice and how they can foster innovation in information-based new product development. Then, we describe a case study on collaborative assembly of vacation packages in the tourism sector. The discussion section highlights some of the innovative premises of the present work in the context of community-based innovation. The chapter is wrapped up with a summary of key contributions and some concluding remarks.
BOUNDARY SPANNING COP AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT The present work links with two prominent theoretical concepts, namely communities of practice and innovation in community settings. The former brings to the forefront long-standing debates on what are communities of practice, the intrinsic of their function online, as well as the more recent issue of appropriate information infrastructures or practice-oriented tools. The latter, resurfaces a more recent challenge approached mainly my management scholars interested in the fabrics of knowledge management and user-driven innovation in community settings. Our interest in
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these two concepts, as summarized and detailed in this section, is motivated by recent research and development activities focused on the study of distributed collective practices in virtual crossorganization communities of practice. We will therefore attempt a brief but representative review of related literature to set the focus of our current research and motivate the subsequent discussion on innovative information-based product development in cross-organizational virtual communities of practice.
Cross-Organization Communities of Practice Communities of practice (CoP) bind together people who share a concern, a set of problems, an expertise or a passion about a topic (Wenger et al. 2002; Wenger & Snyder, 2000) to appropriate, share and create organizational knowledge. Increasingly, CoP are seen as a powerful model for improving knowledge-based competences by fostering a social view on learning and knowledge creation (Kimble & Hildreth, 2005; Brown & Duguid, 2000). Recently, innovative IT has enabled the virtualization of the operations of communities of practice introducing concepts such as networks of practice (Brown & Duguid, 2000), knowledge communities (Lindkvist, 2005) and value-creating networks (Buchel & Raub, 2002). These studies indicate that, within a particular context, different configurations of characteristics may be more or less conducive to a community’s success. Turning into practice domains, the literature reports several stories illustrating the catalytic role of virtual communities of practice in free and open source software development projects (Scacchi, 2005; Scacchi et al., 2006), the automobile and airspace sectors (Wenger et al. 2002), service industries such as tourism (Cardoso and Lange, 2007; Stockdale and Borovicka, 2006) or insurance (Dignum & van Eeden, 2005), consumer electronics (Enkel et al., 2000), as well as in domains administered by national agents and
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authorities (Mitchell, 2002). Nevertheless, the scope of these communities, their domains of practice and the available evidence do not facilitate comparisons of the respective experiences to the extent required to consolidate findings and establish common ground. A closer analysis of these efforts reveals several characteristics, which motivate the present work. In most of the cases, the ‘practice’ elements are restricted both in type and form. The majority of the studies report on practices embodied into interpersonal interactions, taking the form of document-based information sharing, exchanging messages, expressing opinion, offering feedback, etc. In commercial settings where business-sponsored community models proliferate, practice may also be framed to manipulating virtual prototypes of products so as to trigger creative users’ reaction or to enable tailoring and adapting of the product’s features to individual preferences. In such cases, the role of the community is to facilitate new and more effective marketing models (Fuller et al., 2006) as means for innovation. Another characteristic of virtual communities of practice which stands out very promptly in the majority of existing works is their informal nature, which frequently makes the task of managing the community an ‘unmanageable’ endeavor. Recent research seems to recognize this as a shortcoming and proposes constructs such as ‘best-practice transfer’ and ‘business opportunity’ value-creating networks (Buchel & Raub, 2002). Advocates of this perspective claim that such value creating knowledge networks extend beyond the traditional concept of communities of practice, as they directly contribute to the creation of value within firms (Enkel et al., 2000) and sustain communitybased innovation (Fuller et al., 2006). Finally, another issue worth noticing is that existing studies on communities of practice analyze community management in single organizations, either public or private (Juriado & Gustafsson, 2007). The more demanding problem of community formation across organizational boundaries
– either through inter-organizational partnerships or external communities of practice – is seldom addressed (Dewhurst & Cegarra Navarro, 2004; Majchrzak et al., 2000). The complexity of this challenge is explored in a recent study by Kern and Kersten (2007) where the authors investigate technologies for internet-based cross-organizational product development and identify the problems involved in designing the partnership interaction.
Innovation in Community Settings Management scientists and electronic commerce researchers recognize the value and benefit of virtual communities (of various sorts) as means for facilitating incremental (user-driven) innovation management (von Hippel, 2001; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; Franke & von Hippel, 2003; Franke & Shah, 2001, Franke & Piller, 2004). Classical examples of such communities are effectively operated for a variety of consumer goods, such as sports materials and automobiles, as well as various service and information-based industries, including tourism, health and free and open source software development. Typically, such communities bring closer to the product / service development organization the needs, requirements and preferences of the consumer base as expressed through the consumers’ manipulation of virtual prototypes or their engagement in design contests and simulations to provide original knowledge and perhaps, new design ideas. In this context, there are two main clusters of research worth mentioning. The first has its roots in the recent concept of toolkits of user innovation, initially introduced by von Hippel (2001). Subsequent research elaborates on, refines and extends the concept in various directions (Franke & Shah, 2001; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; Franke & von Hippel, 2003; Franke & Piller, 2004). The basic idea is to provide innovative users with a means for articulating, expressing and codifying design capabilities. To this effect, user toolkits provide the technology that allows users to actively contribute
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to the design of novel products by trial-and-error experimentation and by delivering immediate (simulated) feedback on the potential outcome of their design ideas (von Hippel, 2001). The general approach is arguably applicable to essentially all types of products and services where heterogeneity of user demand makes custom, ‘precisely right’ solutions valuable to buyers. Nevertheless, as noted by von Hippel and Katz (2002, p. 830), toolkits for user innovation are especially suited and are becoming more attractive in such fields as computerized design and computerized production technologies as they reduce the fixed costs associated with the design and production. The second relevant research line is concerned with the mechanics of community-based innovation. This is an emerging topic relevant to various research communities. Fuller et al., 2006 examine the issue from the perspective of electronic commerce and propose a method for community-based innovation comprising four distinct stages. Their method is solely targeted to integrating consumers into new product development, while their validation case is the design of the infotainment equipment in an automobile. In a similar vein, management scientists focus on specific aspects of competitive advantage in intra-organizational settings. One prominent conclusion is that crossfunctional teams, enabled by some sort of virtual networking, are key players in defining and implementing incremental innovation projects. In a recent special issue of the Journal of Management Studies the topic is reviewed from a variety of perspectives. Easterby-Smith et al., (2008) concentrate on inter-organizational knowledge transfer and provide a framework identifying key themes and priorities. Mason and Leek (2008) provide an informative review of dynamic business models and argue that such models represent continuous change and therefore make firms learn constantly new and better ways of doing things. Finally, Harryson et al., (2008) introduce the notion of transformation networks and discuss how such structures may foster networked innovation,
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demonstrating their results through a case study in the automobile industry. Although the two lines of research briefly reviewed above share common ground (e.g., in their reliance upon users to contribute to innovation), they are not fully interoperable in terms of orientation and basic units of analysis. This creates a gap in theoretical and engineering thinking related to innovative practice in boundary-spanning cross-organizational contexts.
Issues, Challenges and Research Focus Our discussion thus far, indicates that virtual collaboration for new product development constitutes a notion, which is actively researched at both the theoretical and engineering levels. Moreover, the recent focus on communities of practice as a tool for knowledge management in combination with the rise of interest on toolkits make useful inroads to the study of innovation. Nevertheless, the available empirical evidence falls short from addressing a number of critical issues, which in turn, create gaps in current theoretical thinking and constrain our understanding of the mechanics of innovation as attained through the use of toolkits in community settings. Amongst these gaps, the most prominent and relevant to the present work relate to establishing and operating boundary spanning virtual communities of practice. Our current effort concentrates on the following: •
•
Firstly, Brown and Duguid (1991) argue that a community of practice emerges naturally when members are intellectually and emotionally aligned. Little empirical evidence has been collected to conceptualize how a community of practice can be designed and built as part of a specific crossorganizational development context. Secondly, the concept of community of practice has been investigated in settings where members rely on face-to-face inter-
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•
action for knowledge sharing. Theoretical insights into the engineering process and dynamics of virtual communities of practice are under-developed. For instance, it remains unclear how social relationships can be built up and maintained as a means for knowledge management in cross-functional communities whose members are geographically dispersed. Thirdly, previous studies have conceptualized a community of practice as an informal group that evolves naturally within an organization. This raises the question of how far, if at all, a community of practice can be nurtured intra-organizationally, in particular with external parties, such as customers, competing allies and other suppliers.
In light of the above, the present work sets out to investigate how a cross-organizational virtual partnership can be designed, what engineering practices allow it to operate as a virtual community of practice and how collective intelligence of the members is appropriated to ensemble innovative information-based products for tourists.
CASE STUDY Tourism is a typical example of an industry rapidly being transformed from a leading application in B2C e-commerce into an information business (Rayman-Bacchus & Molina, 2001). Key trends driving this transformation include dynamic packaging technologies (Cardoso & Lange, 2007), ontologies and service-oriented architectures (Fodor & Werthner, 2004-5) as well as new models for customer relationship management facilitated by business-sponsored online communities (Stockdale & Borovica, 2006). Recently, innovative tourism actors have exploited such developments quite successfully leading to several travel com-
munities on the Web (e.g. Travelocity.com, Lonely Planet and Fodors.com). Our case study, which builds upon this line of research, was designed to investigate means and procedures for assembling innovative vacation packages defined within the scope of a vacation package family. Traditionally vacation packages of this sort, are compiled by travel agencies in an ad hoc basis by exploiting predefined events (i.e., Christmas holiday), seasonal or circumstantial incidents taking place in a region (e.g., concert or a cultural event). Due to this periodic and ad hoc character, overheads are high and the returns may not always be as expected. Furthermore, prospective customers may be reluctant to consume as customizing parts of or the entire vacation package is not an option. To improve upon current practices, vacation package assembly is conceived of as a product line engineering effort, which allows members of a cross-organization virtual alliance to appropriate the benefits of networking and collective intelligence to ensemble innovative information-based products defined within the scope of a vacation package family. A vacation package family is considered as a codified abstract representation, which is progressively transformed to concrete offerings through computer-mediated engagement in a virtual setting. Such a package family should be capable of assembling a variety of concrete packages, while also being reused, extended and modified as experience grows or as requirements evolve. It is important to note that packages assembled within the scope of a family constitute a different type of offering from the typical vacation packages offered by tour operators and destination management systems. In effect, they are ‘local’ in-vacation arrangements lasting for a few days and being independent of pre-packaged travel plans. As such, most of the times, they are conceived as supplements to a chosen vacation plan since they offer specialized and highly customizable local services to customers. Nevertheless, in certain
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cases, they may also act as catalysts for choosing or stimulating demand for destination sites.
Research Methods and Findings A qualitative survey was conducted to elicit insights on both current and envisioned practices in building vacation packages and to provide a context for design. The survey was directed to tour operators, travel agencies and was complemented by documented codes of practice i.e., “Tour Operators Initiative”. The methods used to collect data included on-site visits and interviews with the above target user communities. As our intention was to improve upon the current situation, these methods were designed so as to facilitate envisioning of new (improved) practices. In turn, these were contextualized through use cases and rapid prototyping. The findings led to an insight on current practices and the consolidation of an envisioned (virtual) practice on vacation package assembly. Analysis of current practices and technologies used for the development of a vacation packages are summarized in Table 1. As shown, building vacation packages is instituted as a set of seven basic activities administered individually (i.e., they
are performed by one actor alone) or cooperatively. Depending on the nature of the vacation package these activities may vary in scope and effort. For instance, “Package Dissemination” implicates different tasks for overseas packages requiring travel documents than inland traveling where promotion is exclusively performed by the tour operator. As for the objects/artifacts of practice, a broad range was identified including notebooks, drawing boards, schedules, etc. In a similar vein, the tools standing out very promptly either for communication or community support include a blend of conventional media such as telephone, fax, e-mail, etc., as well as more advanced dataintensive facilities (i.e., databases, repositories, reservation systems (CRS), costumer relationship management (CRM) systems) and communication means (i.e., portals and bulletin boards). Our findings regarding the current situation led to the following conclusions. First of all, vacation packages undergo distinct stages from conception to population and marketing, with a fair amount of iteration. In each stage there are specific issues to be addressed with clear milestones and outcomes. Ownership is solely with the creator of the package, not the contributing partners. The contributor’s liability amounts to
Table 1. Conventional Practices Title
Description
Actors
1
Define Package Abstract Details
Sketch the original package skeleton and define basic details (i.e., duration, activity types etc).
Tour Operator
2
Define Package Services
Detail service categories i.e., transportation, accommodation, etc. and their features
Tour Operator
3
Find Appropriate Service Supplier
Identify possible suppliers and assess capability and willingness to contribute.
Tour Operator
4
Discuss Service Details
Negotiate and agree in principle on service details according to package peculiarities.
Tour Operator & Supplier
5
Package Service Finalization
Refinement of service issues, final agreement with supplier and contract signature
Tour Operator & Supplier
6
Package Dissemination
Create Brochures, Promotion material in general and travel documents
Tour Operator, Marketing
7
Package Retail
Package retailing through channels such as travel agencies or electronic/ digital broadcasts
Travel Agency & Customers
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executing part of the plan as delegated to him/her by the creator. Communities exist to facilitate customer-relationship management and less frequently intra-organizational alliances. In the later case, community formation is largely opportunistic, based on personal contacts and making use of traditional community support media. Interaction between community members, if existent, is on a need-driven basis and purely informative (i.e., one member informs another about an event). Entering or opting out from a community is discretional and seldom follows specific rules. Consequently sense of community is weak and it can, by no means, be considered a catalyst for new or differentiated vacation packages.
Vacation Package Assembly To improve upon the current situation, a new virtual practice of vacation package assembly was devised to assess the degree to which virtual networking can catalyze cross-organizational vacation package development and facilitate innovative product offerings. Our specific design objective can be summarized as follows. Vacation packages are a typical product where heterogeneity of user demand makes custom and ‘precisely right’ solutions valuable to buyers. In this context, innovation is not only accounted for by delivering highly customizable products but also by the means (i.e., the process) through which such products are assembled. To set the context for design, we made use of a scenario briefly summarized in Exhibit 1. Exhibit 1: Fred has just purchased a package for a two-week vacation in a popular resort in Europe through a local travel agent. However, as he is interested in history and culture he would like to spend a few days visiting archaeological sites nearby his vacation destination. By surfing on the Web he comes across eKoNES-Tourism and reviews the eKoNES offerings during the period of his vacation. He is also informed that by register-
ing as an eKoNES villager, he can pose a request to eKoNES-Tourism to articulate a demand for a new ‘local’ vacation package, which best suits his requirements. Fred decides to do this as he appreciates planning this vacation and making arrangements upfront. Indeed, he proceeds and creates an account with eKoNES and subsequently registers his request in the eKoNES message board. In a few seconds, the system returns back with a message confirming the registration of the request, an indication of the process to fulfill the request and a tentative response schedule. The scenario’s focus is on a customer’s intent to plan his/her vacation period at a designated destination. Intentionally, the scenario is indifferent to how the customer reaches the selected destination or the details of the pre-packaged solution (i.e., choice of accommodation, supplementary services, etc). Instead, it concentrates on articulating demand for ‘local’ packages independently of the customer’s pre-packaged service. Moreover, the scenario could easily be extended so that it serves the cause of determining / influencing the ultimate choice of destination, but for the purposes of this discussion this option will not be explicitly addressed. Table 2 summarizes components of vacation package assembly emphasizing key workflows, the subsuming activities and how they are assigned to the lifecycle stages of the corresponding electronic squad (or cross organizational virtual community of practice). In the remaining of the section we will briefly elaborate on these components from the perspective of community management and practice-oriented functions as supported in the eKoNES-Tourism pilot.
Community Management and Electronic Squads Electronic squads are virtual cross-neighbourhood alliances of registered members contributing their services to a vacation package. A pre-requisite for participation in electronic squads is registration to
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Table 2. Package development workflows vs. squad lifecycle stages Workflows Initiation
Title Choose Package Family
Actor
Squad Lifecycle
Moderator
Define Package Abstract Details Instantiate Package Template Define service neighborhoods Elaboration
Deployment
Tailoring
Invite competent partners
Moderator
Squad Formation
Squad
Issue Detection
Moderator
Issue Solution proposals
Squad
Negotiation and solution Selection
Squad
Consolidate issues into norms & rules
Squad
Compile package protocol agreement
Squad
Activity finalization
Squad
Choose Package template
Squad
Assemble package promotion aata
Squad
Disseminate / promote package
Squad
Review & negotiate tailoring requests
Squad
Respond to tailoring requests
Squad
Support execution of Package
Squad
one or more neighbourhoods. Figure 1 provides an instance of the eKoNES-Tourism portal outlining neighbourhoods currently available and the portlet organization of each neighbourhood (i.e., neighbourhood news portlet, neighbourhood services portlet and neighbourhood directory portlet). Figure 2 illustrates typical stages involved in the electronic registration to a neighborhood. eKoNES villagers may register to one or more neighborhoods provided that they offer services owned by the neighborhood. Electronic registration to neighborhoods need not be a one-step process. Indeed, candidate neighbors may create their profile in stages and update it as required. Upon successful registration, neighbors are presented in the neighborhood’s directory (see dedicated portlet in Figure 1) and obtain access to downloadable software components and dedicated tools needed for their effective participation in the collaborative exchanges of
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Forming
Storming Norming Performing
eKoNES squads. Additionally, neighbors enjoy a number of services including web hosting, asynchronous notification through SMS, GroupSMS and email and access to the neighborhood’s online discussion forums and policy making procedures. Registration to a neighborhood entails acceptance of key terms and conditions, which define privacy and security issues, antagonistic behavior, and the liabilities of a member towards eKoNES. In terms of contents, neighborhoods choose to organize their informational offerings in different ways. To this effect, eKoNES offers a rich library of information templates.
Engaging in Practice: The Squad’s Virtual Workroom Once a request such as that described in Exhibit 1 is registered, eKoNES triggers several parallel activities to create a resource to fulfill the de-
Cross-Organization Virtual CoP
Figure 1. The eKoNES portal and neighborhood organization (a) Profile management (b) Declaring competences and resources
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Figure 2. Stages in electronic neighbourhood registration
mand. Some of these activities reuse previously acquired knowledge and experience while others require eKoNES members to engage in a variety of collaborative exchanges through the eKoNES squad’s virtual workspace. The tool implementing this virtual workplace as well as its supporting services is a downloadable client application made available only to eKoNES neighbors. The general metaphor used to design the user interface of this client toolkit is the physical workroom within a floor of a building (see Figure 3). As shown, each eKoNES squad has its own work room with two distinct entry points representing the moderator’s view and the squad members’ view of the room. Figure 3 presents the moderator’s version of the client toolkit, while Figure 4 contrasts the moderator’s (left) and the squad members’ view (right) of a designated package. The moderator’s client toolkit integrates two perspectives upon the distributed collective practice of vacation package assembly. These are triggered by the tabs in the lower dialogue and represent the two distinct views into the room’s content, namely the view providing insight into the staged development of the package (package workflows view) and the
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view documenting the dynamic exchanges of the squad leading to the package (squad lifecycle view). We will briefly elaborate on the package lifecycle view, as it details elements of the boundary practices involved in assembling vacation packages. The squad lifecycle view, which is elaborated elsewhere (Akoumianakis, 2010), is equally important, as it offers insight to dynamic patterns of behavior exhibited by squad members during vacation package assembly. Package initiation (i.e., the first workflow in the package lifecycle) is always carried out by an eKoNES moderator and precedes all other activities or views. Specifically, once a demand for a new package is posed to the eKoNES-Tourism, an eKoNES moderator acting as a filtering mechanism retrieves a suitable package family and constructs an instance of abstract package under this family. This automatically reserves a collaboration space devoted to the package’s workroom where the members can work to fulfill the package details. The instantiated package inherits general properties / mandatory fields from of the package family such as such as name, creation date, duration and identification of the
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Figure 3. The moderator’s view of the workroom
Figure 4. Package elaboration stage
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domain-specific neighborhoods or categories of interest (culture, accommodation, transportation, food and beverage) as defined by the end user during the process of registering interest with eKoNES-Tourism. Additional details are filled-in as the package proceeds through designated workflows from initiation to elaboration, deployment and tailoring. Once a package is initiated, the corresponding squad is formed dynamically by the system, comprising all registered neighbors in the package’s neighborhoods. The eKoNES asynchronous notification service, which supports email, group SMS and instant messaging notification, undertakes to notify all squad members and request their commitment. While in the forming stage, members of the eKoNES squad may engage in electronic exchanges to assess requirements of the new package against own available resources and accordingly declare either commitment of participation or withdrawal using their version of the client toolkit. Squad members committed to a package form the ultimate squad. Package elaboration proceeds immediately after a package is initiated. In this stage only committed squad members are allowed to contribute. In the elaboration stage, the objective is to populate a package in terms of specific activities (neighborhood services). The package is manifested as a panel of neighborhood-specific activities representing the shared model of the product being developed. Typically, the squad’s moderator will propose an initial elaboration for a package and invite contributions by squad members. This is illustrated in Figure 4, which depicts the interactive instances of the package elaboration scenario for the moderator (left) and the squad members (right). It is worth mentioning that both these views of the same package are automatically compiled and assembled from the package’s XML-based model. As for the structural differences in the two template layouts, these have been intentionally designed to facilitate the different views of moderators and squad members upon the same vacation package (Akoumianakis et al.,
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2008). However, the meaning of the constituent elements remains consistent and indicates aggregate service offerings to be specified later on or selected by an end user during the tailoring stage. In the squad members’ view (see Figure 4b) the package layout is different. The shared model of the package is presented in a TV-program like metaphor with each column representing activities of a single day. The selectable objects are those representing resources owned by the squad members. These are the only elements of the model that can be manipulated by the squad member. Upon selecting an activity various semantic actions are available through the tab pane in the lower dialogue of Figure 4b, allowing squad members to express opinion, request clarification, accept or decline proposals, etc. These actions are realized as asynchronous posts of XML messages to the squad’s message board. Conflicts are usually handled in synchronous collaborative sessions (virtual meetings) were all squad members can take part and negotiate options of the package. A synchronous session is announced and launched by the squad moderator, who also defines the collaboration agenda (i.e., part of the package to be shared and replicated during the session). This is achieved by designating the components (or neighborhoods) of a package and the package’s workflow stage (i.e., elaboration). During synchronous collaborative sessions contributions to the shared model is managed by the floor manager undertaking runtime permission assignments and participant notification of changes in the state of the model. Runtime permission assignment entails assessment of who has permission to act in the collaborative workspace at any time. Thus modifying or adding new content follows some rules that clarify and assure that there is a logical coherence in the actions of the participants. Once floor access is granted to a participant, all replicas of the shared model at the registered clients are locked so that the model remains visible but not accessible. Manipulation of the shared object by the floor owner is transparent ensuring that
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all participants are concurrently notified of the changes introduced to the shared object by the floor owner. This allows a kind of feed-through whereby actions in the shared object are always performed on the latest version of the model. In the deployment stage the package is transformed into a concrete offering with clear illustration of package options, alternatives and offers per activity as well as price range. Package publication entails selection and authoring of a
designated template. Once the details of the package are finalized and agreed, all its components are assembled and published as a new resource in a portlet context (see upper left component in Figure 5) through the eKoNES portal. Moreover, all registered villagers having expressed an interest in the package are notified through the eKoNES notification service and are prompted to make a reservation or request further adjustments.
Figure 5. Package articulation in the tailoring phase
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The ultimate assignment of the package’s options is finalized during the tailoring phase so as to reflect a customer’s detailed requirements and preferences. During tailoring, prospective users, informed of the package’s availability, are prompted to consider making a personalized reservation (see Figure 5). Since the package is fully populated, end users can access it through a variety of devices including desktop computers, mobile devices or other network attachable terminals using the suitable templates. The example in Figure 5 illustrates a typical scenario using the portal. As shown, the dedicated portlet on the left hand side assembles all currently available offerings including the new vacation package ‘Peloponissos Round Trip’. Users can choose this package and explore its contents in a portlet context. This entails that the package assembly toolkit extracts and builds all elements of the package from the corresponding XML model. Users may request further modifications to the package by submitting requests. This causes the squad to re-consider specific issues. In such cases the package re-enters the elaboration and deployment phase for customization. This process may be iterated until a personalized package is created to suit specific user needs and preferences. Accordingly, a vacation package may be
constructed, negotiated and re-constructed several times during its lifecycle.
Assessment, Practice and Experience eKoNES, as presented earlier has been thoroughly evaluated to assess the usefulness of the underlying collaboration model and the supporting tools. A particular strand in the evaluation efforts was aimed at gaining insights into what is being practiced and how in virtual space. To facilitate such insights, we devised an evaluation scheme (see Figure 6), which would allow us to unfold elements of practice in virtual settings and discover the social aspects of the knowledge being shared, how it is managed and articulated by different partners and how it becomes embedded into collective offerings. In this effort, our intention has been to extract the required evidence by tracing the members’ experiences with designated computermediated artifacts of the virtual practice. Such a commitment led us to devise a type of virtual archaeology where the settlement is the eKoNES collaborative environment and the virtual space which is enacted. Three virtual ethnographic studies of operating squads were conducted with the researcher acting as the moderator of the respective squads. The
Figure 6. Method for conducting virtual ethnographic studies
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details of these studies are elaborated elsewhere (Akoumianakis et al., 2011), while their respective results have been very informative as to the culture of collaboration between the partners as well as the social factors which seem to predominate in cross-functional virtual communities of practice. In what follows we provide a consolidated overview focusing on the most prominent findings, as extracted by content analysis of online behavior and the partners’ contributions as recorded by the tools. One key conclusion from our studies points to the partners’ widely different perspectives and motives for collaboration, which interestingly appear to be related to their size, technological capabilities and product / service differentiation. Specifically, SMEs reported very positive and favorable attitudes to virtual networking, but they appeared to be the least responsive to the moderators’ requests. It also became apparent that they were not so much concerned with the mechanics of collaboration as with the appropriation of the resulting benefits (i.e., increasing financial returns, establishing a virtual presence, becoming associated with large vacation establishments). The second type of organization with very favorable attitude to eKoNES was non-market institutions such as the local champers of commerce, regional government offices and information bureaus. Although they did not engage in vacation package assembly (in the sense of offering services of some sort) they intervened in the virtual setting by offering advice, clarifications and motives for partners to collaborate. Their primary benefit, as codified in the workshops following the virtual ethnographies was to promote regional destination sites irrespective of the details of the vacation package. The surprising outcome of our studies came from the third type of organization taking part in virtual ethnographic studies, namely large vacation establishments. In all three studies, representatives of this type of organization were very responsive to the moderator’s requests, supportive of the
squad’s agenda and conscious of quality goals (i.e., prompt identification of potential danger such as strikes or repair works, guidance to minimizing delays and willing to undertake responsibility on behalf of peers). At first glance, these findings seemed very promising and led us to believe that eKoNES could be used to foster large – small firm agreements in information-based industries such as tourism. However, the follow-up workshops did not confirm this assumption. Specifically, in all three cases representatives of large vacation establishments expressed serious concerns resulting from the fact that they were expected to collaborate and make commitments to parties not known in advance and not sharing similar vision, or quality concerns. One response which is representative of this attitude is summarized as follows: ‘My company would have been much more interested to adopt eKoNES as the internal, enterprise-wide information system to manage already existing and trusted alliances. Having to collaborate with strangers is not an accepted culture, even though it may bring benefits. After all, we have our own communities, with whom we have been collaborating for years now. We know their capacity to deliver, and they know what we expect…’ – Representative of large vacation establishment. From the above it stands to argue that building practice-oriented tools to enable new modes of collaborative work in virtual settings will not be conducive to success, unless there is a culture favorable to collaboration and virtual networking. Such favorable culture is more likely to be found in cultivated communities of practice rather than non-homogeneous networks of practice. Moreover, it seems that technological capacity of the partners is necessary but not sufficient condition for success. Candidates should value synergy and complementarities as means for attaining economic efficiency and efficacy in the long run.
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To this end, social factors determining trust, commitment and willingness to participate, are likely to have catalytic role.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION In this chapter we have investigated virtual practices in boundary spanning and cross-organisation communities of practice. These are communities in which individual ‘local’ activities of members are intertwined with the more abstract community practice encapsulated in the collaborative practice environment. From the results presented, several conclusions can be drawn regarding the design and use of practice-oriented technologies in community settings. Firstly, their design should be focused on an acceptable practice-oriented vocabulary (i.e., models, guidelines, tools) resulting from what is common sense across collaborating sites. Such common sense is what needs to be designed as ‘boundary’ practice in the virtual space. Moreover, boundary practices should exhibit the required plasticity so as to be easily translated to the local context of the collaborators. Secondly, technologies for practice should encapsulate functional and non-functional requirements, if they are to serve their intended role. Functional requirements include support for workflows to unify the members’ view upon what is to be done. Non-functional requirements entail inscriptions in technology to facilitate reuse, incremental refinement, extensibility and evolution in product lines. Both are critical in establishing virtual spaces favorable to innovation. Finally, technologies for practice should act as media for social interaction coordinated by rules of participation and engagement. These rules should be explicit, wherever possible designed into the software, visible and transparent to all members of the community. Such rules are also prerequisites for creating and sustaining trust and an environment of mutual benefit and appreciation.
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Cardoso, J., & Lange, C. (2007). A framework for assessing strategies and technologies for dynamic packaging applications in e-tourism. Information Technology & Tourism, 9, 27–44. doi:10.3727/109830507779637585
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Dewhurst, F. W., & Cegarra Navarro, J. G. (2004). External communities of practice and relational capital. The Learning Organization: The International Journal of Knowledge and Organizational Learning Management, 11(4/5), 322–331.
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Dignum, V., & van Eeden, P. (2005). Seducing, engaging and supporting communities at Achmea. In Baets, W. (Ed.), Knowledge Management and Management Learning, Extending the Horizons of Knowledge-Based Management (pp. 125–141). Springer.
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Easterby-Smith, M., & Lyles, A., M., & Tsang, W., K., E. (2008). Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer: Current Themes and Future Prospects. Journal of Management Studies, 45(4), 677–690. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2008.00773.x Enkel, E., Heinold, P., Hofel-Alfeis, J., & Wicki, Y. (2000). The power of communities. How to build knowledge management on a corporate level using the bottom up approach. In Davenport, T., & Probst, G. (Eds.), Knowledge Management case book (pp. 84–103). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Fodor, O., & Werthner, H. (n.d). (2004-5). Harmonise: A step toward an interoperable E-tourism marketplace. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 9(2), 11–39. Franke, N., & Piller, F. (2004). Value Creation by Toolkits for User Innovation and Design: The Case of the Watch Market. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 21, 401–415. doi:10.1111/j.0737-6782.2004.00094.x Franke, N., & Shah, S. (2001). How communities support innovative activities: An exploration of assistance and sharing among innovative users of sporting equipment. Sloan Working Paper #4164.
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von Hippel, E. (2001). Perspective: User toolkits for innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 18(4), 247. doi:10.1016/S07376782(01)00090-X von Hippel, E., & Katz, R. (2002). Shifting innovation to users via toolkits. Management Science, 48(7), 821–833. doi:10.1287/mnsc.48.7.821.2817 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, & identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of Practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 139–145.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Virtual Cross-Organization Community of Practice: Boundary-spanning and intra-organizational virtual alliances operating as moderated virtual communities of practice whose members represent organizations of different sectors of an industry. Electronic Squads: A virtual team of representatives of a virtual cross-organization community of practice involved in computer-mediated assembly of vacation packages. Practice-Oriented Toolkit: A software suite allowing members of a virtual community of practice to engage in the practice the community is about.
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Chapter 16
Future Tools for Sharing Knowledge:
Virtual Communities in the Web3D David Oyarzun Vicomtech - Visual Communication Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain Amalia Ortiz Enne, Spain María del Puy Carretero Vicomtech - Visual Communication Interaction Technologies Centre, Spain
ABSTRACT The goal of this chapter is to encourage an open discussion about current and future technological support for knowledge sharing and learning. This support can be especially beneficial for communities of practice, where technology can bring increasingly geographically distant companies and knowledge closer together. The chapter introduces new technologies based on emergent Web3D and which can improve current ways of sharing knowledge and providing eLearning support. These are 3D virtual worlds as knowledge sharing tools and the concept of serious games as a way for improving learning processes. An application that combines both technologies would unite the main features of constructivist learning theories, and therefore, be a useful tool for supporting communities of practices’ learning and knowledge flow in a very dynamic way. This chapter also suggests what ideal tools for knowledge sharing and learning on Future Internet could be like, the advantages that their use could provide and the factors the authors believe should be improved to turn this ideal tool into a reality. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch016
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Future Tools for Sharing Knowledge
INTRODUCTION The appearance of Web 2.0 tools has changed the way people communicate. Until their appearance, the traditional Web (called now Web 1.0 in order to distinguish it from the current web) was an almost unidirectional way of transmitting information. People created their web pages and filled them with contents, but there was no feedback from other users to complement these contents. Nowadays, the proliferation of blogs, forums, instant messaging tools and wikis (in other words, Web 2.0 technologies) provides a new communication scenario in which communities with similar interests can share their comments and knowledge in real time. One of the factors that has contributed these tools’ great success has probably been their ease of use. Very little technical knowledge or specific expertise is needed to use them. They are almost universal tools. And they have been very widely accepted. Nowadays, for example, Facebook has more than 400 million active users (statistics, 2010). With regard to the use of Web 2.0 tools for sharing knowledge in the working environment, LinkedIn (LinkedIn Home Page, 2010), considered to be the biggest professional network, has more than 200,000 interest groups. Users share comments and information with other users with the same interests. This level of acceptance means that knowledge sharing is not only easy but also fast. Fast, on the one hand, in that Web 2.0 tools provide real time communication. On the other hand, they are so widely accepted that it is easy to find groups sharing common interests and with huge numbers of active members willing to share their expertise. The combination of these two factors means that knowledge flow is quicker than when using other tools. Reports about Future Internet are starting to talk about the up-and-coming web (es.Internet, 2009; Portal, 2010). According to these reports,
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one of Future Internet’s objectives is to evolve the paradigm of users as content consumers and producers, introduced by Web 2.0, towards a new stage in which web services will be completely interactive and collaborative for all users. Another factor that is being introduced is the Web3D: one of the features of the new generation of web tools will be the inclusion of simulations of real life by means of 3D contents and immersive environments. Only time will allow us to see the validity and success of these new trends. However, some advantages and disadvantages can be stated now, and that is this chapter’s objective. The aim is to encourage an open discussion about the disadvantages of current Web 2.0 based tools and the possibilities that a new, more collaborative and immersive web can provide for overcoming them. The chapter starts from the hypothesis that technological solutions that can be useful for communities of practice are more useful include collaborative working possibilities, immersion and learning validity. Taking this into account, the next section presents a state-of-the-art analysis of current Web 2.0 tools for collaborative work and learning. Virtual world characteristics and serious games that can improve Web 2.0 tools’ knowledge sharing and learning are then explained. Section 5 lists the features that can be useful for CoPs and Section 6 suggests factors that should be improved in next generation tools. Finally, conclusions are presented.
STATE OF THE ART Web 2.0 for the Technological Support of CoPs The state-of-the-art in collaborative tools for knowledge sharing and creating virtual communities is based on Web 2.0 tools.
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Figure 1. “Meme map” of Web 2.0 that was developed by Tim O’Reilly et al. during a brainstorming session. Extracted from (O’Reilly, 2005 #3).
Web 2.0 is defined as new digital platforms for generating, sharing and refining information on the Internet. It is a new way of understanding the Internet that provides information flow and management depending on the behavior of the users that access it. It allow users easier, more centralized access to contents and participation in creating and classifying contents by means of increasingly easy-to-use and intuitive tools (Torre, 2006). The term was coined by Tim O’Reilly during a brainstorming session in 2004. In this session a “meme map” of Web 2.0 was developed (see Figure 1). There are considerable differences between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 (the traditional web) that have converted it into a tool that promotes collective intelligence. McAfee uses the acronym SLATES to refer to these differences (McAfee, 2006):
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S – Search. The ability of searching using keywords instead of traditional Intranet tools such as page layouts and navigation aids. L – Links. Links between web pages are an excellent guide to what is important and provide structure to online content. In this structure, the ‘best’ pages are the ones that are most frequently linked to. A – Authoring. New Web 2.0 tools provide a way for non-authors to become authors. Wikis provide an iterative way for creating and managing contents and blogs provide a cumulative means. T – Tags. Categorization of content by user-added tags is widely used. They are short,(usually one-word) descriptions. This makes searching easier, without dependence on pre-made categories. Collections
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•
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of tags are created by users following their own criteria. E – Extensions. Following the tagging system, smart software is able to suggest pages that can be interesting for users, taking into account their preferences in any specific search. S – Signals. Ways to alert users about updates in the content they are interested in. This is not only done by means of email alerts. RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’) systems also provide information to software about updates, called aggregators that users only have to check.
Several tools have been built using these components. Some of them are useful for both knowledge sharing and learning and have become very popular. With regard to tools that promote knowledge sharing and collective intelligence, Perera compiles three popular groups (Perera, 2007): Wikis, blogs and podcasts. •
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Wikis (the word comes from the Hawaiian, meaning hurry). These are collaborative web sites whose content can be edited by anyone who access to them. Wikis can be used not only as a source for obtaining information and knowledge, but also as a method of virtual collaboration, e.g., sharing dialogue and information among participants in group projects. They also allow collective learning, using wikis as a collaborative environment to construct knowledge or to be part of a virtual community of practice. Blogs. The term was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 and defined as “A Web page where a Web logger ‘logs’ all the other pages she finds interesting” (Blood, 2004). The word ‘blog’ is a contraction of ‘Web Log’. Blogs can be written by one person or by a group of contributors.
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Podcasts. This is a way of creating audiovisual content. Users can listen to podcasts and watch vodcasts on their computer (e.g. using Windows Media Player), or download them to portable MP3/MP4 players and listen or watch them anywhere.
With regard to learning capabilities, there is also software known as Learning Management Systems (LMSs). These are applications used for managing, distributing and tracking eLearning activities. They are increasingly used by companies and large institutions. These systems do not usually include authoring features but are focused on managing previously created contents. Authoring is done by means of Learning Content Management Systems (LCMSs). These are considered to be valuable learning tools and, therefore, many different systems have be created. Proprietary systems such as Blackboard (Blackboard Home Page, 2010) and Desire2Learn (Desire2Learn Home Page, 2010), and open source systems such as the popular Moodle (Moddle Home Page, 2010), Ilias (Ilias Home Page, 2010) and ATutor (ATutor Home Page, 2010) are widely used nowadays.
Web 2.0 Pros and Cons These tools seem to be useful for running communities of practice. But the question remains: is this Web 2.0 technology really useful for supporting communities of practice? Has this been proved? And, if it has, could it be improved in order to obtain an even more suitable way of running communities of practice? Hamburg et al. (I. Hamburg, 2007) use the term virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) referring to Web 2.0 support for communities of practice and they enumerate several advantages and disadvantages associated with them (view Table 1).
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Table 1. Virtual Communities of Practice Advantages
Disadvantages
People and information can be accessed anytime
Members have to be motivated continually
Through participants’ different expertise and knowledge, their innovative ideas can contribute to more effective problem solving and decision making
Lack of “face to face” communication can contribute to growing social isolation
Cost effective
The hardware and software required and/or difficulties with the use of the VCoP supported technology can prevent people interested from participating
People feel less inhibited while interacting and this is particularly important for learning.
In general, it is considered that Web 2.0 tools, although they do have some disadvantages, are useful for geographically distant communities of practice. But Web3D technologies could provide a way for obtaining Web 2.0’s advantages without suffering its disadvantages. Specifically, from authors’ point of view, two emergent technologies could achieve this. They are examined in next section.
One user’s actions can affect the virtual world and they are noticed by the rest of users connected. These characteristics provide two useful advantages for communities of practice: •
Web3D Evolution Web3D technologies are predicted to be the evolution of current multimedia web. They will provide new ways of showing information and interacting with it via 3D contents and simulations. These new technologies’ features, which are apparently disjointed, or at least do not seem to be useful for communities of practice, include some technological systems that could remove the disadvantages of Web 2.0 explained in previous section: •
3D virtual worlds. In these systems one of the objectives is to achieve user immersion with a more or less faithful simulation of the real life. One of the main factors in obtaining this immersion is that users are usually represented by 3D avatars embedded in the virtual world and they can communicate and interact among themselves.
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Face-to-face communication. Immersion by means of avatars can make up for missing face-to-face communication. Avatars can simulate human behavior by expressing emotions or including non-verbal language during speech. Easier collaborative working possibilities. Virtual worlds enable, at least potentially, communication channels that are more natural than when using Web 2.0 tools. This could improve the way collaborative work is done. In addition, the possibility of including not only current multimedia information but also 3D content could make it easier to understand knowledge. ◦⊦ Serious games. Serious games are systems that use gaming technology with any purpose apart from leisure. These technologies can avoid the continuous need for work on motivation. Their design and philosophy of “play to learn” can provide continuous goals that keep users motivated if the system is correctly developed.
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Figure 2. Users speaking in Second Life (extracted from http://www.dot-secondlife.es/blog/?p=88)
This could remove another Web 2.0 tools’ disadvantage: the need to create continuous motivation for community members. Finally, as with any other kind of software, the ease of use of both systems has to be studied in depth. However, Web3D technology has an initial advantage over Web 2.0 technology: 3D simulations of real aspects (i.e. 3D avatars simulating a real person) can stimulate natural communication channels, and, in this way, provide a more intuitive, easier use, at least potentially. The next sections detail the main features of each of these technologies.
VIRTUAL WORLDS’ KNOWLEDGE SHARING CAPABILITIES There are almost as many definitions of virtual worlds as there are virtual worlds. From the au-
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thor’s point of view, a virtual world is a synchronous and continual network of inhabitants (users or autonomous agents), represented by avatars embedded in 3D applications and supported by computer networks (D. Oyarzun, 2010). Nowadays, there are a great number of very popular virtual world with different purposes. For example, there are virtual worlds for leisure such as World of Warcraft, The Sims Online, Moove and Playdo; for general purposes such as Second Life, Habbo Hotel and There; for advertising such as Disney’s Toontown Online, Coke Studios and Dubit… There are also virtual worlds about tourism, culture, medicine… in short, the popularity that virtual worlds have obtained implies that there are worlds for any imaginable environment. The main conceptual elements of any virtual world system are: users, avatars, the virtual world itself and the autonomous agents.
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Figure 3. Virtual world’s elements schema
Figure 3 shows a schema of these elements and the communication channels between them: •
•
•
•
The user interacts with the virtual world through his/her avatars. Avatars are controlled by Input/Output devices. Agents, in the same way, are represented by means of avatars, which are directly controlled (via software functions). Avatars, driven by users or agents, can interact between themselves or with the virtual world. The virtual world channels the interactions between avatars and manages the contents, objects and services that are provided.
So users and agents are the intelligent elements in the virtual world; avatars provide a natural way for interaction and communication between themselves, and the virtual world is the basis for knowledge sharing. Virtual worlds include interaction factors not associated with users, agents or avatars. In other
words, terms, contents and media that Straaten defined for categorizing a virtual world (Straaten, 2000). They include the following functionalities and features: •
Functionalities. ◦⊦ Interaction channeling. The virtual world is the element that makes interaction between avatars possible. Although the avatar is the element that allows interactions between users and users and agents, they cannot exist without a medium. Therefore, this is one of the main functions of virtual worlds. ◦⊦ Physical rules. The rules that control the avatar and other interactive objects’ interactions. There can be realistic or non-realistic rules such as ‘an avatar cannot go through a wall’ or avatars flying in Second Life. Each virtual world establishes its own rules and physical laws that condition interactions.
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Logical rules. They refer to objectives or goals in a virtual world. They, too, are different in each virtual world. Features: contents. ◦⊦ 3D objects. 3D static or dynamic objects, in the sense that they can have associated behavior or not. They can be both 3D objects that conform to the environment or the objects which users or agents can interact with. Objects’ behavior (for example, a virtual pen that writes when an avatar takes it) are defined by the object itself or by virtual world rules. Techniques for defining object behaviour (the objects tell the avatar what it can do with them) was created in the 90’s and it is known as Smart Object technique (L. Goncalves, 2001). ◦⊦ Multimedia contents. This is general information. It can be static or dynamic. Static information is text, images, videos, etc. Dynamic information is, for instance, Google mapping in the virtual world. This dynamism is controlled by virtual world rules or by an agent that is not represented by means of an avatar. ◦⊦
•
In resume, the virtual world provides the medium for interacting avatars and offers information and services. Therefore, virtual worlds keep two Web 2.0 advantages for giving technological support to communities of practice: Real time collaboration and interaction and knowledge sharing. They also provide two more advantages that are useful for communities of practice support and avoid Web 2.0 disadvantages. •
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Face-to-face communication. Representation by means of avatars tries to simulate human-to-human communication. The inclusion of natural and intuitive tools that al-
•
low avatars to express emotional gestures and non-verbal language makes communication easier in geographically distant communities of practice. This is one of the main advantages of Web 2.0-based supporting tools and one of the virtual worlds’ strengths. 3D contents. Some information is better understood by means of 3D simulation. Virtual worlds makes it possible to complement multimedia information with 3D content and to embed all of it in the own environment. Virtual world users can interact in real time and in a collaborative way with both multimedia information and 3D contents.
SERIOUS GAMES LEARNING CAPABILITIES Serious games is a term for games whose goal is not leisure. In other words, they use the same technologies and algorithms (even the same graphic and logic engines) as traditional computer games but with a purpose different other than playing. A. Derryberry (Derryberry, 2007) has compiled the minimum features that are common to all serious games (due to the fact that they are games): •
• • •
•
Backstory and story line. The story upon which it is based and a story line that it follows. Game mechanics. The handlers for all the specific functions within a game. Rules. The constraints in play on every player’s actions and abilities. Immersive graphical environment. The sensory representation of each game’s experience layer, including 2D/3D graphics, sound and animation. Interactivity. The impact a player’s actions have on the world.
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•
•
Challenge/competition. The competition against the game, against one’s self, and/or against other players. Risks and consequences. Consequences of each challenge in the game world.
Both traditional and serious games are built using these basis features. Serious games are classified depending on their purpose: •
•
•
• •
Advergaming. Games designed with commercial purposes. The whole game is oriented toward a commercial product or mark. Health games. Games that try to make players aware of healthy habits or specific exercise training. Political & Social Games. Games that try to encourage players in rules about and civic life and behaviour. Others. Any area the reader can imagine … Learning games. The serious games this chapter is focused on. Some sources consider all serious games to be learning games; in fact, the list above could be defined as learning about different issues. However, in this group we refer to learning skills related to new knowledge and education.
The main benefit of learning games is the concept of “playing to learn”. The learning process is made enjoyable. Different studies conclude that the main advantage of game-based learning over traditional learning is motivation (S. de Freitas, 2006) and another important factor that is useful in some cases is safety. •
Motivation. Obtained thanks to fun and continuous goals. A well designed game avoids players getting bored and continuous goals, maybe of increasing difficulty,
•
•
motivate players to continue their learning process. Safety. In some cases (i.e. learning to repair a dangerous machine) players can learn new skills without a risk to their health. Asynchronous learning. The role of a real tutor as a continuous monitor for the learning process disappears. Students can start or continue their learning processes when they want. Although a real tutor will be always necessary, the learning process can be managed either in a synchronous or in an asynchronous way, depending on the needs.
Thanks to these three factors, serious games, specifically learning games, become a very useful tool for learning. Depending on each case, they can be used as a complement to traditional learning or as an autonomous tool for learning.
HOW COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE COULD BENEFIT FROM BOTH Virtual worlds have been widely used for knowledge sharing and eLearning, maybe due to their ability to show 3D and multimedia information and the possibility of interacting with tutors and other student in the same virtual place in real time. Nowadays, a lot of different learning institutions and education centres, from prestigious universities like Harvard or the Imperial College to medical assessment centres, are represented in general purpose virtual worlds like Second Life. On the other hand, several virtual worlds have a completely educational focus. Examples of this include Mokitown (Mokitown Home Page, 2010), focusing on children’s education, and Whyville (Whyville Home Page, 2010) for science learning. In fact, several studies (W. H. Bares, 1998; Dalgarno, 2002) consider virtual worlds to be a suitable environment for applying constructivist
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education theory, partially examined by Piaget (Piaget, 1954). This theory establishes three points: •
•
•
Student create their own knowledge representation and therefore, there is no unique knowledge representation. Learning occurs when, in active knowledge exploration, students discover a gap in their knowledge or incoherence between their current knowledge representation and their experience. Learning occurs in a social context and therefore interaction among students is necessary in the learning process.
Although there is some criticism with regards to the possibility of achieving effective learning in current virtual worlds (Berge, 2008), even these opinions focus on the problem with the learning curve in virtual world use. They consider the potential of eLearning to be very valuable and are optimistic about the evolution of these worlds towards an environment that makes education easier. Bearing in mind the advantages and disadvantages in state-of-the-art, a tool that combines virtual worlds’ and serious games’ main features would be very useful for supporting communities of practice. Virtual worlds support high-performance, collaborative working (thousands of people can interact simultaneously within the world and between themselves). They can communicate via verbal and non-verbal language creating an illusion of immersion and minimizing the lack of face-to-face communication (in worlds like Second Life it is quite common to organize symposiums and speeches). On the other hand, serious games, if well designed, provide continuous motivating learning experience for players. A combination of both tools is a tool with which expert users can design stories in an easy way to disseminate knowledge. These stories are
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the basis for interactive and collaborative games that motivate the rest of the community to follow the story and learn. Moreover, it includes the collaborative and knowledge sharing capabilities of virtual worlds. That is, immersive forums where all the members of the community can share their expertise and comments. This tool keeps the advantages of Web 2.0 tools for supporting communities of practice and avoids the disadvantages. Immersion and collaborative possibilities provide the nearest approach to a face-to-face community of practice but in a geographically distant world. The learning features can even improve on face-to-face communities’ advantages. However, there are some technological gaps that have to be solved to be able to create this useful tool. These gaps are explained in next section.
DISSERTATION: CURRENT AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGICAL POSSIBILITIES The sections above have explained features included in Web 3D technologies that could improve current Web 2.0 support for communities of practice by reducing some of their limitations. However, this is an emergent technology that needs to be developed or matured if it is to be really successful. There are some gaps to be filled before being in a position to develop the ideal tool for supporting communities of practice: •
•
Content authoring tools. Content creation for virtual worlds, especially for 3D content, is a difficult task that is usually performed by expert authors. Development of tools that allow non expert users to create contents in an easy way will be needed in order to obtain a useful system. Storytelling. Related with the previous point, there is not only a need to create contents but to create stories too. Communities
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•
•
of practice can be very dynamic entities and knowledge should be spread among members quickly. Tools for giving coherence to contents and creating stories that allow experts to disseminate their knowledge will be needed. Standards. Each virtual world and serious game has its own way of managing contents and information. The specification of standards to avoid the need to use specific tools and facilitate the creation of communities is needed. Some initiatives like MPEG-V (MPEG-V, 2010) are trying to solve this need, specifically by creating a language that allows migration between virtual worlds and between virtual worlds and the real world. Interaction paradigms. Current virtual worlds and serious games have many similarities in their interaction with the traditional interaction paradigm WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers – mice). A new interaction paradigm is needed to make virtual worlds and serious games natural, easy-to-use tools.
From the author’s point of view, the current state of technology allows communities of practice to have useful support, above all if they are geographically distant. However, coming technological trends will improve some features of face-to-face communities of practice. Filling these gaps would also allow communities of practice to develop tools to meet their own specific needs or 3rd parties to develop generic tools useful to the most of them.
CONCLUSION The objective of this chapter has been to encourage an open discussion about current and future technological support for knowledge sharing and
learning. It is specially focused on the communities of practice technological support. The chapter has provided an examination of state-of-the-art Web 2.0 support for these purposes. Tools like wikis or blogs are now widely used for obtaining and managing collective intelligence and make the creation of virtual communities possible. However, some disadvantages still exist. In these technologies, face-to-face communication is missing and community managers have to motivate the rest of the community continuously. Moreover, it would be highly beneficial to achieve more natural ways of interaction, which would provide intuitive, easy use. To obtain this, new trends in Web3D technologies have been studied. Specifically, 3D virtual worlds and serious games features have been explained. The former provide a natural form of knowledge sharing and collaboration and the latter a way to motivate learning. The combination of both tools could be the ideal application for supporting communities of practice. Finally, different aspects which the authors believe should be improved in order to obtain successful applications have been enumerated and explained. As main conclusions, technological support for communities of practice is nowadays a fact with Web 2.0 tools and this may very well evolve with the implementation of new Web3D. From the author’s point of view, with the study of new interaction paradigms and standards and the development of tools for creating contents in an easy way, it will be possible to achieve the implementation of natural, intuitive and easyto-use tools that will provide great dynamism in communities of practice and will make the management and coordination of geographically distant communities of practice easier.
REFERENCES ATutor Home Page. (2010). http://www.atutor.ca/
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Bares, W. H. L. S. Z., J. C. Lester. (1998). Habitable 3D Learning Environments for Situated Learning. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 76-85.
Hamburg, I., & Petschenka, S. E. A. (2007). Communities of Practice and Web 2.0 to support learning in SMEs. Paper presented at the Proceeding of RoEduNet 2007, Craiova, Romania.
Berge, Z. L. (2008). Multi-User Virtual Environments for Education and Training? A Critical Review of Second Life. Educational Technology.
Ilias Home Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.ilias.de/docu/
Blackboard Home Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.blackboard.com/ Blood, R. (2004). How Blogging Software reshapes the online community. Communications of the ACM, , 47. Dalgarno, B. (2002). The Potential of 3D Virtual Learning Environments: A Constructivist Analysis. Electronic Journal of Instructional Science and Technology. de Freitas, S. C.S.-S., & Attewell, J. (2006). Educational Games and simulations: Case Studies from Adult Learning Practice. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre. Derryberry, A. (2007). Serious games: Online games for learning. Desire2Learn Home Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from www.desire2learn.com Documents, M.-V. W. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/ working_documents.htm\#MPEG-V es.Internet. (2009). Future Internet. Technical report. AETICPlataforma española de convergencia hacia Internet del Futuro. Facebook statistics (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.facebook.com/press/info. php?statistics Goncalves, L, & Thalmann, M. K. D. (2001). Programming Behaviors with Local Perception and Smart Objects: An Approach to Solve Autonomous Agent Tasks. SIGGRAPH 2001.
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LinkedIn Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from www.linkedin.com McAfee, A. (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. MIT. Sloan Management Review, 47(3), 21–28. Mokitown Hom Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.mokitown.com/mokitown_prehome/home_en.jsp Moodle Home Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://moodle.org/ MPEG-V. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 from http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/working_documents.htm#MPEG-V O’Reilly, T. (2005). What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. O’Reilly Network. Oyarzun, D. A. O., Carretero, M. P., & GarcíaAlonso, A. (2010). Virtual Worlds: Definition, history and elements that compose them. In B. Ciaramitaro (Ed.), Virtual Worlds and Ecommerce: Technologies and Applications for Building Customer Relationships. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Perera, B. J. C. (2007). The current craze: web 2.0 tools. Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 36, 39–42. Piaget, J. (1954). The Construction of Reality in the Child. New York: Basic Books. doi:10.1037/11168-000 Portal, E. F. I. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 http://www.future-internet.eu/
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Straaten, P. V. D. (2000). Interaction Affecting the Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality. Research Task Final Report, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems. Torre, A. D. l. (2006). Definición de Web 2.0. Bitácora de Aníbal de la Torre. Whyville Home Page. (2010). Retrieved March 2010 http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Web 2.0: New digital platforms for generating, sharing and refining information on the Internet.
Wikis: Collaborative web sites whose content can be edited by anyone who access to them. SLATES: Acronym that defines the differences between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 LMS: Applications used for managing, distributing and tracking eLearning activities. Web 3D: An evolution of current multimedia web that will provide new ways of showing information and interacting with it via 3D contents and simulations. 3D Virtual Worlds: Synchronous and continual network of inhabitants (users or autonomous agents), represented by avatars embedded in 3D applications and supported by computer networks Serious Games: Games whose goal is not leisure.
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Section 4
Knowledge Intensive Organizations
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Chapter 17
The Roles of Peripheral Participants and Brokers: Within and Beyond Communities of Practices François Grima Université Paris 12 & Reims Management School, France Emmanuel Josserand University of Geneva, Switzerland
ABSTRACT The objective of our chapter is to gain a better understanding of learning trajectories connecting external and internal communities of practices. To do so we studied four internal communities of practice by actors belonging to a same external community. We realized semi-directive interviews in these communities supplemented by direct observation of meetings. Our results give a new perspective on participation to communities of practice. We describe how young members act as boundary spanners between the communities and the practice in their organization while more senior members act as unique facilitators with a balance between boundary spanning and buffering. We describe in detail the personal characteristics of these senior members.
INTRODUCTION The image of a self-interested strategist gatekeeper is hard to reconcile with that of the community of practice, an open knowledge exchange space that can exist only as a ‘neutral place’ where members are supposed to be driven by passion rather than individualism. If we add to that the ambition of articulating internal and external knowledge exDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch017
change spaces, we must underline the difficulties that are to be expected. Nonetheless, the empirical evidence we collected in our four case studies explores situations where the gatekeeper plays the role of boundary spanner between an internal and an external community of practice, thus creating especially rich learning trajectories that cut across internal and external boundaries of the organizations studied. Hence, these are case studies where boundary spanners, instead of using their privileged power
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situation to play with the creation or disappearance of practices in order to serve their own purposes, help members of the organization to craft and experiment their own practices while feeding the process from what they learnt in external communities of practice. The objective of our chapter is to gain a better understanding of learning trajectories connecting external and external communities of practices. This involves understanding the conditions under which communities of practice brokers acts as boundary spanner rather than as gatekeeper and also to gain insight into the role played by other members of the communities of practice. In turn we will contribute to a better understanding of participation and answer to the call of Handley et al (2006:642) to better understand “what happens within and beyond” communities of practice.
Background: Learning Trajectories Within and Between Communities of Practice Communities of practice can be defined as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002:p4). This consensual definition clearly illustrates that their capacity to enhance learning is one of the key features of communities of practice. It is also an explanation of the success of the concept. Still, we argue here that many aspects of the learning trajectories within and between communities of practice still need to be revealed. This is especially the case of cross boundary learning trajectories. Despite the fact that organizations have been presented as constellations of practices (Wenger, 1998), we know very little about the connections between communities of practices (Handley et al, 2006) both within and between organizations. We will explore in this chapter three main aspects of communities of practice connected with the question of cross
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organizational learning trajectories: that of learning trajectories per se, that of the role played by peripheral participation and by key connecting actors within these trajectories.
Learning Trajectories The founding work by Wenger (1998) stresses the importance of constellations of practices but gives us little in the way of exploring the learning trajectories at play between communities of practices. Even if it underlines the importance of such constellation, the work is focussed on identity building mechanisms within the community. If we want to better understand how an organization can be considered as a learning constellation of communities of practice, we need to work on learning trajectories that cut across communities but also across organizations. What limits our vision so far is also the dominant representation of such trajectories. In the early work by Wenger (1998) and Orr (1996), the population studied are composed of professional with little management role: claim processors for Wenger and Xerox technicians for Orr. In these two case studies, the dominant learning logic is that of the relationship between old-timers and newcomers. The learning trajectory is embedded in the negotiation of meaning and identity building process and results from the generational encounters between the two categories. It thus tends to insist on the master-apprentice inspired learning interaction (Wenger, 1998: p101) which limits the application of the concept to other organizational situations. Identity is definitely as a central question to understand communities of practice but it is not sufficient to understand learning. We also think that in order to broaden our view, the perspective on learning has to be extended beyond the actual interaction that takes place within a community. This is coherent with the idea that participation is social even when it happens beyond the actual interactions of the members of the community members (Wenger, 1998). In the
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very specific case of the master-apprentice relationship it makes sense to limit the observation to the interactions within the community and its consequences on the work performed within the organization; but, in more complex cases, it is essential to understand the leveraging of knowledge that happens outside a specific community. As argued by Handley (2006;642): “An analysis of (individual) situated learning and knowledge transfer (across communities) thus requires not only a conceptualization of ‘community of practice’, but also an understanding of what happens within and beyond such communities.” This also calls for a reconsideration of the concept of peripheral participation.
Peripheral Participation The view on learning associated with communities of practice still corresponds to the master-apprentice situation. That is to say that the position of the learner is often that of a peripheral member to whom, “Peripherality provides an approximation of full participation that gives exposure to actual practice” (Wenger, 1998: p100). This representation corresponds to situations where belonging and participating to the community is associated with the actual practice, such as in a workshop. Another example is that quoted by Wenger: “a new squire may have only cleaned armours and fed horses ; but the legitimacy granted by his birth was enough for the peirpherality of his menial activities to warrant the prospect of becoming a knight.” (Wenger, 1998: p101). This situation is not the most frequent in the contemporary organization! As argued by Handley et al (2006:650): “In Situated Learning, the term ‘participation’ and its qualifiers (‘peripheral’ and ‘full’) successfully portrayed an apprentice’s journey from novice to master; however, some conceptual confusion arises when one instead considers an individual’s engagement within and between multiple communities.” That is to say that we must take into account situations where the peripherality is only
relative to the community and not to the practice by itself. That will help us to better understand the meaning of participation in communities of different natures (Roberts, 2006). The question of peripheral participation and its legitimacy (Lave & Wenger, 1991) remains nonetheless a very crucial one. In some cases, peripheral participation can be a much more difficult concept to grasp that in the case of the master-apprentice situation. In such situations, it is important to try and better understand “the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice.” (Lave & Wenger, 1991; p29). More specifically, it is essential to gain a better understanding on the possibilities for members to gain legitimacy and thus become members. Peripherality is a concept that has to be handled with caution, so much so that an actor that can be seen as peripheral on one aspect can be central on others (Starbuck 1976; Tichy 1981). The distinction between peripherality and marginality is thus an important one but revealing learning trajectories means that we must take a broader perspective on peripherality and accept the idea that there might be different peripheral roles than that of the apprentice.
Brokers Connecting Communities At the boundary of the community, and thus essential for an understanding of learning trajectories, is the figure of the broker (Wenger, 1998). Brokers play an important role in the constitution of constellation of communities, within which learning trajectories take place, they: “link practices by facilitating transactions between them, and to cause learning by introducing into a practice elements of another.” (Wenger, 1998: p109). Brokers participate to several communities and must be able to translate knowledge, coordinate and generate alignments between perspectives (Wenger, 1998). Brokers must also be able “to influence the development of a practice, mobi-
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lize attention, and address conflicting interests.” (Wenger, 1998: P109). Thus, the task assigned to brokers is a difficult one, it is also difficult to reconcile such a figure with that of a self-interested gate-keeper (Crozier & Friedberg, 1977). More than 50 years of research in sociometry leads to be cautious with positions associated with a strong intermediarity; such intermediarity is in many cases associated with the pursuit of individual objectives in a quest for power (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). The characteristics of brokers and the understanding of their motivation is thus to be understood. If they play a role that has more to do with boundary spanning (Cross, Yan & Louis, 2000) than with gate-keeping, we still have to understand under which conditions. This is of special importance if we really want to get a picture of communities of practices and learning trajectories that is grounded on a “view of human nature is not reductionist, either in terms of individual utilitarianism or in terms of primordial communal togetherness.” (Wenger, 1998: p213). We tend to agree that Wenger’s theory of communities of practice is closer from the latter than from the former (Fox, 2000). This point is even more flagrant if we consider inter-organizational learning trajectories.
Method In order to study learning rich learning trajectories that would cut across both communities and organizational boundaries, we selected communities of training managers. Indeed, we knew from previous research that an “external” – or inter-organizational – community of practice was very active in this field in the form of an association. Also, there was a structural lack of corporate investment on the function in France when it was created in the 70’s. In big groups, the local training managers often lacked the specific expertise necessary to exercise their activity despite a decentralized organization of the function. This resulted in many companies in the constitution of
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“internal” community of practice facilitated by a non-hierarchical coordinator. We thus knew that this context would be rich in order to study cross communities learning trajectories involving both internal and external communities of practice. We thus contacted the main French community on the subject. It was composed of 800 members, organized by geographical areas. We focused on the region of Paris, the strongest area with an average of 200 members. It was organized into 10 external communities. We organized interviews with 130 members of the 10 external communities (i.e., inter-organizational communities). This helped us to identify the main experts in each community and to collect first examples of learning trajectories. We then looked for members of these 10 communities that belonged to organizations where the training function was organized in the form of internal communities of practice. From our initial contacts, 4 companies agreed to give us access, we will call them: House, Bank, Steel and Hospital. We thus studied four internal communities of practice facilitated by actors belonging to a same training managers’ association. We also studied the functioning of the training managers’ association as a whole. We thus gained a rich understanding of the cross boundary learning trajectories at play. Table 1 summarizes data collection. We conducted interviews but also used our presence on the organizations’ sites to attend meeting when possible. Data analysis followed an inductive, grounded theory development. Based on our theoretical background, we started data coding.After using a constant comparative method, we added new codes if existing codes failed to explain new information. The coding process continued until we found no new categories which can improve our analysis. This semantic saturation was tested by a external researcher. Disagreements were solved by discussion. At the end, we confronted our analysis with actors thank to various presentations. This last methodological security increased internal validity.
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Table 1. Data collection Interviews with the coordinator Interviews with members Observation
Cas 1 House
Cas 2 Bank
Cas 3 Steel
Cas 4 Hospital
Association
13
12
5
7
n.a.
10
28
15
20
107
4 meetings
4 meetings
n.a.
4 meetings
10 meetings
RESULTS Our results show the importance of two different populations that at first sight can be associated with the master-apprentice or old-timer/newcomer distinction. Nevertheless, the study of learning trajectories shows that the role of the peripheral participant is essential in terms of learning for the community as a whole and of a very different nature then that encountered in more classical “masterapprentice” communities. Also, our observations give an account about the reasons why brokers do adopt cooperative and opened behaviours.
Old Timers and Newcomers Both internal and external communities are characterized by the presence of two categories of members. The first one, that is also the larger, encompasses young training managers who have a short tenure in the job - “I joined the company recently after a master in HR. It is my first job.” - and/ or limited knowledge of the activity - “I have 15 years of experience as a nurse. I wanted to evolve towards more administrative functions.” The second category gathers managers that have a wide experience inside their organization as well as externally: “I have been training manager for 10 years in this company. I know the job really well and its difficulties.”/ “I have done all my carrier in human resources. Training is one of the activities where I am the more experienced in different contexts.” Some of these experienced members have a degree in education sciences, several of them teach at university level. They
are real experts, well recognized by participants who are more recent in the function: “Mister X knows the trade really well. He is very interesting to meet because he has both a good knowledge of the practical aspects and a capacity to take distance thanks to his university work.” / “This is a person of value, I use the book he wrote as a reference for my professional practice. He is also very human. One can contact him easily.”
Knowledge Exchanges during the Meetings This differential in terms of tenure and experience is the source of a rich exchange between members in which old-timers and new comers find some satisfaction. As underlined by a young member: “these meetings are for me a real breath of fresh air because in my structure I am the only one to be specialized in human resources. Meeting young and experienced members that, for the former are facing difficulties comparable to mine and for the latter knowing that they are listening and can help us to face is irreplaceable.” The newcomers are most of the time in a structural position in which the economic performance of their role is essential. They are under very strong pressure: “In my unit, the boss doesn’t have a human resources orientation. He mostly expects economical performance. I must thus be able to help him in reaching his business objectives, otherwise my position is weakened.” The newcomers are thus oriented towards acquiring knowledge that can be translated into action. This young training manager explains this very clearly: “What I need short term
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is a concrete answer to operational needs. This I can’t find in books or through training because I have very little time for that. Self-training is limited. The network [i.e. internal community] is the best solution for me.” Interestingly, knowledge is not only flowing in one direction. The old timers underline the importance of the meetings for them to gather informal information: “At the beginning the meetings were very fruitful. I learnt a lot. Now it is less and less so, but one cannot say that it is lost time. The best proof of this is the fact that I don’t send one of my collaborators. You always learn something, even from somebody who just entered the profession.” Such knowledge can be the update of juridical or information system knowledge or any input from younger members resulting from their recent education. Also the external community allows them to meet without supporting important coordination costs. They can use the facilities, the infrastructure and the legitimacy of the external community to exchange with other professionals. On first view, the learning trajectories are based on the difference in the level of members’ qualifications. Indeed, in both internal and external communities, we found relatively junior members upon which strong pressures to deliver were exerted, as well as more senior and experienced members who no longer needed to prove themselves. A first level of exchange happens within the communities between the former, in their quest for efficiency and the latter who want to transmit knowledge but also to refresh their theoretical knowledge.
Different Stakes for New Comers and Old Timers There are indeed two distinct populations within the communities of practices but our data also suggest that the role played by younger members is not simply that of clients of the more senior ones. Indeed, without being at the end of their career, the
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old timers are well recognized both in their company and in the profession. Their past achievement gave them some prestige. Their links with external factors such as providers, training organizations, independent trainers or professional associations allow them to detect innovating operations. More importantly, their organizational context is “under control”. As one of them told us: “The operational managers follow me eyes wide shut if I tell them something is good for them.” As a consequence, innovative projects, encompassing some risk, do not fit in the strategy of more senior members: “I am less likely to take risks than 15 years ago. I mainly aim for safe projects.” This situation that one of the youngest qualified as a “guaranteed income” does not apply to the other population. For younger members, the career is still to be constructed: “my career is ahead of me. I have everything to prove in this company. I am thus ready to take risks.” Nonetheless, the risks have to be controlled: “doing a coup seems to be the obsession of the younger ones. It is normal as they are asked a lot. Stil, an operational would not stand a failure. Some young want to try the adventure by themselves. It is generally a failure that comes with a high cost in terms of image.” The individualist option is thus costly and the purpose of members when they participate into the internal or the external community of practice is to avoid such cost.
Cross-Cutting Learning Trajectories In both types of communities, recurring learning trajectories articulate the knowledge and external network of an old timer with the implementation by a younger member. An example of this is given by this young training manager in the case of Hospital: “In my hospital, there was a need for training about pain, especially for the stretcher-bearers. Nonetheless, this need wasn’t clearly formulated by management. I discussed the question with a more experienced member of the network [internal community] who knows
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well the organization. He advised me to contact company X who had had a similar problem. I met the person in charge who gave me some good ideas that I was able to implement in my organization… The experiment was a success, so much so that I presented my approach to the network [internal community].” In another situation, it was an old timer who was at the origin of the learning process: “I had understood during meetings that some of the training managers had difficulties in the training of their intermediary management. I had contacts with companies that had dealt with the question. I thus gave the contact information to the training managers and organized a meeting. Some of them went there together. They developed autonomously a learning approach that was a real success in their respective organizations.” These two examples illustrate cross-cutting learning trajectories involving both old-timers and new comers and their connections with external as well as internal networks. The needs emerge in both cases from the perception of the younger members but are satisfied only thanks to the capacity of senior members to connect the younger ones with external resources that can help them and craft a solution. The next step in the learning trajectory is similar in both cases. When a solution is elaborated and the experience is a success, no direct compensation is asked from the senior members. The only demand on the beneficiaries is that they would testify in both the internal community and the external community. The purpose of this testimony is to stimulate the adoption of the emerging practices by other training managers in other contexts. In that sense, the old timer is core to the learning trajectory. After a need has been detected, he coaches the younger members in their experimentation and then makes sure that the new experimental knowledge thus created is shared both within the internal community but also with members from the external community. This last step generates further experiments and thus further enrichment of knowledge following the same cross-cutting
trajectories. A thorough example of such a trajectory in the case of House follows below: Cross-cutting trajectory at House In one of the subunits of House, a junior training manager was confronted with a situation of budgetary cuts but still had high training objectives. One of the most challenging tasks was to create a new training program for unskilled workers. He thus crafted a program in which he turned two experienced skilled workers that were close to the end of their carriers into trainers. These skilled workers were brought to building sites to train unskilled workers directly on the premises. This innovating program was presented to the internal community of practice. Following this first presentation and the interest aroused, he Old timer who coordinated experience exchange sessions with training manager from other units. He also launched with the support of internal communication an internal communication operation informing building site managers of the experiment. The practice is then tested in other units. The Old-timer then presented this experiment in the external community of practice. Here again, several members, mainly from the same sector showed interest. Meeting are organized associating external community members from various organizations. Two months later three other companies launched similar operations which target a total of 6000 people. Following this success, the old-timer launched a branch wide program that was finally finance by the EU. A European wide operation targeted at SMEs is then put together. The learning trajectories and the nature of the exchange are thus much richer than the simple transmission of knowledge between the experienced and the more junior ones. Junior members don’t limit their role to absorbing knowledge. In both communities, they also translate the knowledge into their own work environment and
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thus extend the learning trajectory. They have to translate knowledge into practices through experimentation. In doing so, they face the risk of appearing as dependent on more senior members but also of becoming a field of investigation and observation for community members. Hence a rich trajectory is defined in which knowledge migrates back and forth from the more experienced members to operational management, through more junior members who are keys to rejuvenating and enriching the knowledge by experimenting. This migration cuts across organizational boundaries.
Characterizing the Brokers Hence, young members play a key role in the learning trajectories, especially in terms of experimentation. Still, the communities are created thanks to the vision and involvement of a few senior members who act as brokers. The following will detail the characteristic of these very specific old timers. The involvement of the brokers is less instrumental than that of the younger members. It relies on a certain conception of the training manager’s job. Strongly attached to the values associated with their activity, they want these values to last and to be transmitted to younger members. Their discourse is almost a militant one: “I have been in the field of training for 20 years, either as a trainer, or as trainer manager. It is a different activity within companies where the human is still central. For this to stay so, there is no mystery, professionals must be able to do a good job, to show operational managers that they have solutions to their problems. If this is not the case, the activity will be left to the market. I don’t want that. Thus, I help the younger to face the huge expectations they have to face. It is my duty as a senior. I don’t see them as a professional threat. It is a support that I find natural”. Another old timer insists on the specificity of the know-how: “You don’t become a training manager by improvisation. The more senior are the guardians of a
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certain knowledge that can’t be found in books. The network [i.e. internal community] is for me an opportunity to share with people that are at the beginning of their development in an activity in which I believe.” Benevolence is clearly an important component of the dynamic of the communities. Still, if no compensation is asked from the senior members, expressions of gratitude from the younger members are very important. This gratitude is fundamental to the motivation of the senior members: “I am not asking for a personal success… But the simple fact to say thank you through an email or by inviting me for a meal is very satisfactory for me.” More broadly, the participation into the communities can also be seen as a compensation for a lack of recognition for the function within the organization. The old timers have proven their capacity to help operational managers, they have nothing to prove but their position in the organizations they belong to will always be that associated with the highest level in a minor support function. One can thus understand that they feel a lack of external recognition: “The association brings me professional recognition that I don’t find in my organization.” Hence, the life of the communities is a place where old timers find a recognition that can’t be given to them in an organizational context where operational managers occupy the front stage and focus attention. This first characteristic limits considerably the number of persons that are in a situation to become central to the dynamic of the community. Only old timers who are in the specific situation of being very experienced and lacking some recognition can play this role. One of the founding elements of the brokers’ position is that of their expertise. Their expertise is a very wide one and encompasses various fields of knowledge but also various sources of legitimacy. The four central brokers in the case studies did have a strong experience acquired in several organizations. This gives them a capacity to be identified both by the internal and the external communities of practices as competent
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and legitimate. Members identify with the brokers: “He is one of us, he is a real training manager who knows the operational problems.” Their former success in their career is the founding element of their reputation as excellent professionals, experts in their field. By occupying a unique position linked to their recognized expertise and benevolent orientation, brokers are able to enhance the possibilities of the communities. A key role in order to maintain the dynamic of the community is that of protector: “My role is to make sure that the conditions of mutual learning are there. For that, it is necessary that everybody plays according to the rules. This is the reason why, in some cases, when I have had some negative feedback on some persons, I do not hesitate to oppose their entry in the association.” This role is much more obvious to hold in the external community of practice. The way of doing this for internal communities is less direct, still, the brokers encourage by-passing strategies such as arranging meetings when the undesired person is unavailable or focussing on subjects irrelevant for this person or limiting the field of knowledge covered. In any case, brokers do not hesitate to “put back on the right track”, as one of them expressed it, members who behave as free-riders. They do not hesitate to intervene, belonging to the community «is demanding, it creates reciprocal obligations. Not to be up to it on several occasions introduces the idea that one can come to take without giving anything, it can be at short time, the end of the network. As soon as I feel this type of drifting, I intervene, this is my role.” For the more experienced members, the stakes are greater than for younger ones. They include the wish to convey a set of values associated with the activity of training management which are sometimes in contradiction with the dominant market orientated discourse. By bringing this vision of the function, they convey a climate of empathy, an enjoyment of doing together that is connected to their passion. This is essential to the creation
of a climate adequate for learning. This does not mean that they don’t find a personal interest in the community – they are looking for recognition – and also they don’t have a naïve representation of the community and do not hesitate to protect it from opportunistic behaviours. Their position is also linked to their very broad experience and the legitimacy they get from it.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The first observation of this research is that of rich and cross-cutting learning trajectories. Some learning takes place between community members when they meet, but this is only a limited aspect of the learning that takes place. Because knowledge is a very specific resource that is not consumed when it is used, it is only through its rich circulation between the community and the practice, but also between communities of practice, that knowledge can be enriched and transformed. By studying the richness of such learning trajectories, we showed that the repartition of the role can be significantly different from that observed in the master-apprentice canonical representation of communities of practices.
The Boundary Spanning Role of Young Community Members This means that in communities composed of young and more senior professionals, the nature of participation and thus the sources of legitimation can be different from that observed and described in terms of peripheral participation. In the master-apprentice representation, peripheral participation takes the form of the execution of minor tasks linked to the low level of qualification of the apprentice. We see that with professionals, young members also bring new perspective resulting from their recent training. More importantly, because they are ready to take risks, they are a pivotal element in the translation of new knowl-
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edge into practice. They feed the community and the broader inter-community learning trajectories with concrete achievement and empirical probation of new knowledge. As argued by Brown (1998), for community members, learning is a matter of practice, not a theoretical thing, it is all about becoming a practitioner. Communities’ activities have to be grounded on concrete and practical realizations (Josserand, 2004). In that sense, young members’ participation is coherent with Wengers’ assertion that “our engagement in the world is social, even when it does not clearly involve interactions with others.” (Wenger, 1998: 57) Their peripheral participation is of a fundamentally different nature then that observed in the master-apprentice relationship. They would probably be best described as a specific category of brokers, brokers between the community and the practice within their organization of belonging. In that sense, their role corresponds to what Cross, Yan and Louis (2000) described a boundary spanning.
Senior Members Acting as Boundary Spanners and Buffers At the very heart of the learning trajectory for the four cases we studied are more senior members with very specific characteristics. They appear as complex actors that possess multiple identities because of their long experience in the field but also by their legitimacy in both the internal and the external communities of practice. Their unique position allows them to maintain the balance of the community in terms of contribution, to connect it with other communities and also to play a necessary role of protection from free riders. They are central too in maintaining the warmth of the exchanges a condition necessary for a balanced development of the community. Being more experienced members, they have a vision of the training manager function that they want to defend. This is a necessary condition for them to play their key role. They have to maintain
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their image of integrity within both communities in the long run, thus, contrary to actors placed in a hierarchical position, they can’t afford to cheat and manipulate, they must speak the truth. Their role could be characterized as combining boundary spanning and buffering (Cross, Yan & Louis, 2000).
A New Perspective on Peripheral Participation The research thus offers a renewed perspective on the question of peripheral participation. In that sense, it is coherent with Starbuck’s (1976) representation of centrality and Tichy’s (1981) argument that it is particularly difficult to characterize an individual as a central of peripheral member; any individual is both and brokering activities are widely distributed across communities of professionals. We observed communities where the balance between centrality of all actors on various aspects of the life of the community allowed for the development of rich and cross-cutting learning trajectories. We are very conscious that this balance and the resulting trajectories is not a unique one and that other configurations exist that will lead to other learning trajectories. It is thus important to multiply the empirical endeavours in order to further lift the veil on the matter.
REFERENCES Brown, J. S. (1998). Internet technology in support of the concept of “communities-of-practice”: the case of Xerox. Accounting., Management. &. Information Technology, 8, 227–236. Cross, R. L., Yan, A., & Louis, R. (2000). Boundary activities in “boundaryless” organizations: A case study of a transformation to a team-based structure. Human Relations, 53(6), 841–868. doi:10.1177/0018726700536004
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Crozier, M., & Friedberg, E. (1977). L’acteur et le système. Paris: Seuil. Fox, S. (2000). Communities of practice, Foucault and actor-network theory. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6). doi:10.1111/1467-6486.00207 Handley, K., Sturdy, A., Fincham, R., & Clark, T. (2006). Within and Beyond Communities of Practice: Making Sense of Learning Through Participation, Identity and Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 641–653. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00605.x Josserand, E. (2004). Cooperation within Bureaucracies: Are Communities of Practice an Answer? M@n@gement, 7(3), 307-339. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. Orr, J. (1996). Talking about machines: an ethnography of a modern job. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Roberts, J. (2006). Limits to Communities of Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 623–639. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00618.x
Starbuck, W. H. (1976). Organizations and their environments. In Dunnette, M. D. (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1069–1123). Chicago: Rand McNally College Pub. Co. Tichy, N. M. (1981). Networks in organizations. In Nystrom, P. C., & Starbuck, W. H. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational design (pp. 225–249). New York: Oxford University Press. Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: methods and applications. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice, Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of Practices: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, (Jan-Feb): 139–145.
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Chapter 18
CoPs & Organizational Identity: Five Case Studies of NTBFs Eduardo Bueno Campos Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Mónica Longo Somoza Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain M. Paz Salmador Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
ABSTRACT The present chapter analyzes the emergent concepts of communities of practice and organizational identity, as well as their interrelationships, in the context of a knowledge-based economy. In particular, the chapter focuses on new technology-based firms (NTBF). Two main propositions are discussed. First, members of these organizations can build the organizational identity through communities of practice. Second, the organizational identity socially built by members can facilitate the emergence of communities of practice. These propositions are first grounded in a theoretical review and later they are tested empirically in five case studies of new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. Finally, the main conclusions and directions for further research are presented.
1. INTRODUCTION A radical transformation has taken place from an economy based on land in the Agricultural Era, on labour and capital in the Industrial Era, to an economy based on knowledge in the Knowledge Era (Bueno, 1999; Gorey & Dobat, 1996). Thus, nowadays knowledge becomes a key asset to manage in order to gain a sustainable
competitive advantage. In the Knowledge Era, the organization’s environment changes quickly and knowledge turns into a key resource to take advantage of the opportunities that changes may bring. In this based-knowledge economy new technology-based firms (NTBFs) has a relevant role and in this chapter we analyze some of the dynamics developed by these firms. Specifically, we analyze how NTBFs created at Madrid Science Park construct their organizational identity
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch018
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and how Communities of Practice (CoPs) act as a facilitator to do it. The importance of knowledge in Economy as the main factor or productive resource in order to create value, together with the traditional ones, was introduced by Marshall (1890) and later developed during the 20th century by Knight (1921), Hayek (1945), Drucker (1965, 1973) and Machlup (1967, 1980) among others authors. It was in the last decade of the 20th century when a great interest in knowledge management emerged as a way of levering the strategically relevant knowledge for the organization (Teece, 1981). Formally, or from the scientific perspective of knowledge, this is embodied in people, also, from the philosophy of science point of view, following Polanyi (1969), it can be considered that knowledge is explicit or tacit. On the one hand, explicit knowledge is universal and abstract and it can be articulated, codified and stored. It is recorded for example in manuals and procedures so it can be easily transmitted. On the other hand, tacit knowledge is creative and dependent on the history and experience of people, embodied in their minds and therefore, difficult to access, transfer and shared. When people commit themselves with organizations, working and contributing with their knowledge, organizations acquire this knowledge which can become technology if it is developed and transmitted. It is individual knowledge the one possessed by people and it is collective the one effectively and consciously possessed by a group or organization1. Therefore, individual knowledge can be transformed in social or collective knowledge and shared by the members of an organization when transferred through oral or written language, codes, etc. (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Bueno, 2005; Cook & Brown, 1999; De Geus, 1997; Quinn, 1992; Spender, 1996; Von Krogh & Roos, 1995). Insisting on the current concept of knowledge in the organization and following the autopoiesis theory (Maturana & Valera, 1984) two prerequi-
sites are required in order to create and develop organizational knowledge: 1. People need to interact to allow communication. 2. A self-description of the organization must exist, that is, the organization has to formulate its identity (from an interpretative paradigm the shared meaning about “who we are, as an organization”). In both cases conversations are fundamental because they allow organization members to share and discuss their observations and experiences about facts, objects, etc, and doing so they transfer tacit knowledge and negotiate the “organizational identity” too (Gioia, 1998; Bouchikhi, et al, 1998; Brown & Duguid, 1991). The original definition of the term “organizational identity” was proposed by Albert and Whetten (1985) explaining that it is a self-reflective question (Who are we as an organization?) which captures central, enduring and distinctive features of the organization. When groups negotiate their organizational identity, they are also generating a kind of tacit knowledge called self-knowledge (Bürgi, Roos & Oliver, 2002). Moreover, when members express the central characteristics of their organization to describe “who we are”, they are creating filters to select what knowledge is and what it is not, and they are also creating guidelines to coordinate opinions, practices, decisions, acts and strategies (Brown & Humphreys, 2006; Bürgi, Roos & Oliver 2002; Bürgi & Oliver 2005; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Nag, Corley & Gioia, 2007; Reger et al., 1994). As we will see throughout this work, in this process of creating and developing organizational knowledge the organizational identity is constructed and Communities of Practice (CoPs) become an important tool. We discuss the interrelationship between CoPs and organizational identity, the characteristics they share and how a CoP can help to construct an organization identity through a
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process of claims and counterclaims. To get our objective we have taking the next steps and making the following contributions to the CoPs and organizational identity areas of study: First, we present the original and general definition of the term “organizational identity” offered by Albert and Whetten (1985), and make a proposal including the several research approaches and definitions that can be found in the literature, sometimes contradictories in their epistemological and ontological assumptions. Following Corley et al (2006), we propose to set a reference point that may guide future empirical work on organizational identity and to make explicit the research approach chosen. So, the aim of our proposal is to choose the proper research approach to test empirically our propositions and offer a guideline for future researches on organizational identity. Second, we present and describe the concept of the term CoPs, its main features and what a successful CoP is, following the main literature published about this term. Third, we discuss and propose, from a theoretical point of view, the interrelations between the definitions and characteristics of the aforementioned concepts, that is, organizational identity and CoPs. On studying these relations, we analyze whether a CoP communal identity could be the organizational identity of a NTBF whose members work as a CoP and also, whether in these firms CoPs emerge as a need to set their organizational identity and vice versa. Finally, taking an interpretative paradigm and “shared meaning” research approach, we empirically test the two previous propositions on new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. These are small and micro firms in a process of growth. We choose these firms because they have been recently founded and need help to understand “who they are” as well as to find and develop ways of work in the critical first years of their life. These groups of firms are based on exploitation of an invention or technological innovation, and employ a high
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proportion of qualified employees. Their main resource is knowledge which is involved in the construction of the organizational identity and in the running of a CoP. We follow the definition of small and micro firms adopted in 2003 by the European Commission and the definitions of NTBFs proposed by Butchart (1987) and Shearman and Burrell (1988). Both definitions are developed in the section “Research approach”. We also follow an interpretative paradigm and a “shared meaning” research approach because their definition of organizational identity is suitable to study the iterative socially-process of construction of the identity of an organization. A detailed description of paradigm and research approach is given in the section “The organizational identity concept as an emergent approach of “organizational knowledge””. One of the tools that can be used in an organization to share and discuss members’ observations and experiences are Communities of Practice (CoPs). Following the Wenger’s definition of the term, CoPs are informal groups of people who share a “common interest and problems in a certain domain of human endeavour and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them” (Wenger, 2001). Through real practice that is not written in the official procedures, they share what they know, to learn from one another (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Therefore, in a CoP, through conversations and practice, individual knowledge can be transformed into collective knowledge, tacit knowledge is transferred and members construct the organizational identity. Moreover, the organizational identity socially built by members can facilitate the emergence of CoPs so CoPs and organizational identity may be analyzed from a cause-effect perspective and vice-versa. Organizational literature in the areas of Organizational Identity and CoPs has not explored in deep the relations between both concepts. This chapter analyzed this relation by proposing first a theoretical proposal and latter testing it empiri-
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cally in the context of the NTBFs. The iterative socially-process that means the construction of an organization identity is a knowledge process, as it is the process of exchange experiences and practice in a CoP. This knowledge process leads organizations to innovation and to get superior results, reason why in the last decades the interest in literature about CoPs and also about organizational identity has grown. To sum up, two are the main propositions to be analyzed in this chapter. First, members of the organization can build the organizational identity through CoPs. Second, the organizational identity socially built by members can facilitate the emergence of CoPs. These propositions are developed and justified, first of all, focusing on the theoretical notions of organizational identity, CoPs and their interrelationship, and latter empirically tested through the case studies of five new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. Finally, the main conclusions and directions for future research are presented.
2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY CONCEPT AS AN EMERGENT APPROACH OF “ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE” Albert and Whetten (1985) offered the original conceptualization of organizational identity proposing that it is a self-reflective question (Who are we as an organization?) which captures central, enduring and distinctive features of the organization. From an empirical perspective and in relation with this concept, first research carried out by Dutton and Dukerich and by Gioia and Chittipeddi are dated in 1991 (Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2002a). Nowadays this metaphor is still a focus of interest and a new scientific research program is emerging (Lakatos, 1983; Lakatos & Musgrave, 1975) as there is no consensus about the paradigms2 to conceptualize this concept and its main features (Albert, Ashforth, & Dutton,
2000; Bouchikhi et al., 1998; Corley, et al., 2006, Cornelissen, 2006; Gioia, 1998). According to Gioia (1998), three are the main paradigms that emerge from differing paradigmatic assumptions about the nature of organizations when theorists and researchers analyze organizational identity: functionalist, interpretive and postmodern. However, reviewing the literature others names can also be found. Functionalist paradigm is also named realist or normative/positivist (Cornelissen, 2002b; Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2002a; Porter, 2001); Interpretive paradigm is named social constructionist, constructionist3 or qualitative paradigm (Bürgi, Roos & Oliver, 2002; Bürgi & Oliver, 2005; Corley et al., 2006; Cornelissen, 2002b; Gioia, Schulz & Corley, 2002a; Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997; Porter, 2001). Table 1 shows these different proposals. We have chosen Gioia’s proposal to name the paradigms after having reviewed Berger and Luckman (1968), Cooper and Burrel (1988), Gioia (1998), Gioia and Pitre (1990), Knorr-Cetina, (1981), Rabinow and Sullivan, (1979), Ritzer (2003), Schultz and Hatch (1996), Schwandt (1998, 2000) and Thiétart (2001). Analyzing empirical research on organizational identity from 1991 until 2007, several research approaches framed in these three paradigms can be identified. From our point of view, it is important to disclose the current research approaches to investigate organizational identity because they can offer a point of reference to orientate our research about the construction and emergence of organizational identity in new technology-based firms at the Science Park in Madrid. Next in this chapter, we present these approaches. In the main twenty-three empirical investigations about the organizational identity of different kind of organizations (universities, port organizations, orchestras, non profit organizations, big public accounting firms, etc.) since 1991 to 2007, we have analysed different elements that usually underlie either theoretical explanations or research methodology: paradigm, definition
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Table 1. Denominations of the main paradigms on “organizational identity” research (Source: Own elaboration) Denomination (Gioia, 1998) Functionalist Interpretive
Postmodern
Alternative Denominations Realist
Cornelissen (2002b); Gioia, Schulz and Corley, (2002a)
Normative/positivist
Porter (2001)
Social constructionist
Corley et al. (2006); Bürgi, Roos, and Oliver (2002); Bürgi and Oliver (2005); GoldenBiddle and Rao (1997)
Constructionist
Cornelissen (2002b); Gioia, Schulz y Corley, (2002a)
Qualitative
Porter (2001)
Postmodern
Corley et al. (2006); Brown, Humphreys and Gurney (2005); Bürgi, Roos and Oliver (2002)
Table 2. Main paradigms on organizational identity research (Source: Own elaboration from Bouchikhi et al. (1998) and Gioia (1998)) Organizational Identity Resides In Characteristics Of Organization
Postmodern
Interpretative
Functionalist
Paradigms
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Central Problem To Study
Definition
Central
Enduring
Distinctive
Beliefs about “who we are” that have been institutionalized and taken-forgranted. Identity is a product of these beliefs that manifest themselves in objective characteristics
Core values and beliefs of the organization
What is hard to change but not immutable
Which are the sources of distinctiveness, where they exist and how can they be manage?
To analyze how organizational identity shapes cognitions of organizational members and how these cognitions in turn shapes members individual and organizational actions
Objective characteristics of organizations as for example demography data, patterns of decisions or statements of managers.
Data To Analyze
The continuously renegotiated set of meanings about “who we are” shared by members of organization. Identity is a socially-constructed process
Meanings that members agree are central
What will remain while the social context affirms the projected identity. Identity is in flux, there is a continuous process of construction and reconstruction
They derive from a comparison process that members of the organization make about what is different and what is similar to other organizations
To discover and disclose the meanings about “who are we?” that are negotiated among organizational members because these meanings can facilitate or limit organization management
Symbols (specific language of the organization, mannerisms, artefacts, etc), cognitive schema or worldview, interpretive schemes that members use to make sense of those symbols, interpretive schemes that researchers use to make sense of what they see
Momentary and fragmented statements about who we take ourselves to be that may be contradictory. Identity is an invention of the power groups in order to get their aims
Loyalties and claims typical of social interactions are impermanent so there cannot be either central essence or enduring characteristics in a organization. Identity is continuously deconstructed and reconstructed
There are fragmented, multiple identities and distinctiveness of one identity is defined with respect to the others
To problematize the notion of “organizational identity” which mean to accept multiple identities and analyze claims of identities and existing power relations
Language and discourse focusing on ruptures and absences in the discourse
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and core features of organizational identity, and objective of the research and methodology used (data and instruments). Although the main conceptual statement of organizational identity was made in 1985 by Albert and Whetten it was not until 1991 when the first empirical investigations took place, investigations signed by Dutton and Dukerich (1991) and by Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991) (Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2002a). This is the reason why our analysis starts in 1991. However, before framing these approaches, following Bouchikhi et al., (1998) and Gioia (1998), we summarize each paradigm by explaining the definition, core features, research problem and data to analyze in order to study organizational identity (see Table 2). Table 3 outlines the relation between the general paradigms accepted in the study of organizational identity, that have been disclosed on Table 2, and our proposal of research approaches on organizational identity, in an attempt to guide future research on organizational identity. Also, this table summarizes the classification of papers that have been reviewed to disclose the approaches proposed. The denominations given to the research approaches outline the key element of each of them and were chosen to represent the definition of the organizational identity metaphor. These key elements and definitions will be explained in depth in the next subsections and will
be summarized in Tables 4 and 5 in order to allow the reader to easily find the main features of each research approach. Following Bueno, Salmador and Longo (2008), the above research approaches will be briefly explained, disclosing the following elements in the references reviewed: definition and core features of organizational identity, objective of the research, methodology used (data and instruments) and paradigm. Table 4 shows the organizational identity definition of each approach. Table 5 summarizes objectives and methodology empirical analysis (data and instruments) of each research approach. The contents of Tables 4 and 5 are discussed in the following subsections that explain in detail the different definitions and characteristics of organizational identity from the point of view of each research approach and the paradigms in which approaches are rooted.
Shared Beliefs The research approach denominated “shared beliefs” proposes that the identity of an organization is a set of elements, strengths or characteristics (e.g. values, theories and practices) that members believe to be central, enduring and distinctive and give organization coherence, stability and specificity (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Cornelissen, 2006;
Table 3. Main paradigms, research approaches on organizational identity and references (Source: Own elaboration) Main Paradigms
Research Approaches
Funcionalist
Shared beliefs
Cornelissen (2002a); Cornelissen (2002b); Fiol and Huff (1992); Reger et al. (1994)
Institutional theory
Glynn and Abzug (2002); Rao, Monin and Durand, (2003); Whetten and Mackey (2002) ; Zuckerman et al. (2003)
Shared meaning
Dutton and Dukerich (1991); Fiol (2002); Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991); Gioia, Schultz and Corley (2002a); Gioia, Schultz and Corley (2002b); Gioia and Thomas (1996); Nag, Corley and Gioia (2007); Scott and Lane (2000)
Hybrid identity
Bürgi and Oliver (2005); Bürgi, Roos and Oliver (2002); Glynn (2000); Golden-Biddle and Rao (1997)
Multiple identities
Brown and Humphreys (2006); Brown, Humphreys and Gurney (2005); Covaleski et al. (1998)
Interpretative
Postmodern
References Reviwed
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Table 4. Research approaches and definitions of organizational identity (Source: Own elaboration) Approaches
Definition Of Organizational Identity
Approaches
Definition Of Organzational Identity
Shared beliefs
Characteristics of the organization (values, practices, etc) that are rooted in tacit shared beliefs about what is central, enduring and distinctive
Hybrid identity
Institutional Theory
Characteristics of the organization members believe to be central, enduring and distinctive and give it a status as an actor in its social environment. This identity is constructed through a social process with which members compare their organization with others of its institutional field
Meanings shared by members of the organization about “who are we as an organization?” that are constructed through continuous processes of claims and counterclaims used by members to agree what is central, enduring and distinctive and becomes a collective “cognitive frame” to sensemaking. During this claim-making process different social groups can develop distinct organizational identity dimensions resulting in a hybrid identity that can be controversial
Shared meaning
Meanings shared by members of the organization about “who are we as an organization?” that are constructed through continuous processes of claims and counterclaims used by members to agree what is core. Also, these are self-categorization processes with which members compare their organization with others. organizational identity is a social process that depends on the context and becomes a collective “cognitive frame” to sensemaking
Multiple identities
Organizations and identities are unstable social constructions constituted through acts of languaging. In an organization multiple identities emerge because different groups of actors define the organization in particular ways according to their interests. Groups with power, using power/knowledge strategies, try to impose their identity version, getting a hegemonic position and control over the organization. However, the other groups develop processes of resistance. As the point of views and the circumstances of the social actors are unstable, so are the multiple versions of identity
Table 5. Research approaches, objectives and empirical analysis (Source: Own elaboration) Empirical Analysis Approaches
Research Objectives
Data
Research Methods
Shared beliefs
To uncover shared beliefs and features where identity of the organization resides and to manage changes in those features and beliefs in order to get changes in identity and to avoid it to be an internal barrier for planned organizational change
Characteristics of the organization that represent cultural and economic values, practices and theories
Cognitive maps, repertory grid technique and self-discrepancy scales
Institutional theory
To analyse an organization’s symbolic attributes that represent its identity comparing the resemblance of them to those of other organizations within its institutional field
Organization’s members perceptions, actions and strategies, and symbols (language and behaviour)
Analytical narrative approach, graphical models and statistical models such as longitudinal studies, regression and correlation studies
Shared meaning
To describe how organizational identity is a key element in the processes of strategic change and its influence in actions taken by the members and in their sensemaking processes when the external context changes
Interpretive schemes, symbols (language and behaviour) and rhetoric techniques
Case study, ethnographic study, and statistic analysis
Hybrid identity
To study how in an organization with a hybrid identity, conflicts and tensions among the dimensions of the identity and the legitimacy of one over the others filters core capabilities and strategic resources of the organization
Interpretive schemes, symbols (language and behaviour) and rhetoric techniques
Case study and ethnographic study
Multiple identities
To describe how the dominant group of the organization makes use of power/knowledge strategies (discursive techniques) to transmit employees its organizational identity version
Rhetoric techniques
Case study and ethnographic study
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Fiol, 1991; Fiol & Huff, 1992; Prahalad & Bettis, 1986; Reger et al., 1994). These characteristics are usually rooted in tacit beliefs that are shared by members of the organization, taken-for-granted and embedded in their actions. As organizational identity is composed of deeply ingrained, tacit assumptions, it provides an internal barrier that hinders organizational change (Fiol & Huff, 1992; Regert et al., 1994). The purpose of the inquiry is usually to uncover the features where the current identity of the organization resides and to analyse how these features shape individual and collective actions. The objective is to manage changes and also get changes in identity to avoid identity to be an internal barrier for planned organizational change (Cornelissen, 2002a, 2002b; Fiol & Huff, 1992; Reger et al., 1994). Literature reviewed uses tools and techniques suitable to disclose taken-for-granted and shared beliefs and also core features that housed organizational identity. Some of them were: cognitive maps, repertory grid technique, and self-discrepancy scales useful to analyse current and ideal identity. These tools were complemented with statistical techniques (Fiol & Huff, 1992; Fiol, 1991; Reger et al., 1994). The “shared beliefs” approach is framed in a functionalist paradigm because both, approach and paradigm, share basic assumptions about organizational identity. Researchers in this paradigm define organizational identity as a set of objective characteristics that are the result of tacit and institutionalized beliefs, shared by members of the organization about what is central, enduring and distinctive. Moreover, organizational identity shapes members actions ant it is hard to change (but not immutable) so it is important to manage it in order to develop organizational changes successfully (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Bouchikhi et al, 1998; Cornelissen, 2006; Fiol, 1991; Fiol & Huff, 1992; Reger et al., 1994). Research data are objective characteristics of the organization such as values, theories and practices, and language and
metaphors take a secondary place in the validity and reliability of the investigation (Cornelissen, 2002a; Cornelissen 2002b; Fiol & Huff, 1992; Prahalad & Bettis, 1986).
Institutional Theory Papers that study organizational identity within the institutional theory define this metaphor from two perspectives. On the one hand, organizational identity is a set of elements or characteristics that members believe to be central, enduring and distinctive on the other hand identity is an actor’s position or role within a set of categories that define an industry or social network (Corley et al., 2006; Glynn & Abzug, 2002; Whetten & Mackey, 2002). Following this approach, the identity of an organization (social actor) arises from a set of essential characteristics that self-define the organization and from its behaviour, symbolic in many times and according with the institutional field logic. This identity is constructed through a social process by means of which members compare their organization with others of its institutional field in order to get a position and legitimacy (Rao, Monin & Durand, 2003; Whetten & Mackey, 2002; Zuckerman et al., 2003). The main objectives are: to clarify the conceptual domain of organizational identity presenting a “social actor” conception of the organization; to analyse an organization’s symbolic attributes (e.g. corporate name) that represent its identity, comparing the resemblance of them to those of other organizations within its institutional field, and examine its effects to get legitimacy; to explain how social actors who abandon existing institutional logics (organizing principles that guidelines to actors) and role identities for new ones can be rejected but can get legitimacy too if they get rewards, and to explain how in this process traditional logics and identities are replaced by new institutional logics and identities (Glynn & Abzug, 2002; Rao, Monin & Durand, 2003; Whetten & Mackey, 2002; Zuckerman et al., 2003).
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The methodology used to develop empirical research is analytical narrative approach, graphical models and statistical models such as longitudinal studies, regression and correlation studies. To collect data researchers usually use interviews with key informants and questionnaires (Glynn & Abzug, 2002; Rao, Monin & Durand, 2003; Zuckerman et al., 2003). These kind of instruments allow to get understanding of organization’s members perceptions, their actions and strategies, restrictions on their actions and symbols that identify organization. The “Institutional theory” approach is framed into a hybrid paradigm functionalist-interpretative because the conceptualization of organizational identity and the objectives of the research share some features of both of them. For example, as the functionalist paradigm proposes, this theory defines organizational identity as a set of characteristics of the organization that are rooted in shared beliefs about what is central, enduring and distinctive (Whetten & Mackey, 2002). However, this approach also defines organizational identity as a social process of symbolic construction through acts of languaging and actions legitimized by the organization’s institutional field. To analyze this social process, researchers need to render the constructions of the informants studied and to represent their interpretations, so that the prime interpreter is the informant and not the researcher (Bouchikhi et al., 1998; Gioia, 1998; Whetten & Mackey, 2002).
Shared Meaning It is named “shared meaning” the approach in which organizational identity is conceptualized as meanings shared by members of the organization about “who we are as an organization”. These meanings are constructed through continuous processes of claims and counterclaims used by members to agree what is central, enduring and distinctive in the organization and also through processes of self-categorization by means of
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which members compare their organization with others in order to find differences and similarities (Fiol, 2002; Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2002a; Gioia, Schultz & Corley, 2002b; Scott & Lane, 2000; Turner et al., 1987; Whetten & Mackey, 2002). Organizational identity is a subjective, iterative socially-constructed process that is also constrained by the context and it acts as a collective and individual frame of reference to understand or to make sense of events, policies and actions (Cornelissen, 2006; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Fiol, 2002; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Scott & Lane, 2000). Reviewed papers present the following objectives: to develop models of organizational identity in order to describe the formation of the identity of the organization from the dynamic and complex interactions of the organization’s member, models to describe how organizational identity is a key element in the processes of strategic change and in the processes of individual identification with the organization; to investigate the current identity of an organization and its influence in both actions taken by the members and in their sensemaking processes when the external context changes (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Fiol, 2002; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Nag, Corley & Gioia, 2007; Scott & Lane, 2000). The methodologies used to gain the above objectives are case study, ethnographic study and statistic analysis. To collect data researchers relies on recorded and transcribed narratives, stories, and interviews with key informants, on written down notes about activities and facts and on archival data in the form of intranet pages, web sites, published news articles, etc. Collected data are analysed to find interpretive schemes, language and concepts shared by members of the organization that are used in sensemaking. This research approach is framed in the interpretative paradigm. Organizational identity is defined as a socially-constructed process through continuous contesting and negotiating among members of the organization so it is a flux.
CoPs & Organizational Identity
Moreover, it works as a frame of reference to make sense of their life world. One implication of these assumptions is that understanding such subjective organizational phenomena requires that the researcher get organization, involved with informants who are the prime interpreters (Gioia & Chittipedi, 1991; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Nag, Corley & Gioia, 2007; Scott & Lane, 2000; Whetten & Mackey, 2002).
Hybrid Identity The research approach “Hybrid identity” defines organizational identity from the point of view of the interpretative-postmodern paradigm. It is interpretative the idea that the identity of an organization is a socially-constructed process through continuous claims and counterclaims (rhetorical activity) used by members to agree what is central, enduring and distinctive and that becomes a collective “cognitive frame” invoked in order to make sense and in order to take action. It is postmodern the idea that different groups of the organization, through the rhetorical activity, can develop a hybrid identity, fragmented in several potentially conflicting dimensions that attempts to be legitimized over the others (Glynn, 2000; Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997). The main purposes of literature related to this approach can be summarized as follows: to study and propose a model that explains the influence of the organizational identity dimensions as well as the conflicts and tensions that emerge among them when constructing the managers role, and when defining core capabilities and resources of an organization (Bürgi & Oliver, 2005; Bürgi, Roos & Oliver, 2002; Glynn, 2000; Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) Case study and ethnographic study are the research methodology used. Collection of data is made through tape-recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews with key informants, archival sources and participant observation. Collected data are symbols (language and behaviour)
and rhetoric techniques used by organizational members in order to analyze how they construct and describe their actions and behaviours, how they define core capabilities and resources of the organization and how they construct several dimensions of organizational identity that in time of changes or organizational crisis can be conflicting. The “Hybrid identity” research approach is framed in an interpretative-postmodern paradigm because it shares characteristics of both of them: It is interpretative the idea that organizational identity is a socially-constructed process that becomes a collective “cognitive frame” to make sense; It is postmodern the idea of this research approach that points out the different groups of the organization can develop a fragmented or hybrid identity with several conflicting dimensions that could fight in an attempt to be legitimized over the others dimensions. Although the empirical papers reviewed do not mention “multiple identities” in a explicit way, as the postmodern paradigm would do, they analyze the different dimensions of the identity of an organization and remark on the effort made by certain groups to legitimize their dimension over the other ones to get an advantage. This point of view is similar to the postmodern idea of the use of power/knowledge strategies to impose one of the several identities versions that exist in the organization, in order to get a hegemonic position and control over the others groups of power.
Multiple Identities The research approach denominated “multiple identities” asserts that organizations and identities are unstable social constructions constituted through acts of languaging. In an organization multiple identities emerge because different groups of actors define the organization in particular ways according to their interests. Groups with power, using power/knowledge strategies, try to impose their identity version, getting a hegemonic position and control over the organization. However,
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the other groups develop processes of resistance (Foucault, 1981, 1983). As point of views and circumstances of the social actors are unstable, so are the multiple versions of identity. These versions are continuously created and re-created by all participants and often compete to get power and control, they tend to exist in tension so the hegemonic and resistance processes are not static but dynamic (Brown & Humphreys, 2006; Brown, Humphreys & Gurney, 2005; Covaleski et al., 1998). In general terms, the objectives of research reviewed based in this approach are: to describe how the dominant group of the organization makes use of power/knowledge strategies (e.g. discursive techniques, place of work); to transmit employees its organizational identity version and employees internalize this version getting language, ways of act and objectives; to understand the resistance situations to impose one version of the organizational identity and the ruptures and absences in the discourses, which means some groups become marginal. In the “multiple identities” approach, typical research methodology is case study and ethnographic study. To collect data (discursive and rhetoric techniques) researchers make informal, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with key informants, all of them recorded and fully transcribed, archival sources and participant observation. Researchers are interested in rhetoric techniques (Foucault, 1981, 1983). This approach has been classified in the postmoderm paradigm because of its definition of an unstable, fragmented and socially-constructed organizational identity, objectives of inquiry that aim to study conflictive and power relations, and research methodology and data that analyses discursive and rhetoric techniques following this paradigm perspective (Bouchikhi el al., 1998; Brown & Humphreys, 2006; Brown, Humphreys & Gurney, 2005; Covaleski et al., 1998; Gioia, 1998).
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3. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: WHAT A CoP IS, OTHER RELATED CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL CoP As we noted in the “Introduccion”, in next section we will propose the theoretical interrelations between CoPs and organizational identity. The main aim is to empirically analyze the two main propositions of this work on new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park: (1) Members of these organizations could be building the organizational identity through CoPs; and (2) The organizational identity socially built by members could be facilitating the emergence of CoPs. In consequence, in this section we are going to present the definition of CoP and the features of a successful CoP following the descriptions made by the main authors in this area. Our purposes are: First, to theoretically integrate the characteristics of CoPs and organizational identity in order to study the interrelationship between them. The focus of our integration proposal is on the descriptions about CoPs made in the literature and on the research approaches of organizational identity we have proposed. Later, we test empirically those relations in NTBFs established at Madrid Science Park. The primary use of the concept of Communities of Practices (CoPs) has been in the learning theory literature. The term was coined by Etienne Wenger and Jane Lave in their book Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation published in 1991. However, the ethnographic base can be found in Barley’s paper entitled Technology as an occasion for structuring: evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments and published in 1986 and also in Julian E. Orr’s doctoral thesis presented in 1990 and published in 1996 with the title Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job. Wenger and Lane (1991) focused on the fact that a good portion of learning is “situated learn-
CoPs & Organizational Identity
ing”, and less is institutional learning. Situated learning involves learning through practice and social interaction (e.g. discussing the tasks of the work at lunch or coffee breaks) (Brown & Duguid, 2000). One of the most famous examples of a CoP is the copy machine repair technicians at Xerox Corporation described by Brown and Duguid (1991). These technicians were supposed to perform their jobs according to formal job descriptions but the daily evidence pointed the contrary. Through networking and some informal story-telling procedures (sharing their experiences, problems encountered and the solutions given), a group of these technicians were extremely efficient repairing Xerox customers’ copy machines. They constructed a communal interpretation of the individual experiences and data which brought customer satisfaction and therefore increased business value. These procedures used by the members of a CoP are not formal or corporate programmes but the organization can identify these groups and take steps to support and enhance them. Following Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) CoPs can be defined as groups of people informally bounded together who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on and ongoing basis. These groups of people (3, 4, 20 or maybe 30 people), who share an interest or passion for something they do, engage themselves, intentionally or not, in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them. They learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. However, every community is not a CoP. A shared knowledge domain, a community and practice are the three structural elements of a CoP. It is the combination of these elements that constitutes a Community of Practice and it is by developing them in parallel that a community is created (Stewart, 1996; Wenger, 1998, 2001; Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002):
•
•
•
A share knowledge domain: A CoP is not only a group of friends or a network of connections between people. It has an identity that is defined by the shared domain of interest. Membership implies a commitment to the domain and a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people. Members value their collective competence and learn from each other, even though few people outside the group may value or recognize their expertise. A community: In pursuing their interest in a certain domain, members of a CoP engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other. Therefore, having the same job does not give as a result a CoP unless members interact and learn together. Members do not necessarily develop formal relationship and work together on a daily basis. For example, the Impressionists used to meet in cafes and studios to discuss the style of painting they were inventing together and these interactions were essential to making them a Community of Practice even though they often painted alone. Practice: Members of a CoP are practitioners and not merely a community of people interested in a topic. They develop a shared repertoire of resources, that is, they share practice. This concept includes both explicit and tacit knowledge (what is taken for granted), what is said and what is left unsaid, what is represented and what is assumed. In a company members of a CoP can make a concerted effort to collect and document the knowledge they share and what they learn into a knowledge base but also, when they meet regularly in the coffee break, for example, they may not realize that their discussions are one of their main sources of knowledge about their worries
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in their jobs. In the course of their conversations they develop a set of stories, tools, language, symbols, untold rules of thumb and cases that become a shared repertoire for their practice. Therefore, the concept of practice connotes doing but in a historical and social context that gives structure and meaning to what the members do so it is a social practice. Communities of Practice can be distinguished from other forms of organization. Wenger and Snyder (2000) point out some of those differences comparing CoPs with other related concepts such as Project Teams, Formal Work Groups and Informal Networks: •
•
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A Project Teams is a formal group created by managers to develop a specific project or task. Members of the team are selected by managers on the basis of their ability to contribute to the goal of the team and it lasts until the project or task is finished. The team is organized by managers and they have regular formal meetings. However a CoP is not created by a manager, it is a group of people that informally bound together due to a shared interest, passion and commitment in a topic or enterprise. They organize themselves with their own agendas and leadership. They can meet regularly (e. g. at lunch time) or be connected by e-mail networks. The agenda may not be followed closely, and experience and knowledge are shared in free-flowing and creative ways. Memberships of a CoP are self-selected, they know if they have something to give and share. A Formal Work Group also differs from a CoP. A Formal Work Group is a group of people created by a manager to deliver a product or service. Everyone who reports to the manager is a member of the group. The reason why these people hold together
•
is the job requirements and common goals. The group lasts until managers make a new reorganization. The function of an Informal Network is to collect and share business information of common interest. Members of the group are friends and business acquaintances who obtain and provide value information because of their membership to the Informal Network. This group will last while members have reasons to connect and share information.
What are the main characteristics of a successful CoP? Wenger (2001) asserts that, in building a successful CoP, it is more important to address the social, cultural, and organizational issues of the CoP than to seek for the perfect technological platform. According to Wenger (2001), there are thirteen fundamental elements of a successful CoP that are presented next. As it may be observed, identity is included among them: •
•
•
Time and Space 1. Presence and visibility: A CoP needs to have a presence and visibility in the members’ lives. 2. Rhythm: CoPs live in time and have got rhythms of events and rituals that reaffirm their bonds and value. Participation 3. Variety of interactions: Members of a CoP need to interact in order to build their shared practice. 4. Efficiency of involvement: CoPs compete with other priorities in their members’ lives so participation must be easy. Value Creation 5. Short-term value: CoPs prosper if they deliver some value to their members and to their organizational context, so each interaction among their members needs to create some value.
CoPs & Organizational Identity
•
•
•
•
6. Long-term value: Members of a CoP have got a long-term commitment to its development because they identify themselves with the shared domain of the community. Connections 7. Connection to the world: A way of creating value for a CoP is to provide a connection to a broader field or community in order to allow the members to keep abreast of things. Identity 8. Personal identity: Being a member of a CoP is part of one’s identity as a competent practitioner. 9. Communal identity: Successful CoPs have a strong identity that members embed in their own lives. Community Membership 10. Belonging and relationships: The value of belonging to a CoP is not only instrumental but also personal due to the interaction with colleagues, development of friendship, and construction of trust. 11. Complex boundaries: CoPs have multiple levels and types of participation so it is important: Allow people on the periphery to participate in some way; Allow members of the CoP to create sub-communities around areas of interest. Community Development 12. Evolution: A CoP evolves to integration and maturation as it goes past through several stages of development and finds new connections to the world. 13. Active community-building: In successful CoPs there is usually a person or core group of people who take an active responsibility to move community on.
4. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE, ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS After having made a proposal of the main research approaches in the area of organizational identity and having describe what is a CoP, next step, before test empirically the propositions of this chapter, is to integrate theoretically the characteristics of CoPs and organizational identity in order to study the interrelationship between them. From an interpretative paradigm and also from a “shared meaning” research approach, several are the interrelations among the concepts of Communities of Practice and organizational identity. Table 6 summarizes the definitions and principal features of both concepts that have been stated yet in sections “The organizational identity concept as an emergent approach of “organizational knowledge””and ““Communities of Practice” as an emergent concept in a knowledge-based economy”. In this table, the definitions and characteristics of both concepts are in next columns in order to see easily the relations between them. As summarized in Table 6, a CoP and organizational identity share several characteristics. A CoP emerges because of the agreement of the members, and the identity of an organization is built through a continuous process of negotiation, and therefore through an agreement among the organization’s members. In a CoP its members share a passion or interest for an enterprise, and the organizational identity is a cognitive frame also shared by the members of the organization. Both of them are built through a social process of interaction between the members of the organization. Both, CoPs and organizational identity, share elements as methods, tools, stories, etc., as the former develop them and the latter resides in them. Finally, Members of a successful CoP have a strong sense of communal identity so we analyze if this CoP identity is the organizational identity of a small or micro firm whose members work all together as a CoP. This question summarizes
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Table 6. Communities of Practice (CoPs) and organizational identity (OI) (Source: Own elaboration) Communities of Practice
Organizational Identity (considering a “shared meaning” research approach)
Definitions
Groups of people informally bounded together who share an interest or passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on and ongoing basis. The three structural elements of a CoP are a shared knowledge domain, a community and practice
Meanings shared by members of the organization about “who are we as an organization?” that are constructed through continuous processes of claims and counterclaims. OI is a social process that depends on the context and becomes a collective “cognitive frame”
Characteristics
They emerge informally because of the agreement of their members
It is constructed through a continuous process of negotiation among members of the organization
Members share a passion about a topic
It becomes a collective frame shared by members to make sensemaking
Members develop a process of collective learning through practice and social interaction
It is a social process of interaction
Members of a successful CoP have a strong sense of communal identity
Is the CoP identity the OI of a small or micro firm?
Groups of 3, 4, 20 or maybe 30 people Members organize themselves with their own agendas and leadership Elements Developed by CoPs and Where OI Resides
Methods, tools, techniques, stories, rituals, symbols (language and behaviour)
the main propositions to be analyzed in this chapter that were stated in the introduction, that is, the research questions: 1. Members of a small or micro firm can build the organizational identity through a CoP composed by all the members of the firm, because in accomplishing their tasks they develop typical CoPs ways of working and the communal identity of this CoP becomes the organizational identity. 2. The organizational identity socially built can facilitate the emergence of a CoP because, as Wenger (2001) asserts, a fundamental element of a successful CoP is to have a communal identity. What we mean is that the communal identity of the CoP is the organizational identity of a small or micro firm and vice versa. Having analyzed from a theoretical point of view the elements shared by CoPs and organiza-
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tional identity, in next section we empirically test the two above propositions. Using a case study approach, we study if members of five NTBFs of Madrid Science Park develop their work as a CoP and if the communal identity of this CoP becomes the identity of the organization. As we have previously stated in the introduction, we chose these firms because they have been recently founded, they need help to understand “who they are” in order to set the base of success in their first years of life and their main resource is knowledge, that is involved in the construction of the organizational identity and in the running of a CoP.
5. RESEARCH APPROACH From the paradigms and research approaches stated in section “The organizational identity concept as an emergent approach of “organizational knowledge””, we take an interpretative paradigm and a “shared meaning” research approach as
CoPs & Organizational Identity
guide to develop the empirical research. The reason is that their definition of organizational identity, core features of this metaphor, objective of research and methodology is suitable to study the iterative socially-process of construction of the identity develop in the NTBFs of the sample. This process becomes a collective “cognitive frame” to sensemaking and through it the members of these organizations exchange knowledge (see Tables 2, 4 and 5). Selected the paradigm and research approach, according to them and in order to test our propositions, we use a case study approach. This is suitable to analyze data as symbols and interpretive schemes (Tables 2 and 5) and for answering “how” and “why” questions (Yin, 1984) such as how members of the new technology-based firms (NTBFs) of the case study can build the organizational identity through a CoP and how the organizational identity can facilitate the emergence of a CoP. It also enables researchers to use “controlled opportunism” to respond flexibly to new discoveries made while collecting new data (Eisenhardt, 1989). By making this choice, we address the major challenge of ensuring that data collection and analysis met tests of construct validity, reliability, and internal and external validity by carefully considering Yin’s (1984) tactics. We promoted construct validity by using the multiple sources of evidence described in the “Data sources” section and by establishing a chain of evidence as we concluded the interviews. Reliability was enhanced by: (1) Using a case-study protocol in which all firms and all informants were subjects to the same entry and exit procedures and interview questions (see “Data sources” section), and (2) by creating similarly organized case data bases for each firm we visited. External validity was assured by the multiple-case research design itself, whereby all cases were NTBFs of Madrid Science Park. Finally, we addressed internal validity by the pattern-matching data-analysis method described (see “Data Analysis Procedure” section).
The case study approach provided a real-time study of the matter of study in the natural field setting by investigating, in depth, five NTBFs created at Madrid Science Park. The reason why these five firms were of great interest for our empirical work are: These new firms asked for assistance in order to set the best strategies and patterns of work so they offered their collaboration in our research; They employed a high proportion of qualified employees so when analyzing their ways of work and the relationships between their employees it was easy to make them understand the emergent concept of organizational identity and its possible relation with CoPs. This made our work as researchers easier and fruitful; Their principal resource is knowledge and it is involved in the construction of the organizational identity and in the running of a CoP; These firms belong to different industries, what allowed us to treat this element as a ceteris paribus variable and to focus our attention on the patterns of behaviour they share as NTBFs. The term “new technology-based firms” (NTBFs) was coined by the Arthur D. Little Group in 1977 when this group defined this firms as “an independently owned business established for not more than 25 years and based on the exploitation of an invention or technological innovation which implies substantial technological risks”. Butchart (1987) and Shearman and Burrell (1988) define this kind of firms focusing on sectors which have higher than average expenditures on R&D as a proportion of sales or which employ proportionately more qualified scientists and engineers than other sectors. This definition has been widely used however these authors call these firms “high tech SMEs” and distinguish them from NTBFs which are both newly established and independent. We use both definitions to develop an empirical research on firms recently established at Madrid Science Park by a group of entrepreneurs, based on exploitation of an invention or technological innovation and which employ a high proportion of qualified employees. We take the European
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Commission definition of micro and small firms adopted in 2003 in the recommendation C (2003) 1422. A small firm is defined as “an enterprise which employs fewer than 50 persons and whose annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 10 million”. A micro firm is defined as “an enterprise which employs less than 10 people and whose annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 2 million”. The sample was not random, but reflected a representative selection of new technology-based firms of the Science Madrid Park. The comparison of case studies within the same context enabled “analytic generalization” through the replication of results, either literally (when similar responses emerged) or theoretically (when contrary results emerged for predictable reasons) (Yin, 1984). This allowed us to ensure that the evidence in
one well-described setting was not wholly idiosyncratic (Miles & Huberman, 1984). Although space prevents our providing “thick descriptions” of each case (McClintock, Brannon, & MaynardMoody, 1979), Table 7 briefly describes the firms studied at the time of our analysis. To maintain confidentiality the names of the firms are fictional names. Next, Table 7 presents the technical record of the cases studies showing the period and average durations of the interviews, the NTBFs’ fictional names, their activity sector, legal entity, number of employees, date of establishment, the informants and their jobs and qualifications: As it is shown in Table 7, following the European Commission definition, the companies that have taken part in the case studies are micro and small firms as they have from 4 to 19 employees. They were established between 2000 and 2007 as Limited Companies and belong to activity
Table 7. Study cases technical file (Source: Own elaboration) Interviews were Made in:
June-August, 2008
Interviews Average Duration:
60 Minutes
NTBF and Informants: NTBF
Activity sector
NTBF A
Information Technology & Communications
NTBF B
Biotechnology & Agroalimentation
Legal entity
Employees
Establishment
Informants and jobs
Qualifiations
Limited Company
19
2005
President and Founder Shareholder
Bachelor Degree
Sales & Marketing Department
Bachelor Degree
Limited Company
8
General Manager
Master Marketing & Management
Sales & Marketing Department
Bachelor Degree
2005
Business Development Area
MBA
NTBF C
Environment & Renewable Energies
Limited Company
5
2004
Founder Shareholder and collaborator in the Development Area
Bachelor Degree
Research & Development Manager
PhD
NTBF D
Information, Technology & Communications
Limited Company
7
2007
Promoter and in charge of the Organization and Consulting Services Area
PhD
Promoter and in charge of the Technological Implementation Area
Bachelor Degree
Founder Shareholder and Technical Manager
Bachelor Degree
Taxonomic Identifications and Reports Area
Bachelor Degree
NTBF E
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Environment & Renewable Energies
Limited Company
4
2000
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sectors based on the exploitation of an invention or technological innovation. These sectors are: Information, Technology & Communications, Biotechnology & Agroalimentation and Environment & Renewable Energies. Finally, they employ qualified people with a PhD, Master or Bachelor Degree.
Data Sources As typical in case study research (Eisenhardt, 1989), we used several data-collection methods. We collected data through interviews, observations, and secondary sources. The underlying rationale is “triangulation” (Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, & Serchrest, 1996) made possible by multiple data sources provides stronger substantiation of constructs and propositions. The data-collection process took place in the period June-August 2008.
Interviews A case-study protocol was developed pursuing reliability in the findings, and a pilot study was carried out in order to refine our data-collection plan with respect to both the content of the data and the procedures followed. The primary source of initial data collection came from semi-structured interviews with eleven informants. At each site, we conducted in-depth interviews lasted sixty minutes on average per case. In order to obtain various points of view and to avoid slants, in each firm we conducted interviews with the General Manager and/or founder shareholder or promoter and one or two employees. The in-depth interviews took the form of focused interviews that remained open-ended and assumed a conversational manner (Yin, 1984). We began the interviews by asking the respondents to take the role of spokesperson for the organization to focus on organizational level issues, later we explained the concept of organizational identity and that the aim of the interview was to study how
this identity was being constructed and the relation of this construction with their patterns of work. Following, in the first stage of the interviews, we asked the respondents to describe his or her job in the firm and also open questions about the activity of the firm, its history, structure, strengths, core characteristics, customers or activity sector. In the second stage of the interview we focused on areas such as the ways of share knowledge, the breaks during a day of work, the feeling of being a community, the employees’ features or the communications ways between them. The questions in the interviews concentrated on facts and events, rather than on respondents’ interpretations, using standard courtroom interrogation (What did you do? When? Who said what to whom?). Following Eisenhardt’s (1989) recommendations, all interviews were recorded and were transcribed immediately afterward. In the transcriptions, we included all data, regardless of its apparent importance in the interview. We then checked facts and ended the transcription notes with our lingering impressions, trying to supplement the transcribed interviews and trying to sharpen them by asking ourselves questions (e.g. What did I learn? How does this interview compare to prior interviews?). We completed the interview notes and impressions within a day of the interview (Yin, 1984).
Observations and Secondary Sources During the site visits, we kept a daily record of impressions and recorded informal observations we made as we participated in activities such as lunches and coffee breaks. In addition, whenever possible, we attended meetings as passive notetakers. These observations provided real-time data. We also used secondary sources to collect background information about the cases. Such sources included annual reports, internal documents provided by the interviewees, agendas for meetings, minutes of past meetings, internal newsletters and intranets, industry reports, websites, and various
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articles in magazines and newspapers about the situation and evolution of the industry in general and of the different cases in particular. We used the secondary sources and data to supplement de data obtained from the interviews.
Data Analysis Procedure Following Yin (1984), we have set the general analytic strategy called “relying on theoretical propositions”. First, the theoretical propositions about the concepts of organizational identity, “CoPs” and their relationships have been described and second, these theoretical propositions will be the guide to analysis the empirical evidence (see “Findings” section) to answer the research questions stated in the “Communities of Practice, Organizational Identity and Research Questions” section: •
•
Members of the NTBF created at Madrid Science Park build their organizational identity through CoPs. The organizational identity socially built by members of the NTBF created at Madrid Science Park facilitates the emergence of CoPs.
Also, we have followed the explanationbuilding data-analysis method, which is a special type of pattern-matching method, because is a relevant procedure for explanatory case studies. This method is suitable to stipulate a set of casual links that are in narrative form. As these narratives can not be precise, the explanations of the case study have to reflect some theoretically significant propositions (Yin, 1984). In consequence, the final explanation of the multiple-case research is the result of: (a) the theoretical propositions initially established about organizational identity, “CoPs” and their relationships; (b) an iterative process of comparisons between these propositions and the findings; and (c) a continuous revision of the propositions.
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Finally, as techniques of data-analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1984) we have used tables which have helped us to put in order and make comparisons between the empirical evidence and to present the relations between data and theoretical propositions.
6. FINDINGS As it was asserted in section “The organizational identity concept as an emergent approach of “organizational knowledge””, the “shared meaning” research approach points out that organizational identity is constructed through continuous processes of claims and counterclaims used by members to agree what is core in the organization. These processes are developed through interaction which helps communication between organization’s members. Conversations become a fundamental way of interaction because: they allow members to share and discuss points of view and experiences related with facts and situations derived from their condition of member of the organization; and, as it was indicated before, doing so they transfer tacit knowledge and negotiate the organizational identity too (Gioia, 1998; Bouchikhi, et al, 1998; Brown & Duguid, 1991). Next, we outline examples of descriptions made by some interviewees of the five NTBFs investigated about the informal interaction and communication processes in their organizations. The objective is to test if in these companies, through conversations, a continuous sensemaking process of claims and counterclaims or of exchange of points of views is used. Informants’ firms and jobs are stated: •
NTBF A, Sales & Marketing Department: “There is something we call “coffee time” that consists of everybody having breakfast at the same time everyday. We have a kitchen that allows us to do this and sometimes we speak about our jobs and tasks, other
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•
•
•
•
times about the sales or about the warm, or about…, then this is more familiar” NTBF B, Sales & Marketing Department: “We interact constantly. From a small comment we can make a meeting, from an e-mail I receive we can put the chairs together and discuss what to answer. With the laboratory I interact constantly […] We speak, speak, speak, speak, speak very much. We discuss, discuss very much” NTBF C, R&D Manager: “During the coffee time and lunch we never speak about our job because the data protection policy the firm follows […] about work we speak in the work place and during breaks we speak about things of breaks” NTBF D, Promoter and in charge of the Organization and Consulting Services Area: “We share coffee maybe too much but I think this is part of the work. Thinking people is not working when they are having a coffee or smoking is wrong. It is during those breaks when people get deeply in touch and make report and they tell private affairs also” NTBF E, Founder Shareholder and Technical Manager: “We share our knowledge everyday because things arise and we say ‘Look, I know how to do it!’, it is like this. Also our activity has got a peculiarity, we go to the countryside a lot and in the countryside we spend weeks with the same person, sharing breakfast, lunch, hotel, conversations and it emerges a special relationship of camaraderie”
As it can be observed in the above statements, the interviewees point out the importance of the informal interaction in their companies, how usual and continuous the process of exchange of points of views is and that it is a process to transfer knowledge. For example in NTBF D the interviewee remarks the importance of informal meetings to transfer knowledge: “Thinking people
is not working when they are having a coffee or smoking is wrong. It is during those breaks when people get deeply in touch and make report”. The interviewee in NTBF E remarks how usual is the process: “We share our knowledge everyday because things arise and we say “Look, I know how to do it!”. Also, the NTBF A member remarks the continuity of this process saying: “There is something we call “coffee time” that consists of everybody having breakfast at the same time everyday […] we speak about our jobs and tasks other times about the sales or about the warm”; The same happens in NTBF B where a member of the Sales & Marketing Department says: “From a small comment we can make a meeting, from an e-mail I receive we can put the chairs together and discuss what to answer”. We should make a remark about NTBF C. This company follows a strict data protection policy that controls when to discuss about work and who with, so informal communication processes are not promoted and they try to get them under control. In sum, four of the NTBFs that participated in the research give great importance to promote a continuous informal process of claims and counterclaims between their employees in order to exchange points of views and discuss about work. However, we wonder if the members of the NTBFs are constructing their organizational identity through this informal and continuous communication processes, and also if these NTBFs are working as CoPs during the informal communication processes they develop. These two questions summarize the two propositions to be tested. Next, we are going to explore them. As it was pointed in the section “Communities of Practice, Organizational Identity and Research Questions”, seven are the main characteristics of CoPs. If a group of employee informally bounded accomplishes these characteristics then it can be called CoP. Moreover, taking an interpretative paradigm and a “shared meaning” research approach four are the characteristics of CoPs that
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they share with the concept organizational identity (see Table 6). These were the CoPs features: 1. They emerge informally because of the agreement of their members. 2. Members share a passion about a topic. 3. Members develop a process of collective learning through practice and social interaction. 4. Members of a successful CoP have a strong sense of communal identity. 5. Groups of 3, 4, 20 or maybe 30 people. 6. Members organize themselves with their own agendas and leadership. 7. CoPs develop methods, tools, techniques, stories, rituals, symbols (language and behaviour). Table 8 shows which the above characteristics are accomplished by the five NTBFs studied. Each cell of the first column represents one characteristics of the CoP. Next, the other cells have been filled with the comments of one of the interviewees of each firm, but only if the corresponding characteristic is treated in a positive way and if the others interviewees of the company have the same opinion, or if the comment reflects a collective opinion corroborated by the secondary sources such as internal newsletters, websites, and articles in magazines and newspapers about the NTBF studied. So, each cell filled represents that the corresponding NTBF satisfies the characteristic analyzed. We decided to present this comments using a table as a way to summarize a great quantity of data and also to make easier the cross-analysis of the data. This analysis has consisted on making a comparison between the statements of the all participants in the cases studies. Table 8 shows that NTBF A, NTBF B and NTBF D fulfil the seven characteristics of a CoP because members make comments that are according with these characteristics so these firms can be classified as CoPs. NTBF E does not fulfil the characteristic “CoPs develop methods,
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tools, techniques, stories, rituals, symbols (language and behaviour)”. In the two interviews conducted in this firm members do not speak about rituals, symbols etc. However, the activity of this company makes their members to spend a lot of time together, travelling and working in the countryside and so, as they told us, they develop a deep camaraderie, so we can suppose that those stories, rituals, symbols, etc, must exist and then this firm can also be classified as a CoP. In short, NTBF A, NTBF B, NTBF D and NTBF E are working as CoPs whose participants are all the members of the companies (19 employees in NTBF A, 8 in NTBF B, 7 in NTBF D and 4 in NTBF E). About NTBF C, we can say that, with the information obtained from the two interviews conducted and reading Table 8, this firm does not fulfil the characteristics of a CoP. Maybe the reason is its data protection policy that is generating an organizational identity which does not promote informal communication an so CoPs. So this company does not use CoPs as a way to construct is organizational identity. The analysis of Table 8 leads us to conclude that NTBF A, B, D and E are working as CoPs, and these CoPs are constructing a sense of communal identity. In the aforementioned table, we can read some comments of the informants about their communal identity as CoP and also as organization, as the members of the CoPs are all the members of the organizations. This is so because they are small and micro firms. These comments are self-reflective questions of this NTBFs that answer the question “who are we as an organization?”, question that characterize the term “organizational identity” from the point of view of Albert and Whetten (1985). These comments are the following: • •
NTBF A : “We define NTBF A as an innovation model” NTBF B: “We are a firm of security alimentary services”
CoPs & Organizational Identity
Table 8. Communities of Practice (CoPs) in the five NTBFs studied (Source: Own elaboration)
“There is something we call “coffee time” that consists of everybody having breakfast at the same time everyday [...] sometimes we speak about our jobs and tasks”
“We define NTBF A as an innovation model”
19
“There is something we call “coffee time””
NTBF B
“We interact constantly. From a small comment we can make a meeting, from an e-mail I receive we can put the chairs together and discuss what to answer”
“We look for people who wants to work in a team and with total commitment with the project”
“In an informal way, if tomorrow someone has got a question and other member can helps him or her, that person asks it directly and there is not jealousy of keeping knowledge, that doesn’t exist”
“We are a firm of security alimentary services”
8
“Every week we have what we call “the pizza day” and we have lunch all together”
“We share the mystic and passion as people who has always integrated this team that is NTBF D they have assimilated this work philosophy”
“We share coffee maybe too much but I think this is part of the work [...] It is during those breaks when people get deeply in touch and make report”
“We are an investigation team”
7
“We like what we do and we have an interest beyond to work in a firm or other, that is, we believe in the things we investigate and we think our work is important”
“We share our knowledge everyday because things arise and someone says “Look, I know how to do it!”, it is like this”
“Our identity would be laboratory of taxonomic determinations”
4
NTBF C
CoPs develop methods, tools, techniques, stories, rituals, symbols (language and behaviour)
“People who enter work here don’t leave the firm because we feel at home”
Groups of 3, 4, 20 or maybe 30 people
“There is something we call ‘coffee time’ that consists of everybody having breakfast at the same time”
Members of a successful CoP have a strong sense of communal identity
Members develop a process of collective learning through practice and social interaction
NTBF A
Communities of Practice
Members organize themselves with their own agendas and leadership
Members share a passion about a topic
They emerge informally because of the agreement of their members
Characteristics
5
NTBF D “We share coffee maybe too much but I think this is part of the work. Thinking people is not working when they are having a coffee or smoking is wrong. It is during those breaks when people get deeply in touch and make report and they tell private affairs also” NTBF E
“We work very much as a team because this is a small place and we are few people and this way of working arises naturally”
“Other members call us FRIKA because they think we are the “frikis” of the firm as we are mad about our job”
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• •
NTBF D: “We are an investigation team” NTBF E: “Our identity would be laboratory of taxonomic determinations”
To sum up the findings we have stated, CoPs are used by members of these four companies to construct their organizational identity. Also, this organizational identity they are constructing is making easy the emergence of a CoP because it is also the communal identity of the CoP they are using as a pattern of work. This identity is being used by them to build a sensemaking processes. It is being constructed through a continuous process of claims and counterclaims and through conversations which is typical of the dynamic of a CoP and characteristic of the organizational identity taking an interpretive paradigm. In relation to the information obtained from NTBF C, this firm does not use CoPs as a way to construct its organizational identity probably because, as it has been mentioned yet, of the data protection policy followed by this firm.
7. CONCLUSION Communities of Practice (CoPs) are informal groups of people who share an interest in a certain domain and engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them. Through real practice that is not written in the official procedures, they share what they know (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Wenger, 1998, 2001). In a successful CoP, through conversations and practice, individual knowledge can be transformed into collective knowledge and members construct the communal CoP identity. This CoP identity socially built can be the organizational identity of a new technology-based firm whose all its members works together as a CoP. Therefore, CoPs and organizational identity may be analyzed from a cause-effect perspective and vice-versa. In order to analyze the two main propositions of the chapter (analyze whether a CoP communal
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identity could be the organizational identity of a NTBF whose members work as a CoP; analyze whether in these firms CoPs emerge as a need to set their organizational identity and vice versa), first, we have presented the original definition of the term organizational identity offered by Albert and Whetten (1985) and have made a proposal about the several paradigms and research approaches that can be found in the current literature and the definitions they offer of the term “Organizational Identity”. Second, we have presented the concept of the term CoPs. Third, taking an interpretative paradigm and “shared meaning” research approach we have proposed the theoretical interrelations between CoPs and organizational identity. Finally, we have tested empirically the mentioned interrelations on new technology-based firms created at Madrid Science Park. The findings of the empirical research allow us to conclude that four of the five firms that took part in the cases studies (NTBF A, B, D and E) are using CoPs as a tool to transfer knowledge, to develop a sensemaking process, and to make their daily work, it do not matter their activity sector. As they are small and micro firms, the CoPs members are the whole of the company members so the CoP communal identity they construct becomes the organizational identity too. So, from an interpretative paradigm, the continuous process of claims and counterclaims members make in the CoP helps to construct the organizational identity. In short, in these firms the CoP becomes a value tool to construct their organizational identity. Therefore, in these four NTBFs there is a clear relationship between the CoPs they develop and the organizational identity they are constructing. They are small and micro firms with a high proportion of qualified employees, many of them are researchers that think the best way of work to develop and exploit an invention or technological innovation is working in group, through conversations, exchanging and sharing information, knowledge and problems. They promote
CoPs & Organizational Identity
this pattern of work using informal relations and communications and in so doing they are creating a CoP whose members are the whole employees of the company, a communal identity to this CoP and in consequence the identity of their organizations. So, to these companies CoPs are an important tool of work and a fundamental tool to the process of construction of the organizational identity. We can also describe this finding as follow. For these firms working sharing information through informal communications is central, enduring and distinctive. That is, this communications are the process to construct their organizational identity, what they are as innovation firms, as it is the process to create knowledge and so innovation. These informal communications creates a way of work that has got the characteristics of a CoP so the organizational identity socially built in this firms facilitate the emergence of a CoP. Therefore, we can conclude that CoPs and organizational identity may be analyzed from a cause-effect perspective and vice-versa in the NTBFs of our empirical research. Past studies in the areas of CoPs and organizational identity have not explored in deep the relations between both concepts. This chapter analyzed these relations by making a theoretical proposal and testing it empirically in the context of the NTBFs created at Madrid Science Park. This empirical study proves that the organizational identity of a NTBF is constructed by a CoP and that in these firms CoPs emerge as a necessity to set their organizational identity. However, this study is not free of limitations that can serve as signposts for future studies in this area. On the one hand, the chapter develops the idea that the NTBFs created at Madrid Science Park use CoPs to construct their organizational identity and that this identity facilitates the emergent of CoPs. These propositions have been tested in five firms so the results of the case studies can not be generalized although they can be the starting point for deeper future empirical work in order to make generalizations in the context of NTBFs.
On the other hand, it could be interesting to study the relationship between CoPs, the construction process of the organizational identity followed by this kind of firms, and the gain of their goals as NTBF created at Madrid Science Park. Also, this study could be developed in NTBFs of other sciences parks or even in other kind of organizations different from NTBFs. Finally, it could be interesting test the main propositions in bigger organizations with CoPs that do not integrate all the members of the companies.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Community of Practice: An informal group of people who share a common interest and problems in a certain domain of human endeavour and
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engage in a process of collective learning that creates bonds between them. Collective Knowledge: It is the knowledge effectively and consciously possessed by a group or organization. Explicit Knowledge: This knowledge is universal and abstract and it can be articulated, codified and stored. New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs): Firms recently established by a group of entrepreneurs, based on exploitation of an invention or technological innovation and which employ a high proportion of qualified employees. Organizational Identity: It is a self-reflective question (Who are we as an organization?) which captures central, enduring and distinctive features of the organization. Paradigm: It is a general perspective or way of thinking that reflects fundamental believes and assumptions about the nature of organization. Tacit Knowledge: This knowledge is creative and dependent on the history and experience of people, embodied in their minds and therefore, difficult to access, transfer and shared.
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ENDNOTES 1
2
3
The ontological dimension of knowledge refers to three interrelated levels of knowledge: individual, group and organizational level. Gioia and Pitre (1990: 585), basing on Kuhn (1970) and Lincoln (1985), assess that “a paradigm is a general perspective or way of thinking that reflects fundamental believes and assumptions about the nature of organization. Schwandt (1998: 221) asserts that “constructivist, constructivism, interpretivist, and interpretivism are terms that routinely appear in the lexicon of social science methodologists and philosophers. Yet, their particular meanings are shaped by the intent of their users”. To Schwandt (1998, 2000) both perspectives share the goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it but constructivist and interpretivist are unique in the manner in which each answer questions as “what is the purpose and aim of human inquiry?, or how can we know about the world of human action?
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Chapter 19
Within- and BetweenCoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms Thomas Garavan University of Limerick, Ireland Ronan Carbery University of Limerick, Ireland Fergal O’Brien University of Limerick, Ireland Karen Whelan University of Limerick, Ireland
ABSTRACT Knowledge is an important source of competitive advantage in knowledge-intensive firms. However, these firms experience problems in sharing tacit knowledge. Communities of practice (CoPs) are viewed as effective mechanisms to enable knowledge sharing through an emphasis on learning rather than structural imperatives. This chapter investigates knowledge sharing within- and between- CoPs in knowledge-intensive firms. Knowledge sharing in CoPs is influenced by a multiplicity of factors which we categorised as cognitive, relational and structural. Data collected from 40 members of eight CoPs support the view that knowledge sharing occurs more effectively within CoPs rather than between them. Such knowledge sharing is context driven and strongly dependent on shared mindsets, relationships and networks. We explore the implications for both researching CoPs and the facilitation of CoPs in knowledge-intensive firms. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch019
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
INTRODUCTION Knowledge assets are critical resources that provide organisations with competitive advantage (Grover & Davenport, 2001; Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001) however many knowledge management initiatives do not deliver on expectations (Doswell & Reid, 2000; Beaumont & Hunter, 2002). Organisations manage explicit knowledge well but frequently struggle when seeking to capture tacit knowledge embedded in experienced and skilled people. This high value-added knowledge is particularly difficult to share using an information technology approach (Ambrosini & Bowman, 2001; Gourlay, 2001). An alternative approach, the people approach, advocates that individuals in organisations have knowledge that must move to the level of groups and the organisation as a whole if it is to be of value for competitive purposes. A central focus of the people approach concerns knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is conceptualised as a natural activity in organisations, something that occurs automatically (Chakravarthy, Zaheer & Zaheer, 1999). It is also a multifaceted and complex process (Lessard & Zaheer, 1996; Ipe, 2003). Knowledge sharing occurs through interactions involving at a minimum two individuals. Jackson, Hitt and DeNisi (2003) argued that it is a critical intermediate process to ensure alignment of the acquisition and application of knowledge processes. Knowledge sharing is viewed as an important condition for future knowledge creation (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). The role of knowledge sharing in the context of knowledge-based competition and innovation is well established (Hargadon & Sutton, 2000). Researchers and practitioners have focused on communities of practice (CoPs) as an appropriate strategy for the sharing of tacit knowledge (Iverson & McPhee, 2002; Koh & Kim, 2004). CoPs play a major role in knowledge sharing simply because knowledge cannot be separated from its context (Pan & Leidner, 2003; Ipe, 2003). CoPs have been
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described as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise” (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). They are self-organising entities that have a collective purpose and are held together by social relationships. They are considered different from teams and business units because they are self-organising systems whose lifespan is determined by CoP members, Wenger (1998) argued that CoPs are not constrained by time and space and as a result can span organisational boundaries. The advocates of CoPs argue that they strengthen ties between people in the same professional groups and extend the network to larger groups (Lesser & Storck, 2001; Yoo, Suh & Lee, 2002). CoPs possess been identified as important loci for the creation and sharing of knowledge in organisations. Lesser and Storck (2001) have argued that CoPs have the capacity to retain dynamic and evolving knowledge within real-time processes and they bring context to existing stores of knowledge. Knowledge sharing is particularly important in knowledge-intensive firms. These firms differ from traditional firms with regard to key knowledge sources, the role of codified and tacit knowledge and the types of knowledge sharing that takes place. Todtling, Lehner and Trippl (2006) found in knowledge-intensive firms such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and information and communication technologies (ICTs), that there is a very strong reliance on codified or codifiable knowledge. As far as codified knowledge is concerned the focus is on scientific principles and methods; knowledge processes are formally organized and knowledge outcomes tend to be documented. Tacit knowledge is less well understood. In order to be innovative, knowledge-intensive firms need to ensure an effective relationship between codified and tacit knowledge (Johnson, Lorenz & Lundvall, 2002). There are differences in the bases of knowledge in knowledge-intensive firms. Asheim and Gertler (2005) distinguish between synthetic and analytical knowledge bases. Synthetic knowledge bases focus on the novel application of existing
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knowledge and on solving unique problems. These requirements demand efficient processes of interaction, learning by doing, the development of practical skills, and the use of tacit knowledge. These processes produce incremental or continuous improvements which can lead to competitive advantage. Analytical knowledge bases emphasise the role of knowledge codification, the importance of scientific processes and methods and the need to more formally organize that knowledge. These knowledge imperatives focus on external as well as internal networks and the role of relationships both within and between organizations. Knowledge sharing in organisations is however problematic. Jones and Jordan (1998) argued that the extent of knowledge sharing is contingent on the nature of knowledge ownership that exists within the firm. Business processes and units in knowledge-intensive firms tend to be specialised and highly situated or “sticky” due to the absence of commonly shared semantics between business units which would enable the sharing of knowledge. Knowledge-intensive firms frequently focus on research activities that comprise highly specialised individuals who are likely to rely on knowledge as a source of professional identity (Botha, 2000; Davel & Snyman, 2005). This chapter has three aims: to define the construct of knowledge sharing in the context of knowledge management and communities of practice; to review the factors that facilitate and/or inhibit knowledge sharing in CoPs and to report research on the dynamics of knowledge sharing within- and between- communities of practice in knowledge-intensive firms. The chapter emphasises that knowledge sharing in knowledgeintensive firms is particularly complex, it is socially constructed, unpredictable and not easily manageable utilising traditional management strategies. Knowledge sharing within CoPs is a much easier challenge for organisations than is the case for knowledge sharing between CoPs. Knowledge sharing between CoPs relies on formal processes and engagement with multiple CoPs.
CONCEPTS AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Knowledge sharing is not a well-defined construct. Ipe (2003) argued that knowledge sharing focuses on acts of making knowledge available to others within an organisation. She suggested that the term ‘sharing’ implies the process of presenting individual knowledge in a form that enables it to be used by others. It involves a motivation or a conscious act on the part of an individual in possession of the knowledge. The act of sharing does not involve relinquishing ownership of knowledge; rather it involves the joint-ownership of the knowledge shared. Davenport (1997) made an important conceptual contribution in distinguishing knowledge sharing from knowledge reporting. Knowledge reporting occurs within the context of structures or routines whereas sharing involves a conscious act on the part of an individual to engage in knowledge exchange and to do so voluntarily. Hendriks (1999) argued that knowledge sharing rests on a relationship between at least two parties. Knowledge sharing may also be considered as an active or passive process. Active knowledge sharing is defined as a situation where members of a CoP ‘voluntarily’ donate their knowledge and collect form others knowledge they require (Mei, Lee & Al-Hawamdeh, 2004). Active knowledge sharing focuses on the role of individuals, in particular the motivation to share. Motivated members of a CoP will willingly donate knowledge to others. Motivation also explains the extent to which CoP members are willing to accept knowledge. Passive knowledge sharing focuses on the movements of knowledge between entities within organisations. Knowledge sharing rests on an important distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge. These two types of knowledge are distinguishable in terms of the codification of knowledge and the potential for sharing. We address this distinction in more detail later in this chapter. CoPs offer an important strategy to help members to share and internalise tacit knowledge.
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CoPs enable members to deepen their expertise by discussing work-related activities with each other. CoPs are important mechanisms to facilitate the creation of new knowledge. von Wartburg, Rost and Teichert (2004) and Lesser and Storck (2001) have emphasised the value of CoPs as engines of knowledge creation and sharing. They are useful in dealing with unstructured problems and tacit knowledge sharing situations. Given that knowledge is not easily separated from its context, an understanding of the characteristics of CoPs is particularly important for knowledge sharing within and between CoPs. CoPs have a number of other important features in the context of knowledge sharing; •
•
•
•
•
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They have been invariably described in a continuum of informal and formalised structures (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Storck & Hill, 2000; Garavan, Murphy & Carbery, 2007) The purposes and goals of CoPs are focused around knowledge needs. CoPs are considered to be bound together by a shared interest in a domain. Learning is highlighted as a particular feature of CoPs (Gherardi, Nicolini & Odella, 1998; Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002) CoPs work through conversation and experience sharing. Learning is facilitated through the sharing of stories about problems and difficult issues. Lave and Wenger (1991) made an important distinction between “talking about” and “talking within” practice. Practice is conceptualised in terms of individuals doing their real work. Practice is always social practice. CoPs do require some form of coordination. This may occur through facilitation whereby the CoP continues to focus on its domain, maintain relationships and develop its practice (Storck & Hill, 2000). CoPs benefit from the support of their host organisation. The organisational context
•
provides a culture for intentional cultivation and gives members the time and encouragement to participate in CoPs (McDermott, 1999; Ruuska & Vartiainen, 2003). The outcomes of CoPs are valuable at multiple levels within the organisation. They may impact on individual, groups and organisational performance. (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 2001).
Two theoretical perspectives have value in explaining knowledge sharing both within and between CoPs. Members of a CoP are not just sharing information and solving problems. They also wish to meet people, seek friendships and achieve a sense of belongingness (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2002). Social cognitive theory argues that an individual’s behaviour is shaped and influenced by the social network and the cognitions of the individual. Social networks are important in CoPs. Particular dimensions of social networks highlighted include trust, group norms, reciprocity and a sense of community as key factors in explaining members’ contribution and participation in a CoP. Social cognitive theory specifically addresses the question: why do members spend time and effort knowledge sharing with members in CoPs? Social capital theory focuses on the social relationship aspects of CoPs. Social capital facilitates resource exchange and innovation within and between CoPs (Yl-Renko, Autio & Sapienza, 2001). Wasko and Faraj (2005) examined how individual motivations and social capital influenced knowledge sharing in electronic networks of practice. Significant social capital dimensions were highlighted. Social capital was particularly relevant in young knowledge-intensive firms because it focused on what resources are embedded within a social network and how these affect CoP members’ behaviour.
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UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF WITHIN- AND BETWEENCOP KNOWLEDGE SHARING In this section we consider factors that explain knowledge sharing within and between CoPs. The factors we review are relevant to both knowledge sharing contexts (Box 1). The literature indicates that knowledge sharing may be explained through a combination of cognitive, relational and structural dimensions. The cognitive dimension focuses on issues such as shared understanding, the nature of knowledge, mental models, shared values and common goals. Relational characteristics focus on the interpersonal dimensions of the CoP. These include trust, norms of reciprocity, identification with the CoP and the quality of personal relationships within the CoP. Structural dimensions focus on structural characteristics, the technology infrastructure and social interaction ties. We will consider each category in turn.
Cognitive Dimensions Nature of Knowledge: Knowledge in organisations may exist in both tacit and explicit forms. The preponderance of evidence indicates that explicit knowledge, because it is easily codified, stored in a single location and transferred in terms of both time and space, has greater potential to be shared (Lam, 2000). However, the extent to which it is shared depends on whether it is rationalised or embedded knowledge. Weiss (1999) defines rationalised knowledge as standardised, public & context independent. This type of knowledge can be more readily shared. In contrast, embedded knowledge is much more context dependent, it is personalised and may carry professional connotations. Embedded knowledge is less easily shared. Embedded knowledge is particularly significant in knowledge-intensive firms given the proportion of professionals who work in such firms. (Steyn & Kahn, 2008; Sheng-Deng, 2008; Finegold & Frenkel, 2006). von Hippel (1994) has investi-
Box 1. Knowledge sharing within- and betweencommunities of practice: key dimensions Cognitive Dimensions • Nature of Knowledge • Motivation to Share and Knowledge Contribution and Seeking beliefs • Shared Vision / Purpose and Goals / Value Congruence and A Sense of Community • Cognitive Borders • Cognitive of Professional Proximity Relational Dimensions • Trust • Norms of Reciprocity • Identification with the CoP • Opportunities to Share Structural Dimensions • The Technical Infrastructure • Organisational Structure Characteristics • Social Interaction Ties
gated the extent to which tacit knowledge can be shared and argues that from the point of view of the knowledge supplier the key issue is tacitness whereas the issue for the knowledge user is absorptive capacity. As a consequence, the tacitness of knowledge represents a natural impediment to successful knowledge sharing. Two other characteristics of knowledge are also relevant in the knowledge-intensive firm context. One particular issue focuses on how people view knowledge. Ardichvilli, Page and Wentling (2003) studied CoPs in a multinational context. They found that where participants viewed their knowledge as a public good, this facilitated knowledge sharing. Where such perceptions existed, participants shared knowledge based on a combination of moral obligations and community interest considerations. Participants also shared their knowledge out of a belief that it was time to give something back by sharing their expertise. A related dimension focused on the extent to which knowledge is valued. Where individuals perceived that they possess knowledge which is a valuable commodity, the process of knowledge sharing was mediated by decisions concerning what knowledge
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to share, and when, where and how it should be shared (Andrews & Delahaye, 2000). Individuals may for example, claim emotional ownership of knowledge and as Jones and Jordan (1998) have highlighted, knowledge sharing in this context is complex. In knowledge-intensive firms, where research and development and advanced process knowledge is valued for its commercial and scientific characteristics, there may be conflicting motives and incentives to either share knowledge or to withhold it (Armbrecht et al., 2001). Motivation to Share, Knowledge Contribution and Seeking Beliefs: The motivation to share knowledge has strong cognitive dimensions. Davenport et al. (1998) highlighted that knowledge is “intimately and inextricably bound with people’s egos and occupations” (p.45). Scarbrough (2003) suggested that individuals may have different motives for knowledge sharing. These included the sharing of knowledge as a means to establish connections with others, sharing as a strategy to gain status, the sharing of knowledge because it is perceived as positive role model behaviour and the sharing of knowledge because it serves as protection against external threats. Individuals interestingly use knowledge as power. Power politics may be particularly relevant in explaining the extent of knowledge sharing (Davenport, Eccles & Prusak, 1992). The rewards for knowledge sharing within the wider organisation where CoPs are located will influence knowledge sharing within and between CoPs. Rewards have been shown to be of value in a multiplicity of contexts including knowledge-intensive firms (Quinn et al., 1996). Recently researchers have focused on salient beliefs which are important in explaining knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking. These represent a particular aspect of motivation to share. He and Kee Wei (2009) suggested that knowledge contribution is influenced by three beliefs: image, enjoyment in helping others and reciprocity. Image focuses on the perception that the sharing of knowledge will result in a more positive reputation for the person who shares
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the knowledge. In the context of knowledgeintensive firms, people will likely contribute knowledge when they perceive that their professional reputation will be enhanced (Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Enjoyment in helping others focuses on the perceptions of pleasure that are derived from helping others through knowledge sharing. This enjoyment is intrinsic in nature. Knowledge seeking is influenced by perceived usefulness and knowledge growth. Perceived usefulness focuses on the extent to which an individual believes that knowledge seeking will enhance job performance. This salient belief is particularly important in explaining knowledge seeking in a variety of contexts (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). Knowledge growth focuses on a knowledge seekers belief that knowledge will enhance learning and experience (Gray & Durcikova, 2006). Shared Vision / Purpose and Goals / Value Congruence and a Sense of Community: Various normative and value dimensions are highlighted as relevant to knowledge sharing both withinand between- CoPs. The normative dimension is highlighted in a number of contributions. It focuses on cultural norms which lead employees to contribute their knowledge. McDermott and O’Dell (2001) found that organizational culture is considered a key inhibitor of effective knowledge sharing. Chiu, Hsu and Wang (2006) argued that “cultural values serve as normative principles for employees to make day-to-day decisions in the interest of the organization” (p. 247). Contribution to the CoP is considered by employees to be a symbolic act through which they affirm their relationships within a CoP. Jewels and Ford (2006) found, in the context of information technology projects, that knowledge sharing cultures are created through both management practices and organizational structures. Sense of community has been defined as “a feeling that members have of belonging… that members matter to one another… and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (McMillan & Chavis, 1986: 9). A strong degree
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of community will enhance the degree to which knowledge sharing occurs. Shared Language and Shared Vision are particularly important for within- and between- CoPs knowledge sharing. Shared ideas and language facilitate a common understanding of collective goals and the appropriate ways of behaving in communities of practice. Where a shared language is strong it facilitates both the sharing of ideas and the efficiency of communication between members. Such shared language will motivate CoP members to get involved in knowledge of exchange and enhance the quality of shared knowledge. A shared vision is conceived as a bonding mechanism that helps various parts of the CoP to combine resources. Where CoP members share a strong vision, they are more likely to share knowledge. Cohen and Prusak (2000) highlight that shared vision binds members and makes cooperative action possible. Cognitive Borders: Cognitive differences or similarities are particularly important in explaining between-CoP knowledge sharing. Paulus, Larey, and Dzindolet (2001) argued that knowledge is created through the integration of previously disparate knowledge or through cognitive processes resulting from exposure to disparate knowledge. The process of knowledge sharing focuses on the movement of knowledge across various boundaries. Studies highlight the role of cognitive borders around organizations and organizational units, which are characterized by commonalities in tacit knowledge and distinct cognitive differences. These processes frequently lead to thought convergence, whereby actors focus on knowledge creation that fits within an existing paradigm. Such convergence may inhibit within- and between- knowledge sharing (Malmberg & Power, 2005; Mittendorff, Geijsel, Hoeve, de Laat & Nieuwenhuis, 2006). Where knowledge is shared across cognitive boundaries, it can result in the generation of new ideas and new ways of looking at problems. When CoPs within organizations share common interests, it
is more likely that knowledge sharing and joint learning will happen. Cognitive and Professional Proximity: Various dimensions of proximity act as facilitators of knowledge sharing. Cognitive or professional proximity leads to cognitive-based trust. Zucker (1986) suggested that professional proximity is linked to the development of cognition-based trust. This arises due to a process of personal categorization and the perceived competence that is associated with professional membership. Professionals indicate the existence of cognitive credentials and various professional groupings create boundaries. Professionals typically share similar educational backgrounds and they develop a common language, set of practices and means of interaction. This shared knowledge base has an important role to play in the knowledge sharing between CoPs. Professional proximity is very important in facilitating the sharing of tacit knowledge. Blyler and Coff (2003) argue that professional proximity allows CoPs to acquire, integrate, reconcile and release knowledge.
Relational Dimensions Trust: Trust is highlighted as a particularly salient issue in CoP knowledge sharing. Trust is a much debated construct however various facets are highlighted in the literature: trust in members’ competence, trust in members’ openness and honesty and trust in the reliability of member’s contributions (Mishra, 1996). Trust is relevant in explaining knowledge sharing, willingness to engage in cooperative interactions and in creating an environment for knowledge sharing (Bartol & Shurastova, 2002; Gefen et al., 2003). Nahapiel & Ghoshal (1998) found that where relationships were high on trust, members were more willing to engage in cooperative activity. Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) found that high levels of trust were associated with inter-unit knowledge exchange. Integrity-based trust is of particular significance in motivating knowledge sharing both within- and
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between- CoPs. CoP members are more likely to share knowledge with each other if they perceive other members to be honest and reliable. Where the CoP upholds trustworthy values such as mutual reciprocity, honesty, reliability and commitment, the motivation to share knowledge will be stronger. Ardichvili et al. (2002) found that fear of losing face represents an important barrier to knowledge sharing. Competence and benevolence-based trust will have a role to play in overcoming these types of fears. Where the perceived benevolence of a community is high, members are less likely to feel threatened making a contribution which is erroneous. A high level of competence-based trust exists where the CoP member has trust in the competence of other members. It will encourage members to engage in knowledge sharing. He, Tang and Kei Wei (2009) have argued that benevolence trust has more relevance in the context of knowledge sharing than ability and integrity. Levin and Cross (2004) found that when knowledge seekers ask for important knowledge they are vulnerable to the benevolence of the knowledge source. They found that trust in the context of knowledge sharing may not be dyadic. This may be particularly the case with between-CoP knowledge sharing in large multinational organisations where CoP members may not personally know each other or where there are few opportunities to meet physically. This suggests that in the knowledge sharing context, trust should be considered at a collective level of analysis. This means that the knowledge seeker or giver, in the context of CoPs will be concerned with beliefs concerning trust in CoP members in general rather than specific CoP members. Norms of Reciprocity: Reciprocity is highlighted as a particularly important relationship dimension that impacts the motivation to share knowledge (Hendriks, 1999; Weiss, 1999). Blau (1964) initially defined reciprocity as “actions that are contingent on rewarding reactions from others and that cease when these expected reactions are
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not forthcoming (p6). Participants in CoPs expect mutual reciprocity to the extent that it justifies the effort, time and expense involved in knowledge sharing. Reciprocity is well established as a key motivator of knowledge sharing. Schultz (2001) highlighted that CoP members must be able to anticipate that the sharing of knowledge has benefit for the CoP as a whole. The quantification of the outcome is not the important issue. It is the expectation that members involved in knowledge sharing will benefit from the knowledge sharing activity. Research by Hull (2001) and Dyer and Nobeoka (2000) found that the reception of knowledge from CoP members will stimulate a reciprocal flow of knowledge in the direction of the sender. This force is particularly strong in CoPs because knowledge sharing is considered to be a strategy to enhance members’ expertise and opportunities for recognition. Knowledge sharing in virtual communities is facilitated by a strong sense of reciprocity (Orr, 1990; Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Reciprocity may also have negative consequences. Empson (2001) found that the fear of exploitation may exist. This occurs when members experience anxiety because they are asked to provide valuable knowledge for which they receive little in return. Identification with the CoP:Bagozzi and Dholakia (2002) defined identification as the conception of the CoP member’s self in terms of the defining features of the CoP. Nahapiel and Ghoshal (1998) highlighted the significance of identification in explaining the relationship of the CoP member to the CoP. Ellemers et al. (1999) suggested that emotional identification is a particularly important issue. It fosters loyalty and citizenship behaviours in a group setting. It is an important factor in explaining members’ willingness to maintain a relationship with the CoP. Identification is important in explaining the motivation of the CoP member to combine and exchange knowledge (Dholalia et al., 2004). Given the important characteristic of CoPs as informal entities which have relevance only in the mind of
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members, identification is particularly salient. In Lave and Wenger’s (1991) original formulation the key relational component highlighted the tensions between being an outsider and insider. They described the processes of becoming an ‘insider’ as a process of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’. Wenger (1998) subsequently focused on the concept of identity or how an individual relates to other people and the ‘negotiation of identities’. It follows from Lave and Wenger’s formulation that where there are strong perceptions of social unity and togetherness within the CoP, this will influence members’ activeness to share knowledge and as a consequence it will enhance both the depth and breadth of the knowledge that is shared. Opportunities to Share: CoPs are informal structures and as a result, the informal opportunities for sharing are our primary concern here. Pan and Scarborough (1999) and Jones and Jordan (1998) highlighted the concept of relational learning channels. These channels facilitate face to face communication which has an impact on trust. The informal opportunities to interact that are the basis of CoPs help members to develop respect for each other and foster friendships. These friendships provide more opportunities to share. Granovetter (1992) uses the term “relational embeddedness” to describe personal relationships that develop through long-term interaction. Such relationships are important in the CoP context. Brown and Duguid (1991) found that shared learning is located in complex collaborative practices. These practices are made up of informal networks formed within the CoP. Even where there are clearly mandated formal channels within the wider organisation, CoP members will rely on the informal relationships as a basis to share knowledge.
Structural Dimensions The Technical Infrastructure: Information technology can contribute to collaboration and facilitate knowledge sharing within and between CoPs. Hildreth and Kimble (2002) highlighted, in the
context of CoPs, that information technology may have limited value in the sharing of tacit knowledge. Hall (2001) found that the effectiveness of information technology as a facilitator of knowledge sharing depends on the value of the content that it holds and the types of relationships that it can enable or foster. Preece (2000) found that the effectiveness of technology in online communities was related to critical mass. Where there is a lack of critical mass, members are likely to perceive that information technology has limited value. Similarly, Yoo et al. (2002) found that perceptions of information quality will indirectly affect participation in online communication. Perceptions of the knowledge of community members may also have relevance to the contribution that information technology can make. Wang, Yank and Chou (2008) argued that information technology provides members with the tools and environment for knowledge sharing. Information technology may have value in facilitating the sharing of documents, ideas, experience and professional judgement. Its effectiveness depends on the skills of the members, the degree of freedom of members and the gains to the CoP from using it. Organisational Structure Characteristics: The structural characteristics of an organisation may have particular salience in explaining between-CoP knowledge sharing. Chung (2001), for example, found that organisations with centralised bureaucratic structures and management styles will stifle knowledge sharing whereas flexible, decentralised organisation structures will facilitate knowledge sharing, particularly the sharing of tacit knowledge. Hall (2001) found that status similarly is a particularly relevant feature. Organisations with flatter, less hierarchical structures are more likely to benefit from higher levels of knowledge sharing. Willem and Buelens (2009) investigated inter-unit knowledge sharing and found that there is an optimum in terms of the formalisation required for knowledge sharing. Decentralisation in the form of horizontal coordination was more facilitative of knowledge sharing. Decentralisation
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did not however compensate for high specialisation increasing the complexity of knowledge. Knowledge sharing makes the design of structures very complex simply because knowledge is so strongly embedded in its context. Social Interaction Ties: The Social Interaction ties dimension of CoPs focuses on the relationships that bind members together. Social interaction ties emphasise the structural properties of networks. Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) viewed network or interaction ties as channels for information and resource flows. Ring and van den Ven (1994) found that the more social interactions undertaken by members of a CoP, the greater the intensity, frequency and breadth of knowledge shared. Strong network ties are particularly relevant in providing the opportunity to combine and share knowledge. Such network ties may have particular salience in explaining between- CoP knowledge sharing. Research has highlighted the advantage of both strong and weak ties. Strong ties tend to be connected to others who are close to the knowledge seeker. Strong ties are also of value because ties are also of value because they tend to be more accessible and helpful. Strong ties are important conduits of useful knowledge. In the context of knowledge-intensive firms, Hansen (2002) concluded that weak ties were less costly to maintain and a network of weak ties was advantageous for projects that require lots of explicit knowledge. In contrast, tacit knowledge is very difficult to articulate and transfer. The sharing of tacit knowledge takes time.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Identifying the Existence of CoPs An important challenge facing the researchers concerned the identification of CoPs in the two organisations studied and the teams selected for the purposes of the study. Teams and organisations are likely to consist of multiple “constellation” of
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CoPs. Within our research sites individuals who participated in CoPs sometimes maintained multiple and concurrent membership of a number of CoPs. To illustrate that the organisational groups under study could legitimately be described as a CoP or CoPs and to identify structural and epistemic components the researchers obtained firsthand observational evidence of their existence in both organisations. In terms of the structural components first-hand observation enabled the researchers to identify and document issues, instruments, symbols, monuments, terms and concepts around which the CoPs under study existed. We identified eight CoPs within the two research sites (Table 1). We also focused on epistemic characteristics in order to identify the existence CoPs. We found in all eight CoPs evidence of impromptu meetings, informal meeting agendas, little or no meeting documentation, no clear leadership structures, an absence of formality in setting up Table 1. Description of the case study sites Medico is a division of a large Global Healthcare Company. It employs almost 70,000 worldwide. The study organisation consisted of two manufacturing areas: core products and drug coated stents. These two areas function as separate business units with separate engineering and quality support. A Drug Eluding Stent operation started operations in early 2005 with a small technology transfer team consisting of engineering, quality and operations personnel. This group of 36 employees eventually grew to 200 employees. This group is physically separate from the office area and there is a protracted gowning procedure which must be followed before entry into the area. The DES office area is on a different floor from the core manufacturing area. So day to day interaction between the two units tends to be rare. This group has built a strong level of cohesiveness and they have worked almost all of their time in this area. They had a strong sense of shared identity. We identified three distinct CoPs within Medico for the purposes of this study. Pharmaco is a leading International Healthcare Company whose primary business is pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. The products produced target prevention, diagnosis and the treatment of diseases. It employs approximately 74,000 people worldwide. The study organisation is a manufacturing centre for the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for conversion to medicines in dosage forms. It has full autonomy as a plant. There was a strong emphasis on project work, continuous improvement initiatives, reduction of costs and the elimination of a silo mentality. Project activities involved cross-organisation collaboration that drew on a variety of knowledge sources. We identified five distinct CoPs within Pharmaco for the purposes of this study.
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meetings, very quick interpretation of meeting points and a strong knowledge of individual strengths and weaknesses. Meetings were filled with a continual stream of communication. Evidence gathered from other sources such as e-mails, face to face meetings and company documentation
highlighted the existence of distinct CoPs. We collected a large amount of written materials such as processes, standards and operating procedures which appeared to mark out the distinctiveness of each CoP (Table 2). Both organisations presented an ideal research setting within which to study
Table 2. Indicators of the existence of CoPs in the study organisations Characteristic
Research Site 1
Research Site 2
1. Sustained Mutual Relationships
Participants know each other personally within each CoP.
Mutual relationships particularly important. Strong focus on mutual recognition.
2. Shared ways of Engaging in Doing Things Together
Strong understanding of the regulatory environment and its impact on member behaviour.
Strong emphasis on particular rituals and ways of doing things in each CoP.
3. Rapid Flows of Information
Juggling multiple issues. Fluid information flows.
Lots of informal communication of information, 1:1 interactions.
4. Informal Conversations
Major resistance to formalisation: informality and reactive approach to issues at all times. Little informal conversations between CoPs. Limited direct interaction with other CoPs.
Focus on having zero formalities in dealing with situations. Lots of face to face meetings & Small group meetings Fewer opportunities for between-CoP informal conversations and dialogue
5. Quick Discussion of Problems
Strong emphasis on discovery and the serendipitous. A strong sense of urgency to solve problems quickly and effectively.
Problems are discussed as they arise within each CoP. Not as effective in the case of in between-CoP knowledge sharing situations.
6. Clear consensus concerning who belong to the CoP
Clear identification of the CoP members where they are physically proximate.
Members of the CoP clearly identifiable and known to all members.
7. Knowledge of members’ distinct expertise and contribution
Strong understanding of who possesses knowledge. Recognition of scientific contribution.
Knowledge sources known largely because of personal relationships
8. Mutually defined identities
Negotiated identities; members embrace opportunities to participate.
Questioning of communities to which individuals belong.
9. Ability to assess appropriateness of actions
Actions are regulated by language, job definitions and other explicit artefacts.
Analytical tools, problem solving approaches, imitation of others.
10. Existence of specific tools, representation and artefacts
Strong emphasis on doing things in a particular way: use of particular terminology and technologies.
Some use of technology tools: use of dialectics, use of particular work styles and methodologies.
11. Shared stores and lore
Stories of success and failure: stories of interference by management.
Stories of teamwork, collaboration, past projects, successes and failures.
12. Unique language, jargon and shortcuts in communication
Heavy jargon around biotechnology and other scientific concepts.
Strong focus on jargon which effectively excludes non-members.
13. Unique ways of displaying memberships
Use of context-specific language, particular greetings and who gets circulated with e-mails.
Identification of successes, working long hours, informal communication processes and specific greetings.
14. Shared Discourse
Strong discourse around science, problemsolving, the nature of knowledge and creativity.
Strong well-established discourse around the unique technologies of the community and the particular processes that are used to achieve goals.
Structural:
Epistemic:
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knowledge sharing both within- and betweenvarious CoPs. In both organisations the various projects and teams were of major significance to the parent organisation. However, within each CoP members had developed a strong sense of identity which was rooted in daily epistemic activity comprising of artefacts, shared stories, jargon, unique styles of operation and a strong shared discourse.
Interviews Once we had successfully identified the existence of both structural and epistemic components of CoPs in each organisation we then proceeded to investigate with CoP members their knowledge sharing behaviours and the role of structural, relational and cognitive dimensions in facilitating or inhibiting knowledge sharing. We conducted a total of 40 semi-structured interviews with longstanding members of each CoP. Each interview lasted approximately 50 min to 90 min and involved a representative cross-section of seniority levels. We asked respondents to provide us with personal accounts of their knowledge sharing activities over time and the influence of organisation structures, culture, technology and motivation to share both within their own CoP and with other CoPs in the organisations studied. We found that semi-structured interviews were appropriate for the purposes of this research. However, we avoided extensive use of pre-determined questions. The interviews had more the character of conversations. This allowed the study respondents to provide rich accounts concerning knowledge sharing between CoP members and knowledge sharing between CoPs. We recorded each interview. These interviews were transcribed for the purposes of analysis.
Analysis of Data We analysed the data in a number of ways. First, the data were analysed using the set of key char-
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acteristics identified by Wenger using empirical examples derived from the interviews. Second, we identified a number of themes and corresponding extracts from accounts provided by the study respondents. Analysis of the data derived from the interviews was constrained by the interpretations of the researchers. We made stringent efforts to record faithfully the sense and syntax of what was said by respondents.
KNOWLEDGE SHARING WITHINAND BETWEEN- CoPs The research findings are presented in three parts. The first section discusses the cognitive dimensions of knowledge sharing. In the second section we present the reflections of the CoP members on the relational aspects of knowledge. The final section focuses on structural dimensions of knowledge sharing.
Cognitive Dimensions of Knowledge Sharing Rules and Norms: Our interviews with CoP members revealed the importance of learning the rules and norms of the CoP and the significance of these rules for understanding the norms, values and expectations of the CoP of which they became members. These rules and norms confronted members with conflicting messages concerning the operation of the CoP. The learning process for new CoP members involved other CoP members providing knowledge and wisdom gained from experience. Our analysis suggests that the rules and norms were not static. They possessed a dynamic quality. They were likely to change and evolve. William, a Senior Engineer in Medico describes it this way: “In our group we started out as a very informal network of members. However, we have had to change. The rules of the industry have changed
Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
since I became a member and I think they’ve changed for the better. We have had to be more open about what we do even though there’s an old days element that still operates in a very subtle but significant way” (Senior Engineer, Medico).
“We focus on having fun and on sharing what we do. We are continually busy and the place buzzes with enthusiasm and ideas. We are proud of what we do. We have a strong identity within the organisation.” (Technical Specialist, Medico)
The processes involved in learning the rules and norms played a major role in helping members understand who they were and in which communities of practice they belonged to and were accepted. The learning processes were important in perpetuating norms. Members had to understand these norms if they were prepared to become members of the CoP. The navigation of norms and rules is both complex and extremely informal. Members learned through a complex usage of observation, reflection, interpersonal and communication resources. A Shared Repertoire: Our data indicates that each CoP was characterised by significant informality. Members had a high level of comfort with each other. Each CoP had a strong shared repertoire of culturally symbolic expressions which articulated the identity of the CoP. Peter in Pharmaco describes the shared repertoire in the context of a technology oriented community of practice.
Technical expertise was valued in all of the CoPs we studied. Marion, a design specialist in Pharmeco describes it this way:
“Given the nature of what we do, it is important that our technical members and those involved in the creative aspects of the project work together. We have sought to promote an environment where it is possible to have fun in what is done, be proud of our achievements, be informal with each other and be willing to be open to new ideas” (Technical Manager, Pharmeco). The CoPs we studied had a shared history that provided members with a strong sense of identity and belonging. Shared repertoires were important in motivating members to participate in and identify with a CoP. Michael; a Technical Specialist in Medico described it this way:
“We value what is done. Our group focused on giving out internal customers what they expect. I however get a sense of satisfaction from the special ideas that I bring to the group. Where these ideas are incorporated into projects and bring value to our internal customers then the satisfaction is immense.” (Design Specialist, Pharmeco) Mastering or understanding the shared repertoire was important. To become fully functioning members of the CoP members found that a tension existed between their personal values and those of the CoP. It was necessary to compromise in order to become accepted members of the CoP. Joint Enterprise: Our data revealed that CoPs were characterised by joint enterprise. Members highlighted the importance of joint goals however these goals did not always align with the goals of the wider organisation. Members had a strong identity with what their CoP was involved in. The CoPs frequently emerged from necessity or as a way of coping with difficult tasks. CoPs emerged because they enabled members to have quick access to knowledge. Gerard in Medico highlighted this when he tried to get a procedural change implemented: “As far as I was concerned, I had an actual solution. I had the prototypes made. I had in my head the issue resolved within five working days, but in reality it took me five months to get that solution in place. In my early days I found that it was very, very difficult to get people on board, there was a lot of negativity from different members
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on how you would actually get sign off. So going through the accepted processes and procedures is what it is about. I learned the hard way on my first project here… So following the procedure, it was painful but since then working on projects… we would still follow procedure but we just mix things around.” (Process Engineer, Medico) Members highlighted that the goals that CoPs agreed to, could subvert managerial prescriptions concerning how work should be done in the wider organisation. Codification and Between-CoP Knowledge Sharing: The sharing of knowledge between CoPs is complex. Respondents highlighted, in particular, the difficulties involved in the sharing of tacit knowledge. Respondents acknowledged that between-CoP knowledge sharing is important, however, it’s difficult to share effectively what has been learned in these situations. Peter an Engineer in Medico describes it this way: “We do try to learn from each other because I attend many meetings where the engineers have something to share with the rest of us. It will however often be the negatives. We continue to repeat mistakes. This suggests that we have not leveraged our learning”. (Engineer, Medico) Codification of knowledge was highlighted as a particular strategy to facilitate between-CoP knowledge sharing. CoPs worked on a variety of problems, some complex, and some more routine. Complex problems typically involved significant depth and high levels of ambiguity concerning the best solution. It is precisely in these situations where CoP members were least likely to write down what was learned. The CoPs we studied were in many cases not preoccupied with documentation and regulation which is surprising given the nature of the industry within which they operated. In some cases knowledge was codified into procedures and documents that were regularly updated. Alex, an Engineer in
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Medico, has captured information in a protocol report which could be accessed in the future and which documented actions taken to fix a particular issue. Susan in Pharmaco preferred a shared folder in which the CoP members placed all of the data they had collected. CoP members also produced a more formal report which went into the document archive system. Although information required to complete tasks was codified, incidental and tacit knowledge gained did not make it into these storage systems and was therefore not captured. Alex, a Chemical Specialist described it this way: “Sometimes it can be hard to source previous studies or reports that were done, and again we usually go back to the same people and just ask them, and they say that there was something previous performed on that. So instead of just doubling up on work for yourself, you just to go back and find a reference to what work was done before. It can be difficult to find things that are archived in the system and just to find a list of any studies that have been done before, but I think that is kind of work in progress at the moment, to put a list together which will be helpful but at the moment we don’t have it. Instead you talk to your colleague”. (Chemical Specialist, Pharmeco) Codification is complex. Michael, a technician in Pharmaco described it this way: “We simply have too much information and as a result people frequently do not read the manual. I am often asked questions for which I know the information is contained in the manual. I find that this happens often. These manuals are so complex for people to get their heads around”. (Technician, Pharmaco) Cognitive Engagement and Between-CoP Knowledge Sharing: Cognitive engagement emerged as an important issue for between-CoP knowledge sharing. This refers to the extent to which knowledge seekers and knowledge givers
Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
were willing to cognitively engage with each other. Knowledge sharing was more likely to happen where the CoP member was willing to create knowledge with an appropriate level of understanding of the knowledge seekers needs. Engagement therefore focuses on understanding the CoP member’s problem and actively shaping what the other member knows to the problem at hand. James in Medico describes it this way: “Some people will give you their opinion without trying to understand your objectives or where you are coming from. I have talked to people in other groups who will give you a quick spiel because they believe they know the answer. They do this to get you out of the way. They are not interested in doing the hard work required to really solve the problem.” (Technician, Medico) Cognitive engagement was also evident in the unwillingness of CoP members to share knowledge or out of perceptions that there was little to be gained from sharing knowledge with other CoPs. Where successful knowledge sharing occurred between CoPs it tended to happen in formal ways and involved explicit or codified knowledge.
RELATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING Patterns of Interaction: While finding supportive relationships and securing full membership of the CoP were clearly important; members were also concerned to be fully functional as an individual member in a set of relationships within the CoP. The nature of these relationships were however interesting. Our data revealed that members interacted predominantly with colleagues at the same level as themselves. In terms of knowledge sharing, a majority of our respondents were engineers or technically qualified individuals. Engineers depended a lot on each other for knowledge. Similar patterns of interaction were found for laboratory
analysts, chemical specialists, planners, and data analysts. Where members interacted at a higher or lower level, it was usually one position above or one position below. Anthony, who worked in Medico, described the interaction in this way: “They (Engineers) would be my peers, it would be my equivalent that would be interesting to me, people who do the same job function as me, people coming up with the same problems, and maybe they had seen the problem before. What I am experiencing determines who I need to talk to, rather than someone at Managerial level who perhaps isn’t hands on with intricate knowledge of the system. It is my equivalent who I need to particularly ask and to deal with”. (Engineer, Medico) Physical proximity emerged as an important issue in explaining patterns of interaction. Our data reveals that CoP members were less likely to interact with members in other physical locations and even where they were on the same site. Members of different CoPs tended to stick with their own CoP. Peter in Pharmaco highlights the low level of interaction across CoPs: “…we (at previous company) jelled together very well. I don’t see that here as of yet. People are very … as I said they are in boxes and people need to break down the barriers and become more of a family or more of a business unit as opposed to different departments”. (Technician, Pharmaco) Mark in Medico explained the rationale for interacting with people at a particular level. Mark explained how it actually took longer to undertake a particular task because he was reluctant to ask for help from someone he did not know. “…there was somebody in the room already, so I could have just asked her what the pieces of equipment were, but I said I’ll go in myself. It would
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have been a lot faster to ask the person who was already in the room”. (Engineer, Medico) Trust in Personal Relationships: Our data revealed that trust was important in knowledge sharing. We found that CoP members needed to develop trust and forge relationships that were useful. Susan in Pharmaco reported that she interacted primarily with Technical Specialists. Her interactions were based on expertise level and quality of the relationships with that person. “As you get to know people and what they work on, what they are interested in, you would then start directing your questions to them…. In California there are some very nice people, they are just kind of fun to deal with and they are always kind of good for ‘have you any idea who the person is to contact regarding this’ and they would put you in the right direction. So those kinds of people are good to get to know and they are also good for ideas. They will never leave you sitting…” (Engineer, Pharmaco) Fiachra is a relatively recent member of his CoP and he recalled how hard it was to deal with people in the initial stages of membership: “In my early days I was finding that from the sign off point of view, people were critical about signing off documentation, but now since we have built up a rapport with these people on different levels – since starting here that it’s easier to put a change through. They are happy… not happy to sign off but happy to review documentation for you – so now they trust you and they know you are going to do the job right and it’s much easier from a communication point of view”. (Supervisor, Pharmaco) Trust built up over time. Joseph reported that it served as a catalyst that allowed him access to CoP members’ knowledge and assistance. He described it this way:
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“So that process goes from being a 3-4 day process, to where you could have it turned around, which we did, in one day. So there are ways and means and people you talk to, to actually get issues resolved quite quickly”. (Supervisor, Pharmaco) Members revealed that it was the social interaction that helped the CoP accomplish goals. Trust and Knowledge Sharing: Our data revealed that competence bases trust emerged as an important precondition for the sharing on knowledge. Mary, a Team Leader in Medico described it this way: “(I) tend to go with people who have been here longer just because I get a bit annoyed with new people that you have to explain everything to. Well, if you have to work with them you work with them. I try to avoid them! But you just tend to get better answers from someone who has been here longer.” (Team Leader, Medico) In another example she noted: “It’s just like when you are dealing with new people, you tend to have to back track to make progress, and you have to explain a lot to them. So for instance, an example would be last week where the guy in California was removing some tooling that we no longer use in DES, which is fine. When I was going through the change order, I discovered that there was a whole document that he just hadn’t tackled, and even when I brought it up with him, he wasn’t aware that half the tooling in that document no longer used here as a result of all the change, so like it should have been tied in with his change but you kind of had to backtrack because he wasn’t familiar with the process. He didn’t know what I was talking about… it took about three days to get where it would probably have been a lot faster with someone who knows the process. Well he needs to learn but…” (Team Leader, Medico)
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For Mary, working in a fast-paced environment, with strong emphasis on quality, she viewed the interactions necessary to come up to speed with a new member. Had she a stronger relationship with this person, she may have been more predisposed to spending the necessary time to aid their learning, rather than treating it as a necessary inconvenience. John in Pharmaco reported a similar perspective: “It is very difficult from my point of view now – I wouldn’t deal with someone that I haven’t dealt with before on a project, because I now that it would just take an eternity, and I have dealt in situations with people SMEs’ and I have just been passed from pillar to post – they wouldn’t sign off if it wasn’t specifically related to themselves… so you build up a rapport and you physically just stick to those people form a sign off point of view”. (Technical Specialist, Pharmaco) However, we found that trust could have both positive and negative consequences in the context of knowledge sharing. This is illustrated by Thomas in Medico. “I have dealt with some of these Technicians and Engineers on previous projects on other related issues they had, so what I find is that if you help someone from California within DES group on one of their projects, then when you go back, or revert back with one of your own projects, that you deal with the same people, so you build up a rapport over projects and you know what their capabilities are and you know physically that they will do the job right” (Engineer, Medico) Trust facilitated the knowledge that was shared to be accepted at face value. We found evidence of situations where too high levels of trust lead to less effective questioning. Where the knowledge shared is inaccurate then this may have ‘implications for the quality of problem solving’. Peter
in Pharmaco described the value of interaction this way: “So yes, social networking with people in the organizations is very, very good because I think that a lot of the skill set is lost. People come here and they forget about where they have been before and what skills they have learned before. They don’t get recognized, and talking to individuals you come up with a lot of good ideas on how you can physically fix issues going forward. I fund it good with the group of people I have been dealing with.” (Senior Engineer, Pharmaco)
Structural Dimensions of Knowledge Sharing The Primacy of Networks: Our data revealed that networks and networking were particularly salient structural dimensions of knowledge sharing within CoPs. The study respondents were able to reflect on their own experience in negotiating and building a self of overlapping networks that served a variety of knowledge sharing functions. Networks provided access to knowledge, they contributed to the knowledge of individual members and individuals contributed to the knowledge of the CoP. Patricia, an Engineer in Medico, explained it this way: “Networking is what keeps us together. I find that my team members are just fantastic… It is all about getting to know that person and I suppose has something to do with the credibility of the person as well that makes the networking effective.” (Engineer, Medico). Our data revealed the importance of a member’s performance history and ability as important issues in sustaining the strength of the network. Similarly our respondents reported that it can sometimes be problematic negotiating entry into the network.
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Peter, a Chemist in Pharmeco described the negotiation process this way: “When I first joined, I felt as though there were thinking who this strange person is, and more or less watching to see how I would go. However, other members made an effort to talk to me and say how is it going? They would say things like: I would love to meet you something, come and have a cup of coffee. They took the initiative to introduce me to other members of the CoP. This was a really good way of meeting members and they would ring me about various issues so this would enable me to know them on a different basis” (Chemist, Pharmeco). While the acceptance of networks is clear from the data, it must not be assumed that networking will happen either within- of between- CoPs. Our data revealed that networks were frequently absent. An Engineering Director in Pharmeco reported on the difficulty of creating networks between CoPs: “We work on a lot of projects on our own as a team but the only time we get to network is when we have off-site meetings. Then we get more time to network and that’s really valuable but we don’t do it in between these off site meetings.” (Engineering Director, Pharmeco) An Engineer in Medico has a similar perspective on the lack of networks. “I suppose it is about networking. However in reality I see very little evidence of networking. We do not network effectively with other groups. I tend to beaver away at my project and forget about others. We have limited understanding of our immediate context. As far as I can see networking is largely a waste of time.” (Engineer, Medico) Many of our study respondents reported the importance of cultivating and valuing networks
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with other CoPs however, they similarly acknowledge that it did not happen on a frequent basis. Technology and Structure Enabling Knowledge Sharing: Our data revealed that respondents perceived that technology and structures performed an enabling role in the knowledge sharing process both within- and between- CoPs. Information and communication technology can facilitate the knowledge sharing process. It performed a number of roles such as business process support, operational support and management support. Michael, a senior Director in Pharmeco describes the role of ICT this way: “It enhances knowledge sharing because it filters and presents data and it enables the flow of data throughout the organisation. As a Director, I find that it supports my thinking processes and informs the decisions we make as a group.” (Director, Pharmeco). The structure of the wider organisations served as an enabler of knowledge sharing. Particular features of structure reported by respondents included an emphasis on project based work rather than functional work, multi-skilled employers, a focus on team rather than individual work, matrix structures where employees report to work project managers and functional managers. Leadership was also highlighted. An engineer in Medico talked about the role of management as follows: “Senior management in this organisation have implemented some measures to evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge sharing. It has created a culture that allows CoPs to emerge. We place strong value on open communication, decentralised control and strong personal ownership. These things are important however it is difficult to say how they will be interpreted by employees.” (Engineer, Medico)
Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
Table 3. Dynamics of knowledge sharing within- and between- the cops studied: some key findings Dimension
Key Findings to Emerge from Study
Cognitive Dimensions: • CoPs developed disciplined operating practices that members considered crucial to sustaining their sense of focus and direction. • Sustained focus on a key direction and self-set objectives avoided a drift into peripheral concerns. • CoPs emerged and changed with different stages of evolution • Strong emphasis on stressing the boundaries of competence and authority • The practices of the CoPs were negotiated rather than externally imposed • Recognition that the cognitive boundaries between the informal space of the community and the formal space of the organisation will shift over time. • Continued success and members’ enthusiasm vital to sustaining the CoPs existence. • Members left meetings with a positive sense of achievement about the CoP. • Individual motivation is a key condition for effective knowledge sharing within the CoP. • Most effective knowledge sharing practices occur between members with common professional backgrounds, complementary expertise and at the same level in the organisation structure. Relationship Dimensions: • Members of CoPs placed particular emphasis on the opportunity to express and test ideas in an informal risk-free environment • The community context encourages members to speak freely without fear of compromise. • CoP members relied on face to face meetings. Between meetings coordination of tasks was achieved through e-mail. • CoP members consider face to face interaction and informal discussion to be the most effective form of communication when sharing knowledge. • Knowing what someone knows is a requirement to seeking a specific person out when members are faced with a problem or opportunity. • Knowing what someone else knows of itself is not sufficient. It is important to get access to their thinking. Access in the context of relationships is influenced by the closeness of the relationship, physical proximity, organisational design and collaborative technology. • CoP members who actively knowledge share engage with the seeker. They understand the problem and shape their knowledge to help solve the problem. Structural Dimensions: • For communities to evolve their knowledge sharing capabilities, they must be accepted and supported by management in all their aspects of self-management and self-determination. • Organisational conditions may create fragmentation of knowledge and people. This may engender a need for members of a CoP to seek mutual assistant from the CoP itself. • Where organisational structures are less effective in facilitating affiliation. CoPs have the potential to provide continuity in times of structural transformation. • Members in different CoPs need an opportunity to initially identify each other to facilitate knowledge sharing. • Networks and their characteristics are important structural characteristics in determining both within- and between- CoP knowledge sharing.
Top management support was reported as an important influence on knowledge sharing both within and between CoPs. This support contributed to the creation of a supportive climate to enable knowledge sharing. Respondents reported that a perception of top management encouragement was an important factor facilitating between CoP knowledge sharing. Table 3 provides a summary of the key themes that emerged from the research.
CONCLUSION To successfully compete on the basis of knowledge, knowledge-intensive firms must learn to effectively share knowledge at multiple levels, including individual, teams, units, within CoPs, across CoPs and boundary crossing networks. Knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive firms is a complex phenomenon. These firms typically comprise of a multiplicity of CoPs that traverse formal boundaries. Our study findings demon-
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strated that knowledge in knowledge-intensive firms is socially constructed in CoPs that have complex and dynamic characteristics. These processes are unpredictable and as a result are not controllable utilising traditional managerial strategies. This clearly suggests that the management of knowledge must involve engagement with multiple CoPs. These various CoPs are likely to produce conflicting information, knowledge and values. Resolution of such conflicts is likely to be enhanced through informal trust-based networks. Within CoPs we found evidence of significant sharing of tacit knowledge largely undertaken through informal relationships. In the case of between CoP knowledge sharing the focus was on codified knowledge. This was facilitated through formal relationships, standard operating procedures and information technology. CoPs in our study emerged as organic entities. They were not deliberately shaped by management. Management did however understand the value of CoPs from a knowledge sharing point of view. An organization’s culture may create opportunities for knowledge sharing across CoPs and to span boundaries that might otherwise be barriers to knowledge sharing. We argue that in knowledge-intensive firms, these opportunities should represent a pervasive feature of the organisation culture. Management practices can also create opportunities for knowledge sharing. In order to achieve competitive advantage, knowledge-intensive firms require the right knowledge at the right time. In theory, CoPs can provide an effective mechanism to achieve this objective. The CoPs we studied had developed relationships that enabled them to quickly get to the core of issues. Mutual understanding and engagement were highlighted as key features of effective knowledge sharing. Members of different CoPs were unwilling to communicate with other CoPs with whom they did not have a strong mutual engagement. The CoPs studied in both organisations generated lots of knowledge which they shared within the CoP but which was
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not shared between CoPs. We acknowledge that individuals may participate in several CoPs, each with different practices and identity structures. Wenger (1998) envisaged such a scenario where practice was compartmentalised and where there were few opportunities to transfer it across contexts. However, the imperatives of the knowledgeintensive firm require that knowledge is shared between CoPs as well as within CoPs. In highlighting the dynamics of CoPs from a knowledge sharing perspective, our findings suggest that future research questions could usefully explore the important role of networks in the between-CoP knowledge sharing. The sharing of tacit knowledge is a particular challenge simply because it is difficult to communicate through formal processes. The role of a supportive organisation culture should also be investigated. CoPs may engage in activities that conflict with organisational norms, values and assumptions. Research could investigate this rather paradoxical situation. Our study revealed that facets of social capital and social cognition were useful in understanding knowledge sharing in- and between- CoPs. Knowledge sharing will be stimulated by a range of social interaction ties, trust, shared language, shared vision and identification. Our findings suggested that identification of facets of social capital and social cognition represent a useful and valuable avenue for future research. From the perspective of practice, knowledgeintensive firms are challenged to more fully utilize the value of CoPs for knowledge sharing. CoPs are essentially outside the formal control of managerial processes; however it is important that such knowledge is mobilized for the advantage of the firm. Firms may gain the most benefits by focusing on wider organizational systems and core values. Organisational culture plays an important role in facilitating knowledge sharing particularly where it promotes values of collaboration, information sharing and openness to change. It can implement a range of structural mechanisms such as cross-CoP forums which facilitate discus-
Within- and Between- CoP Knowledge Sharing in Knowledge-Intensive Firms
sion and knowledge sharing. The study findings suggested that CoPs have particular structural and cultural requirements that facilitate their emergence. Knowledge-intensive firms need to make infrastructural investment and put in place seeding structures. These structures do not seek to directly control the actions of CoPs but they seek to shape their interactions. Direct organisational control is unlikely to yield results of any significance. Knowledge intensive firms should focus on developing strategies that encourage interaction and facilitate the development of relationships.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Knowledge-intensive Firms: These firms are characterized by an analytical knowledge base and there is a strong reliance on codified knowledge as a basis for competitive advantage. They also rely on tacit knowledge.
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Knowledge Sharing: Knowledge sharing involves interactions between at least two individuals. Knowledge is shared when it is transferred from one person or group to another person or group. Knowledge: Knowledge consists of subjectively constructed information. It represents a dynamic mix of experience, contextual information, insight, expertise and learning. Knowledge Codification: Knowledge codification refers to the documentation of tacit knowledge in the form of documents, manuals or through the use of technology. Within COP Knowledge Sharing: WithinCOP knowledge sharing focuses on the sharing of knowledge amongst COP members.
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Between COP Knowledge Sharing: Between-COP knowledge sharing focuses on the sharing of knowledge between different CoPs within an organisation. Synthetic Knowledge Bases: Synthetic knowledge bases focus on the application of existing knowledge and on solving specific problems. These demand efficient processes of interaction, learning by doing, the development of practical skills, and the use of tacit knowledge. Analytical Knowledge Bases: Analytical knowledge bases highlight the role of knowledge codification, the importance of scientific processes and methods and the need to more formally organize that knowledge.
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Chapter 20
Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization Tuija Lämsä University of Oulu, Finland Satu Nätti University of Oulu, Finland
ABSTRACT 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. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch020
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Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND “A great deal of [organizational] knowledge is both produced and held collectively. Such knowledge is readily generated when people work together in tightly knit groups known as communities of practice” (Brown & Duguid, 1998, pp. 91) In this chapter we aim to describe the role of CoPs in the knowledge intensive context, where value creation is based on intellectual knowledge capital and thus knowledge has more importance than other inputs. In knowledge intensive contexts, human capital is dominant, in comparison to physical or financial capital (e.g., Løwendahl, 1997; Alvesson, 2001; Starbuck 1992). The most work is said to be intellectual in nature and welleducated, qualified employees form the major part of the workforce (Alvesson, 1995; Alvesson, 2000; Robertson & Swan, 1998; Starbuck, 1992). In these organizations the dependence of organizations on its employees is strong, many times because of the embedded nature of expertise. Thus, replacing employees due to resignation is often extremely difficult (e.g., Sveiby, 1997), even impossible. Intensive and continuous knowledge sharing among workers diminishes the vulnerability of the organization in those situations. In addition, effective expertise and customer-related knowledge sharing among the knowledge workers can be seen as one crucial prerequisite in perceived customer value and innovativeness in this context (see e.g., Kothandaraman & Wilson, 2000; Nätti & Still 2007). As Løwendahl, Revang & Fosstenlokken (2001, 912) put it: ‘they [knowledge organizations] employ a very high percentage of highly educated people and they are extremely dependent on their ability to attract, mobilize, develop and transform the knowledge of these employees to create value for their clients.’ Indeed, defining and describing knowledge sharing related to its specific context is important because of the characteristics of an organization: all of its units
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and individuals influence the creation, transfer, accumulation and utilization of knowledge (Argote, 2003a)1. One important organizational element strongly influencing knowledge creation, sharing and accumulation in knowledge intensive contexts is “the community of practice” (from now on CoP). The term was first coined by Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave (1991). Since then, academics, technologists and management professionals have discussed the role of knowledge and learning, within and between these communities both from a theoretical and a practical perspective. Indeed, this conception seems to provide a useful perspective on knowing, learning and improving the organizational performance in many kinds of organizations and within various sectors of organizational life (see e.g. Wenger, 2005). John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid (1991) find that organizations consist of several CoPs that often cross the formal boundaries of organizational units. They argue that organizational learning should be studied by analyzing how these networked communities create new insights and learn. In knowledge intensive organizations there are certain contextual characteristics which are noteworthy in relation to their learning ability, both internally within single CoPs as well as in the web of different communities. For example, experts are likely to collect into their collegial groups, creating stronger bonds with colleagues they feel “similar” to (Thomas-Hunt, Ogden & Neale, 2003; Empson, 2001) based on such features as their educational background, working experience and organizational status. Thus, CoPs in knowledge intensive contexts are often also occupational communities. An occupational community according to Barley and Kunda (2006) is a group of people who consider themselves to be engaged in similar work; who identify (more or less positively) with their work; who share a set of values, norms, professional identity and perspectives that apply to, but extend beyond, work
Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization
related matters; and whose social relationships meld the realms of work and leisure. Communities gather around a type of knowledge and they deal with the same kind of problems and work in similar situations with customers (Lämsä, 2008). Thus in the knowledge intensive context, CoPs are not a new type of organizational unit; rather they are a different cut on the structure of an organization, one that emphasizes the learning that people have done together instead of the unit they report to, the project they are working on, or the people they know. CoPs differ from other kinds of groups found in organizations in the way they define their enterprise, exist over time and set their boundaries (Wenger, 1998). A CoP exists because it produces a shared practice as members engage in a collective process of learning. People belong to CoPs at the same time as they belong to other organizational structures. In their CoPs, they develop the knowledge that lets them do these other tasks more effectively. This informal fabric of communities and shared practices makes the official organization effective. Also strategists in many knowledge intensive organizations have begun to recognize that in the knowledge economy, knowledge critical for business success is often created and shared by these informal groups of individuals with common work practices and interests. This includes both the explicit knowledge of the firm (i.e., knowledge that is captured in a written or visual form) as well as implicit knowledge, where the communities serve as an organizational memory preserving valuable insights that would otherwise be easily lost in an age of employee mobility and early retirement. Consequently, CoPs are even intentionally “established” as a knowledge management tool to support organizational learning processes. This leads to the question whether these intentionally created groups are actually CoPs, naturally emerging and acting through self-organization and common practices? (Mittendorff, Geijsel, Hoeve, Laat, & Nieuwenhuis, 2006.)
THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND CREATION APPROACH In this chapter, our aim is to describe knowledge sharing within and between CoPs, in the specific context of knowledge intensive organization. In our description we rely heavily on existing literature; as well as empirical case-analyses conducted in three different knowledge-intensive organizations to illustrate how knowledge is created and shared within and between communities, and what may harm that process with a view to the underlying characteristics of this specific context. In this section we want to review some important theoretical issues related to knowledge sharing and organizational learning and by doing so we also wish to highlight the meaning of these conceptions in the context of a knowledge intensive organization by giving examples from our empirical work. In addition, this section forms a basis for further analysis of CoPs in a knowledge intensive environment. Organizational learning is a research area that is closely associated with the discipline of knowledge management, even if it is often difficult to distinguish between these two as they address more or less the same problems: one of the core topics of knowledge management, knowledge creation, is a central issue in organizational learning, while the key topic of organizational learning, organizational diffusion of innovations and practices, is a major topic in knowledge management (Lämsä, 2008). Knowledge management is an emerging discipline, with its roots in a variety of related disciplines and domains such as organization theories, management theories, computer technology and cognitive science. According to Teece (2000), the fundamental core of knowledge management is the development and astute deployment and utilization of intangible assets, of which knowledge, competence, and intellectual property are the most significant. Sanchez and Heene (1997)
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point out that the management of information and knowledge, and the related assertion of organizational learning, are absolute key questions in strategy work. Empson (2001) suggests that knowledge management literature uses two major, complementary conceptual models. The first model regards knowledge as assets, i.e. as ‘objectively definable commodities’ that can be used to create a competitive advantage. This perspective is referred to as the knowledge-based view of the firm because the firm or organization is seen as a collection of competencies and capabilities that can be used to create a competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Liebeskind, 1996; Spender, 1996). In this view, the organization is characterized through inner processes and its capacity to adopt external resources (Foss, 1996a/1996b). The second conceptual model sees knowledge as processes, as an outcome of socially constructed beliefs of what proper knowledge is. This view examines the use of knowledge resources and the management of knowledge and is called the knowledge management perspective (Leornard-Barton, 1995, Choo, 1998, Seely-Brown & Duguid, 2000). According to Styhre (2003), the emergence of the knowledge-based view of the firm and other knowledge management theories implies an increase in the number of key notions deriving from knowledge, e.g. skills (Knights & McCabe, 1999), competence (Gherardi, 2000; McEvily & Das & McCabe, 2000), tacit knowledge (Athanassiou & Nigh, 1999; Baumard, 1999), expert knowledge (Reed, 1996; Blackler, Crump & McDonald, 1999), knowledge assets (Boisot, 1998; Teece 1998), narrative knowledge (Polkinghorne, 1988), and creativity (Amabile, 1997; McFadzean, 2000; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Wenger (2000, pp. 226) argues that knowledge is primarily about communication: “knowing… is a matter of displaying competencies defined in social communities”, while for Leonard-Barton (1995, pp. 3) knowledge is always in a state of flux:
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“Knowledge accumulates slowly, over time, shaped and channeled into certain directions through nudging of hundreds of daily managerial decisions. Nor does knowledge occur only one time; it is constantly aborning… knowledge reservoirs in organizations are not static pools but well-springs, constantly replenished with streams of new ideas and constituting an ever-flowing source of corporate renewal.” As mentioned, one of the wide-ranging topics of knowledge management, knowledge creation, is a central issue in organizational learning. It is a topic which specifies and brings new dimensions to the concept of organizational learning itself. Ikujiro Nonaka (1994) has described the ways in which individuals manage knowledge: knowledge is created only by individuals; organizations cannot create knowledge without them and therefore organizations can support creative individuals or provide contributory contexts to create knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). This dynamic model of knowledge creation is anchored in the critical assumption that human knowledge is created and expanded through social interaction, as well as a mixture of tacit and explicit knowledge. This interaction is called ‘knowledge conversion’. Organizational knowledge creation is a continuous and dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge, shaped by shifts between different modes of knowledge conversion, which are in turn induced by several triggers (Figure 1). Nonaka’s and Takeuchi’s theory is based on a matrix of conversions from tacit to explicit and explicit to tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is context-specific, personal, and is hard to formalize and communicate. Tacit knowledge is part of everything that we do and say, and as is integral to our thinking and deeply embedded in the way we work. In a knowledge intensive context, the most valuable knowledge is often tacit and complex, an inimitable and non-substitutable organisational resource (see e.g., Barney, 1991). Tacit knowledge may be difficult or even impossible
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Figure 1. The knowledge spiral (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995, pp. 71)
to codify, thus it may stay embedded within a single actor or group of people. Explicit knowledge is easier to identify, because it is in written form. It can be stored as artefacts – physical or virtual - in different systems, so that it can be identified, measured, distributed and audited. Explicit knowledge is re-usable in a consistent and repeatable manner (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995.) Three of the four types of knowledge conversion – socialization, combination, and internalization – have been discussed from various perspectives in organizational theory. Socialization aims at the sharing of tacit knowledge. On its own, however, it is a limited form of knowledge creation: unless shared knowledge becomes explicit, it cannot be easily leveraged by the organization as a whole. But when tacit and explicit knowledge interact, innovation emerges. In knowledge intensive organizations socialization may happen when social actors, experts, share their own experiences and know-how and thereby create new tacit knowledge such as some new way to solve a problem or in the development of technical skills. An actor can acquire tacit knowledge directly from others without using language. The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is experience, because without some form of shared experience, it is very difficult for
one person to project her- or himself into another individual’s thinking process. For example, when experts work alongside they learn from each other through observation, imitation, and practice. Socialization is a process where actors share and transfer their own experiences and know-how to others, and are also able to unite received knowledge with their own knowledge base. Externalization is a process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts, hypotheses, or models. When experts have shared their experiences and ideas with each other or in small groups, they may want to share their valuable knowing and know-how also to other workmates and/or other direction within the organization. In this process, actors are attempting to conceptualize this knowing – converting tacit knowledge into articulated, explicit knowledge. Externalization is central to knowledge creation, because it creates new, explicit concepts from tacit knowledge. These new concepts can then be modeled and diffused easier across organizational levels. For example, in many professional organizations codifying customer-related knowledge into common IT systems, service/expertise descriptions or customer project/case descriptions may serve as a form of externalization (Nätti & Still 2007).
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Combination is a process where the outlined concepts above are systemized into a knowledge system (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). This means that experts combine different bodies of explicit knowledge, they exchange and combine knowledge through documents, meetings or networks. This kind of reconfiguration of existing information can lead to new knowledge. Behind a functionality of this process is an assumption that people form more or less informal interaction networks. Experts share their knowledge in their own contact network where they produce also new knowledge by combining their own knowledge with other individuals’ and groups’ knowledge. For example, middle management plays a critical role in creating new concepts through networking of codified information and knowledge (Lämsä, 2008). First of all, they may belong to the executive group of an organization from where they pick up issues and operationalize them to their own staff in various meetings. These managers form their own community of practice, so called ‘core network’ where they bring information from other meetings and individuals from different levels of organization. These kinds of networks can also be called ‘competence networks’ which can be identified on three different levels/dimensions: individual, organizational-unit, and on the level of the whole system of intra- and interorganizational activities and processes (Lämsä & Savolainen, 2003). For example, experts of the organization (e.g. doctors, nurses, etc.) form the organization’s core-competence, on an individual level. There are advantages to be gained from networking provided that an organization has strong know-how and strong core competencies and capabilities. In the fourth knowledge conversion, internalization is seen as a process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. When experiences through socialization, externalization, and combination are internalized into the tacit knowledge bases of individuals in the form of shared models or know-how, they become valuable assets. This kind of action is seen as being “learning by
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doing”. For example, by doing things individuals internalize new models of action and thus are renewed as well as their organization. In the beginning this kind of doing may be based on explicit knowledge (e.g., engineering knowledge that is learned in university), but adapting this knowledge to the work environment, the individuals inevitably learn and produce tacit knowledge which further deepen the know-how and efficiency of their duties. For organizational knowledge creation to take place, the tacit knowledge accumulated on the individual level needs to be socialized with other organizational members. For explicit knowledge to become more easily tacit, the knowledge should be verbalized or diagrammed into documents, manuals, or oral stories. This will help individuals internalize what they have experienced, thus enriching their tacit knowledge. The framework proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi directs attention to the socially constructed, distributed and embedded nature of knowledge and the processes through which it is created and developed. Nonaka and Takeuchi note that although we use the term ‘organizational’ knowledge creation, the organization cannot create knowledge on its own without the initiative of the individual and the interaction that takes place within the group. Therefore we can argue that the CoP approach offers a comparatively coherent view of the above described example of social processes of knowledge creation. The debate on organizational learning highlights the objectives of organizational learning, learning processes in organizations, and the ways which either facilitates to make organizational learning easier or more difficult. The search for “best practices” has directed the discussion towards the search for universal mechanisms and solutions, independent of the content and local contingencies of learning. New findings concerning the nature of knowledge and learning have, however, emphasized the local and embedded nature of learning processes (see Blackler, 1993;
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Brown & Duguid, 1991; Tyre & von Hippel, 1993) a viewpoint we would wish to adopt in this chapter.
KNOWLEDGE SHARING WITHIN AND BETWEEN CoPs IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE ORGANIZATION John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid (1991) find that organizations consist of several CoPs that often cross the formal boundaries of organizational units. The actual learning in practice differs remarkably from what managers and planners of personnel training seem to assume. Brown and Duguid base their argument, to a great extent, on Orr’s (1990) ethnographic research on the work of photocopier technicians. Orr discovered that the official instructions instead of assisting the technicians in their repair work, in some cases, made it more difficult: the official directives and training depicted the work as straightforward and simple, while in fact it was complex and demanding. To compensate for the inadequacy of the official prescriptions to master the work, technicians relied on the experiences of their coworkers which they shared and preserved in the form of oral case stories. Indeed, CoPs can be seen as one of the most prominent approaches within the recent organizational learning discourse, concentrating especially on the social and cultural dimensions of workplace innovations and knowledge creation (Peltonen & Lämsä, 2004). Interactions between and within CoPs, or related socialization, externalization, combination or internalization elements are not fully understood yet, although it is recognized that their influence on innovativeness and customer value creation ability is crucial in knowledge intensive organizations (see e.g., Nätti & Still, 2007). For example, in the professional work “cross-functional” knowledge resources are needed in everyday service production and in innovation activities. In addition, they appear to
play an important role in creating customer value and developing further customer relationships (e.g. Kothandaraman & Wilson, 2000). As mentioned, CoPs fulfill a number of functions in respect to the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge in an organization (Wenger, 1998): exchange and interpretation of information, retaining knowledge, steward competencies, and provide homes for identities. In this section we aim to look at these (also overlapping) functions in relation to the characteristics of knowledge intensive context. This description is partly based on state of the art literature of CoPs, but also on our related empirical case-studies conducted between the years 2001-2005 in three organizations active in the areas of consultancy and training, IT-system development and health-care.
Exchange and Interpretation of Information in Knowledge Intensive CoPs Facilitators of information exchange and interpretation within and between CoPs. The CoP can act as a node for the exchange and interpretation of information. This is because members of the group presumably have a shared understanding and a common domain of knowledge, which both further defines a set of issues handled and creates a sense of common identity. Based on the common domain of knowledge within CoP, people know what is relevant to communicate and how best to present information in useful ways. Thus, knowledge sharing is more fluent. Trust and respect among the actors further facilitates knowledge sharing. Equally, the shared practice the group constantly develops furthers along its communication styles, group-specific language and jargon, storytelling, and group-specific codified knowledge (e.g. documentation) that community members create and share. In its ideal form CoP is a social structure that “takes” a responsibility for innovating and sharing its knowledge (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). As a consequence, a CoP also has
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its links throughout an organization (via its individual members) is an ideal channel for moving knowledge, such as best practices, tips, or feedback throughout the system (Wenger, 1998). However, its function as a channel for moving knowledge is not self-evident or without its challenges as further empirical examples will show. As mentioned above, the members of a CoP develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, and means of addressing recurring problems. This takes time and sustained interaction. The development of a shared practice may be more or less a conscious process. For example, in the case of a health care organization (Lämsä, 2008), departmental secretaries who meet regularly for lunch did not even realize that their lunch discussions were one of their main sources of knowledge about how to solve problems. Furthermore, experiences of people may play crucial role because it is shown that valuable knowledge arises through the experience of health workers over the course of time. People learn things from different sources, and the most important sources of learning are considered to be the work itself and the experiences of the workers. People discuss and exchange knowledge and experiences with each other. Telling stories and conversing during daily work activities continually builds both tacit and explicit knowledge. Through goals organizational learning gains its course of direction. When goals are commonly shared, it is easier to discern what types of learning outcomes are needed and what kind of knowledge can serve as an ingredient in that process. From a strategic point of view it can be important to offer a clear vision for CoPs in light of organizational goals. In this way CoPs know how they should focus their learning efforts and could also be utilized consciously in organizational development. On the other hand, it is wise to offer a possibility for the communities to act freely without any known limits or specific goals, which supports the possibilities for radical, emerging innovations departing from the path-dependent way of doing
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things in the organization. However, regardless of the approach, the development of collective meaning can be viewed as one important prerequisite for creating sufficient cohesion to the group to make knowledge sharing and organizational learning possible (see e.g., Mittendorff et al., 2006). Inhibitors of information exchange and interpretation within and between CoPs. Nonetheless, when groups create collective meanings and knowledge domains it is important to note that it may also at the same time influence negatively the cooperation between different CoPs. Thus different communities may lack the shared understanding that would be beneficial in their joint organizational tasks (e.g. Hislop, 2003). Diminishing the distance between them may be difficult because groups are often unaware of the differences being strongly embedded within their own collegial group and dominant logic (see e.g., Argyris, 1999, pp. 67). It is possible among different CoPs for the knowledge domains to differ to such an extent that knowledge sharing between them becomes challenging – if not impossible. For example, experts from two completely distinct areas (e.g. engineers and psychologists), might have difficulty in finding a “common language” and lack a sufficient level of mutual appreciation to enable knowledge sharing. The issue of appreciation is strongly linked to the common mindset and valuations the group has created along the way. For example one group may place importance on financial results and efficiency, while the other CoP is building its mindset based on humanism. Thus, there may be conflicting values in CoPs influencing their lack of mutual appreciation. Lack of appreciation between these groups may be represented by professionals ignoring or undervaluing the professionalism or competence of an expert outside the CoP limits. The previously mentioned problems between CoPs were clearly seen in one of our empirical cases where CoPs were not capable of communicating with each other. The organization in the example case was a professional service organiza-
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tion offering educational and consultancy services in the business-to-business sector. Professionals in occupational CoPs had a similar kind of education and background. In addition, many of them had been working in the same group for a long time. Thus common practices, jargon, shared values and mindsets were well-established. However, those practices and values were quite distinct in different CoPs of the organization. From that perspective these groups also formed strong organizational subcultures. A strong culture within a CoP may be a good starting point for internal cooperation in the group, but whenever a wider spectrum of organizational competences and knowledge are needed for some purpose, for example for a demanding and long-term customer project, the cooperation between these groups and combining their competencies becomes crucial. In this specific case, management tried to encourage groups to work together. In spite of that, professionals chose to work and share their knowledge with people “they felt comfortable with and similar enough”, with people only of their own CoP. The meaning of shared culture and language of CoP may indeed be a strong guiding force behind the cooperation and knowledge sharing in the kind of knowledge intensive context (Nätti & Still, 2007). Within communities, knowledge is continuously embedded in practice and thus circulates easily, while at the same time this practice further helps to generate knowledge and collective know-how. Members of a community implicitly share a sense of what practice is and what the standards for judgment are, supporting the spread of knowledge. Without this knowledge sharing the community disintegrates. Paradoxically the above mentioned “tightness” of the social structure may function as an inertial force as well “misguiding” or even impeding the organization level learning processes. Because the group creates its practices, refines them and finally finds them efficient and suitable for their purposes, CoPs may be reluctant about changing their individual routines when change and learning new ways of doing things are
expected. For example, Mittendorff et al. (2006) suggest that CoPs may be by nature conservative and possess a strong inertial force and may, despite their evident innovation potential, also obstruct organizational learning.
CoPs AS KNOWLEDGE “RETAINERS” IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE ORGANIZATIONS: VIEWS ON TACIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE The properties of the knowledge being shared is also significant in determining the rate at which knowledge is transferred and accumulated, how it is retained and finally, how it absorbs from corner to corner (Argote et al., 2003b). According to Davenport, De Long and Beers (1998), knowledge can be considered information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection. It is a high-value form of information that is ready to be applied to decisions and actions. As mentioned, we can divide knowledge into two categories. Firstly, there is explicit knowledge, which is transmittable in a codified and systematic form. Secondly, there is tacit knowledge which is more embedded in people and more related to action itself (Polanyi, 1966). Tacit knowledge is something that cannot be codified, formulated or expressed so that another person could follow the instructions and then undertake the same activity. It has been argued that explicit knowledge moves easily and tacit knowledge moves with difficulty (Polanyi, 1958). Both types of knowledge are needed. In CoPs tacit knowledge is context-specific personal know-how that is deeply embedded in life experience, learning and in the way that knowledge workers work. Explicit knowledge is easier to identify, deliberately shared, documented and communicated. Viewing knowledge as a duality emphasizes that both sides of knowledge must be taken into account if an attempt to “manage” knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi
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(1995), knowledge creation describes a dualism between tacit and explicit knowledge and argue that this is a balanced distinction that enables a meaningful view on knowledge creation dynamics between different types. CoPs can indeed retain knowledge in “living” ways, unlike a codified database or a manual. Even when they routinize certain tasks and processes, they may also do so in a manner that responds to local circumstances making it useful to practitioners. CoPs preserve the tacit aspects of knowledge that formal systems cannot capture. For this reason they are ideal, for example in initiating newcomers into a practice (Wenger, 1998). In knowledge intensive organizations, knowledge is often highly tacit, complex and ambiguous that further challenges its transfer and sharing. Thus it can be suggested that in those contexts the meaning of these communities may be even more crucial from a knowledge sharing and organizational learning point of view. This is because tacit knowledge flows most efficiently in social interaction and common practices which are recognized to be evident strengths of these groups (see the previously mentioned Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995 model of knowledge conversion). These types of social interaction are ways to externalize the knowledge from individual actors can take the form of and include story-telling, collective reflection of experiences and collective problemssolving (see e.g. Mittendorff et al., 2006). Indeed, often it might be difficult and sometimes even impossible to codify tacit, complex or ambiguous competence- and customer-related knowledge in the knowledge intensive context. Thus knowledge externalization, when viewed from this perspective in knowledge intensive organizations, may be challenging and further emphasize the meaning of CoPs as knowledge retainers. In addition, it is possible that professionals are not even willing to codify their expertise of customer-related knowledge for collective use even when possible. First, professionals may feel that the task is not core to their profession but “a
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routine” which is a waste of their valuable time. Second, knowledge may be considered to be the capital which should be protected and therefore not shared in codified form to maintain a competitive position in the organization and network of experts. Third, the management system of the knowledge intensive organization may further strengthen the above described tendency of knowledge protection by creating competition between experts. Finally, the lack of appreciation between professionals and different CoPs may inhibit the knowledge codification for organizational purposes, as well as for tacit knowledge sharing via intergroup interaction and practices (see e.g., Nätti & Still, 2007, Nätti & Ojasalo, 2008).
CoPs as Competence Stewards in Knowledge Intensive Organization CoPs can act as competence stewards to keep the organization at the cutting edge of organizational development. Members of these groups discuss novel ideas, work together on problems, and keep up with developments inside and outside the firm. When a community commits itself at being on the forefront of a field, members distribute responsibility in keeping up or pushing for new developments. This collaborative inquiry makes membership valuable because people invest their professional identities in being part of a dynamic, forward-looking community. (Wenger, 1998.) Professionals may have not ready-made solutions for resolving practical problems in their field. As they encounter these problems in their daily work, they have to invent personal solutions, generally developing and maintaining their knowledge. They may take classes, join professional associations, consult other professionals in their internal and external network and educate themselves. Their efforts to stay up-to-date are consequently sustained, intense and ongoing. For example in the case of the health-care organization, the community-building was usually spontaneous and informal, driven less by conscious design
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than by the efforts of the employees to solve immediate problems. One part of professional work is to create strong networks with leading professionals in one’s field. However, if there are barriers between the CoPs impeding knowledge sharing, these external expert contacts may become the “possession” of only one group or individual. It is worth noting that this may in some organizations influence organizational innovation capability, especially in cases where utilizing a wide external competence spectrum is considered important to the innovation process or in the customer value creation process (about loose coupling among collegial groups see e.g. Nätti & Ojasalo, 2008, pp. 218-219).
CoPs as Homes for Professional Identities CoPs can provide homes for professional identities. They are not as temporary as teams and unlike business units they are organized around matters of import to their members. Identity is important, in a sea of information, as it helps us sort out what to pay attention to, what to participate in, and what to stay away from. Having a sense of identity is a crucial aspect of learning in organizations. For firms to benefit from the creativity of people they should support communities as a way to help them develop their identities (Wenger, 1998). CoP has an identity defined by a shared domain of interest (Wenger, 2005). Membership therefore implies a commitment to the domain, and therefore it is the shared competence that distinguishes members from other people. These domains of practice should be concrete enough to permit members to engage fully and develop their expertise and their professional identities. Without this kind of personal engagement and passion for their profession, CoPs would not emerge and thrive. In the case study of health care workers (Lämsä, 2008) it was discovered that different occupational groups displayed in a natural way these competence areas. People doing the same work,
facing the same kind of problems have similar capabilities. CoPs are comprised of professionals from the same field, the key issue is whether members value their collective competence and learn from each other, even if they come from various departments and/or professional fields. According to Durkheim, the premise upon which the notion of occupational community rests is the idea that the work we do shapes the totality of our lives, and to a great extent, determines who we believe we are. ”Besides the society of faith, of family, and of politics, there is another… that of all workers of the same sort, in association, all who cooperate in the same function; that is, the occupational group or corporation. Identity of origin, culture, and occupation makes occupational activity the richest sort of material for a common life.” (Durkheim, 1951, pp. 578) The implication of Durkheim’s remarks is that modern society is not only structured vertically by the rationality of industrial and state organization, but that it is also structured horizontally by occupational groupings. However paradoxically, these strong identities may also inhibit cooperation between the CoPs as is displayed in our cases. This is strongly related to the lack of appreciation these professional groups might feel towards each other due to such as their distinct valuations and professional orientations. This may be represented by undervaluing or even ignoring the professionalism and expertise of other groups leading to a blocking of knowledge sharing between groups. The characteristics of the management system may further strengthen the natural fragmentation tendency of functional organizational structure and related performance measurement metrics of professional organizations. The building up of competition between the groups may also lead to creating barriers and knowledge protection between the groups (see e.g., Nätti & Still, 2007).
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CONCLUSION Knowledge intensive organizations comprise of various CoPs that often cross the formal boundaries of organizational units, such as departments and formal working groups. According to previous theoretical perspectives and empirical findings, CoPs are beneficial in various ways for the knowledge intensive firm, the community itself and to its employees. They are efficient not only in sharing knowledge and know-how, which are the core assets in the kind of context, but also in achieving business results. First, they support faster and more effective problem-solving both locally and across the organization. Secondly, CoPs help with developing and retaining expertise by building capabilities and knowledge competencies. In addition, they are very effective to diffuse created capabilities across the whole organization and an important source of innovations. At the organizational level, CoPs help to form a common language, methods and procedures around specific know-how and competencies. An example could involve people working with similar problems in every department, so the knowledge and expertise of the communities are embedded in a large number of employees resulting in one major benefit of the CoPs, to ensure the retention of knowledge when some employees leave the organization. CoPs preserve the tacit aspects of knowledge that formal systems (like databases or procedures) cannot capture, and therefore they are crucial in the knowledge intensive context where the most valuable knowledge is often tacit. They also increase access to expertise across organizational levels: they are nodes for the exchange and interpretation of information and knowledge. Because their experts have a shared understanding, they know the relevance of matters to communicate and the ways to present information in a useful manner. The consequence of which, is a CoP spreading across the organization and organizational boundaries forming an
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ideal channel for moving information, such as best practices, tips or feedback. The benefits from CoPs are also gained by the members of the communities. Within the communities, a learning-focused sense of identity is fostered, and CoPs ultimately provide homes for identities. Communities are organized around subjects members feel to be important and help to develop individual skills and competencies. In these communities people discuss issues related to their work; swap opinions with each other; are given feedback about training and education; and go through some methods and practices which they can exploit in their own work. Knowledge and know-how are transferred very fluently between members which also contributes to the selfdevelopment and self-fulfillment of its members. Related to the topical issues of innovation activities and customer value creation, CoPs may have a remarkable role in many sectors (see e.g. von Hippel & von Krogh, 2003). However, our empirical examples point out that all CoPs within an organization do not necessarily have a particular, recognized role in running the business. The ignoring if not disparagement of CoPs by an organization may in a worse-case scenario cause communities to lose their creativity and ability to innovate. The management should not only focus on identifying CoPs in the organization, but also on exploiting their knowledge and know-how. From this perspective, the expertise of these communities should even participate in developing the business and the functions, not to mention innovation activities. Thus, from a managerial point of view it is important to ask: can managers mobilize the needed knowledge, and are they even aware of the possibilities and organizational forms there are outside of the formal management system? Traditionally CoPs have been seen as the “creators of knowledge”, and their positive influence in innovative processes and organizational learning are emphasized. While important, we would wish to note that it is equally important to acknowledge
Knowledge Sharing Within and Between Communities of Practice in a Knowledge Intensive Organization
the challenges these tightly-coupled, informal intentional groups can create to knowledge sharing between the CoPs and at the organizational level (as our empirical examples illustrate). Due to varying professional identities, background and even because of the influence of different types of customers these groups may serve, CoPs may have dramatically different frames of reference especially in the specific context of knowledge intensive organization. Furthermore, organizational fragmentation caused by distinct discourses, values and working practices, and the lack of common understanding and appreciation between the CoPs can hamper knowledge sharing in many ways. This may even cause an ever increasing cycle of isolation between the groups (e.g. Nätti & Ojasalo 2008). Characteristics of the management system may further strengthen isolation; there may be competitive attitudes between the communities because the performance of each CoP may be measured separately, whereas cooperative actions are not rewarded to the same extent, for example. Because of isolation, the result may be that there is no commonly shared organizational understanding of knowledge and expertise its different CoPs possess. Thus, “the knowledge pool” utilized in the customer projects and innovation activities may be narrower than potentially possible. This also limits the potential for organizational learning. Consequently, service offering may remain onesided and un-innovative. In addition, customerrelated knowledge sharing and utilization at the organizational level may be hampered, with the customer needs and customer feedback not fully utilized to support the organizational development. Moreover, actions in the customer interface may be fragmented and responsiveness in general may be hampered because the knowledge remains local. Customers may even receive contradictory messages from different groups of the same organization (Nätti & Still, 2007). However, there are ways to tackle these problems and to influence coordination and coopera-
tion within and between the CoPs in knowledge intensive context. For example, management can aim to construct “bridges” between CoPs. This happens by consciously creating organizational positions for suitable people who are able to act as a “bridge” between occupational groups and facilitate knowledge transfer and the building of shared understanding (Heaton & Taylor, 2002; Wenger, 1998). The overall atmosphere of the organization increasingly influences knowledge sharing. The management system, organizational structure, performance metrics, rewarding system and values are an important prerequisite for that atmosphere. Openness in knowledge sharing is presumed not to be created by building up a competition between individuals and groups. Instead, it may be wiser to reward such function as common innovation activities, knowledge sharing, and knowledge codification. In addition, a poignant organizational question is how to build up shared forums of discussion between CoPs that could act as a link between them. Shared forums of discussion between CoPs could be much more easily thought of from the structured, formal organization point of view. However, when informal organizations like CoPs are in question, the task is more challenging as they do not follow official organization charts. CoPs in knowledge intensive organizations are beneficial in various ways. They are efficient not only for sharing knowledge and know-how, but also for achieving business results. Our aim in this study was not to present any “generalizable guidelines” about internal knowledge sharing of professional service organizations, but to describe the phenomenon in question in this specific context. However, the theoretical background and the empirical cases used as an example along the way can offer a rich description of the important roles and dilemmas of these informal, tightly-coupled organizational groups. In business economics the debate on knowledge management is still spread out. The development of knowledge management in theory and practice
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continues to involve a wide range of disciplines and contributors, each bringing their respective experiences, beliefs and practices to the emerging field (Hazlett & McAdam & Gallagher, 2005). According to Klein (2008), the knowledge management literature recognizes the importance of CoPs in the creation and maintenance of knowledge within organizations (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Hislop, 2005), placing some emphasis on the role of CoPs as the ‘missing link’ between on one hand individual learning, and on the other organizational learning. The idea about the concept of CoPs has shifted since the concept was first introduced by Lave & Wenger (1991). Their original emphasis was on the role of CoPs in integrating individuals into the life of a community bonded by a particular domain of interest. This discourse has expanded the perceived role of CoPs into a more general one of domain knowledge management and has been accompanied by a shift from understanding CoPs as purely ‘natural’ phenomena, to viewing them as ‘cultivatable’ (Wenger et al., 2002). Some future studies could be proposed in the field of CoPs, both in the development of CoP theory and practice. As Fox (2000, pp. 860) notes “the community of practice theory tells us nothing about how in practice, members of a community change their practices or innovate”. Roberts (2006) adds that it would be helpful to examine the nature of CoPs of various sizes in different sectors and in a variety of socio-cultural contexts. In so doing, it may be possible to develop a detailed classification of types of CoPs together with the appropriate organizational context for their successful application.
Alvesson, M. (2000). Social identity and the problem of loyalty in knowledge-intensive companies. Journal of Management Studies, 37(8), 1101–1123. doi:10.1111/1467-6486.00218
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Thomas-Hunt, M. C., Ogden, T. Y., & Neale, M. A. (2003). Who’s really sharing? Effects of social and expert status in knowledge exchange within groups. Management Science, 49(4), 464–477. doi:10.1287/mnsc.49.4.464.14425 Tuomi, I. (1999). Corporate knowledge: theory and practice of intelligent organizations. Helsinki: Metaxis. Tyre, M. J. & von Hippel, E. (1993). Locating adaptive learning: the situated nature of adaptive learning in organizations. MIT Sloan School of Management, WP#BP, 3568-3593. von Hippel, E., & von Krogh, G. (2003). Open source software and the “private–collective” innovation model: issues for organization science. Organization Science, 14(2), 209–223. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.2.209.14992 Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E. C. (1998), Communities of practice: learning as a social system. The Systems Thinker, 9(5), Waltham: Pegasus Communications. Wenger, E. C. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225–246. doi:10.1177/135050840072002 Wenger, E. C. (2005). Communities of practice. Brief introduction. Retrieved April 3, 2005 from: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro.htm Wenger, E. C., & Lave, J. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Knowledge Intensive Organization: In knowledge intensive organization, human capital 380
is dominant, in comparison to physical or financial capital (e.g., Løwendahl, 1997; Alvesson, 2001; Starbuck 1992). The most work is said to be intellectual in nature and well-educated, qualified employees form the major part of the workforce (Alvesson, 1995; Alvesson, 2000; Robertson & Swan, 1998; Starbuck, 1992). Community of Practice/Occupational Community: A group of people who consider themselves to be engaged in similar work; who identify (more or less positively) with their work; who share a set of values, norms, professional identity and perspectives that apply to, but extend beyond, work related matters; and whose social relationships meld the realms of work and leisure (see e.g., Barley & Kunda 2006). Communities gather around a type of knowledge and they deal with the same kind of problems and work in similar situations with customers (Lämsä, 2008). Knowledge Sharing: Knowledge sharing/ transfer is a combination of socialized transfer that occurs through direct personal interaction and intermediated transfer where codified, explicit knowledge is available and the knowledge transfer is intermediated e.g. through an IT system (see e.g., Dawson 2000, 17, also Jordan & Jones 1997, 393).
ENDNOTE 1
However, in spite of all the definitions, it is important to notice that the distinction between knowledge intensive and non/less knowledge intensive organizations or work is not self-evident. Nowadays, almost all types of work and work organizations appear to involve knowledge-intensive elements: employees need ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’ in order for any firm to create sustainable competitive advantage (Quinn, 1992).
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Chapter 21
Creativity in Action:
Creative Multimedia SMEs in Manchester David Calvey Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
ABSTRACT This chapter explores the concept of communities of practice (CoP), with reference to ethnographic data from a range of creative multi-media SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) in Manchester in the UK. The central argument is that many of these communities are profoundly mediated by the interplay of competitive commercial imperatives with professional obligations and constructions of identity. Hence, the concept of community is a more fragmented and fractured one. Ultimately, CoP is a robust metaphor to analysis organisational life but more descriptive detail of situated lived practices and mundane realities of various work settings is called for. Ethnographic data is drawn on to demonstrate the participant’s accounts of their lived experiences, which include reflections on the process of creativity, collaborative negotiations with clients and organisational learning. Ethnomethodology, a form of sociological analysis, is then used to suggest alternative ways to analyse the situated nature of practice, learning and community.
INTRODUCTION The central argument in this chapter is that the concept of communities of practice (CoP) can be useful in displaying some features of practice, which in my case are creatives working in multiDOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch021
media SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises). This includes, in complex and shifting ways, their sensibilities, loyalties, habits, obligations and allegiances to a professional discipline (e.g. web designer, learning technologist, programmer etc). However, CoP is less robust in analysing the competitive nature of their ‘lived realities and experiences’, which is often driven by ‘just in
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time’ business pressures and resources constraints. In this sense, these communities are far more fractured and informed by commercial rather than pedagogical imperatives. The tensions and contradictions between, broadly put, social learning and commerce is articulated in the strategies of participants in the way they describe, reflect on and legitimate their occupational image and situated practices as a creative in their field. Ethnographic data is drawn on to demonstrate the participants accounts of their lived experiences within multi-media SMEs, which includes reflections on the process of creativity, collaborative negotiations with clients and managing business realities. Ethnomethodology is used to broadly inform the theoretical position taken as regards situated decision making, situated reasoning, collaborative negotiations, organisational accountability and tacit knowledge. This chapter is organised into five broad sections. The first section outlines the research context. The second section outlines some significant and related and relevant literatures on organisational learning, creativity and communities of practice (CoP). The third section, explores some interview data around the ‘lived experiences’ of creative’s working in multimedia SMEs in Manchester. The fourth section offers an ethnomethodological gaze on the topic as a rich way of reflecting on the situated nature of practice and learning. The final section draws together some concluding reflections and suggestions.
THE RESEARCH CONTEXT The discussions in this chapter initially emerged from SMILE (Skills for the Missing Industry’s Leaders and Enterprises), a research project sponsored by the ESF/Adapt-University for Industry in 2000-2002. The aim of this research was to evaluate the range of management skills within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the North West of England, specifically those
producing multi-media educational and training products. The research was undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, based at the Manchester Metropolitan University. The research was ethnographically driven and centred on a series of case study organisations, with the predominant use of in-depth interviews with key members of staff in multimedia SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) in the Manchester area. It is widely recognised that such creative industries are a strategic and growing sub-sector in the UK economy. The project aimed to take stock of the current management skills in place, identify skills gaps and make some recommendations for learning and development within these firms. The ideas within this chapter build on previous published work from this project (Banks et al, 2002; Russell et al, 2003, 2004). Within post-industrial economies, the creative industries have been identified as a new and fast growing industrial sector. The reasons for their emergence are manifold and complex. We can however point to a number of key factors that, we argue, are driven by processes of globalisation and the convergence between the traditionally distinct spheres of economy ’and‘ culture. The term, creative industries, hints at this resolution of opposites; the blending of the historically separate worlds of culture and economy, or art and commerce, to form a new and hybrid sector. Put simply, as globalisation drives the simultaneous expansion and fragmentation of markets and increasingly volatile patterns of demand, we see firms placing greater emphasis on developing their creative and innovative capabilities, in order to stay ‘cutting edge’ and ‘ahead of the pack’. Thus, traditionally cultural or artistic values of creativity have become more integral to economic production. This is one form of convergence. This process is not, however, uni-directional – in that the economic has now become more central to the cultural sphere. The commodification of art, music and other forms of cultural expression, has proceeded apace, as recognition spreads that the
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economic value of arts and culture now outstrips the value generated by many traditional, manufacturing and service sectors. In short, creative industries are both cause and consequence of a new convergence, at the local, national and global level, of culture and economy, art and technology and the shift towards an ‘informational’, ‘symbolic’ and ‘knowledge-based’ modes of production – largely, but not exclusively, realised through the boom in informational, leisure and educational products. These factors combined, in the current economic climate, will ensure that creativity and innovation will continue to become more central to the generation and exploitation of new products and productivity. As creativity obtains a more general purchase on economic activity, successful firms are not only product innovators, but must also be creative in other areas. This may mean adapting organisational structures to meet new demands for ‘flexibility’, becoming more sensitive to servicing mass and individual customer needs, or becoming more attuned to new partnerships and collaborative opportunities. Creativity is key to success, particularly within small and medium sized enterprises, where the ability to generate new skills and ideas and be ‘one step ahead’ may be their most valuable assets. Creativity – and how to manage it – has become of increasing concern to a range of industry professionals, academics and observers (Rickards & Moger,1999). In the United Kingdom, much debate over the creative industries has been framed around the work of the government’s DCMS’s (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) Creative Industries Task Force (CITF) and their much quoted 1998 Creative Industries Mapping Document. The aim of this report was to flag up the importance of creative industries, and to make some quantitative estimate of the sector’s economic value. In this document, thirteen sub-sectors are identified as being part of the Creative Industries. It suggests that over sixty billion pounds of revenue are generated by a sector that now employs over
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1.4 million people. Creative employment totalled 1.95 million in December 2001, with employment in the creative industries growing at a rate of 9% per annum over the period 1997 - 2001, compared to 1.5% for the whole of the economy. These figures are only ever estimates due to the informal economy that some of the creative industries routinely operate within. The CITF defined creative industries thus: ‘…those activities which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property’ (DCMS 1998, 3). In 2006, the Entrepreneurship and Skills Task Group of the Department’s Creative Industries Education Forum commissioned a study on developing entrepreneurship in the creative industries. The group considered how to promote the development of entrepreneurial skills amongst graduates, and how to avoid skills shortages by getting the skills supply to match more closely with the needs of creative businesses. Following this, in 2008, the government has set up the Creative Economy Programme as the first step in the DCMS goal to make the UK the world’s creative hub. The success of such government policy is open to debate and criticism but the fact that this topic is of national concern demonstrates the importance and potential of the creative industries to the UK economy. The term creative industries obviously cover a wide array of skills, practices and enterprises including typically architecture, designers, antiques, photographers, film makers, performing arts, musicians, computer programmers. From the outset, we have a classic category problem as professions can become conflated and blurred in terms of discreteness. Moreover, many of these occupational groups demonstrate a typical allegiance and obligation to a profession and expert field rather than a broader label of creative.
Creativity in Action
Product diversity is another issue in that firms may provide games software, multimedia education and training products, digital promotion and marketing services; others may be digital artists or provide businesses with e-commerce support. The range and level of design and technical skills will vary enormously within and across firms according to the demands of their core area of business – accordingly some multimedia firms may not consider themselves to be creatives or in the creative industries at all. Yet, certain sub-sectors may well consider themselves to be creative. For example, artists, web-site designers, performance artists, education providers, convergent media and broadcast industries, marketers and promoters, are often explicit about the creative demands and goals of their work. Thus, firms that self-define as creative, or place special emphasis on, the creative process are what we might categorise as creative industries. The creative elements may well be embedded in an understanding of art and designbased, visual production. But this is not necessarily so- multimedia may be seen as creative industry not simply because of any greater propensity for ‘pure’ artistic or design creativity, but because multimedia demands a certain creativity to manage the constant pressure for product innovation and the increasing requirement to converge design and technological skills and competences. Many of the creative industries represent a classic multi-media ‘convergence’ between the spheres of economic and cultural production, yet within those firms other processes of convergence are under way. Convergence refers to the increasing integration and overlap between new media authoring tools and technologies, that not only lead to innovative products, but also demand that producers acquire a panoply of new skills and repertoires to extract maximum value from these new forms. As convergent media tools and technologies enter the workplace, new demands are placed upon creative firms to integrate technology into their work, as well as manage the use
and users of such technology in the production process. In this process, firms place requirements on individuals to become both more creative and more technology literate. Thus, the traditional separation of the creatives from the ‘techies’ is blurred as the creatives engage with technology, and the techies must consider the aesthetics and usability of their work. In these firms managing creativity becomes essential. Where work is predominantly team based, with complementary skills being harnessed to fulfil project goals, convergence asks new questions of team managers, in terms of how they manage the increased conjunction of production processes, disciplinary paradigms and discrete personal competences. This convergent condition is felt more acutely within small micro firms, where, with only limited resources, the need to exploit creative assets quickly and efficiently is more pronounced. Further, we feel that this convergence raises special concern for those working in defined creative industries’ where forms of workplace organisation differ so markedly from the mainstream (Raffo et al., 2000). If we wish to understand the essence of what makes a creative industry, the CITF definition is problematic in that it only describes what firms make rather than what they do. It is essentially output rather than process driven. It does not shed light on the situated creative process – rather it assumes that creativity is represented by or inherent to the product itself. For the most part, a general understanding of the creative process still remains contested and, for many, somewhat elusive.
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING, CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE CoP has become somewhat of a mantra and panacea in knowledge management circles. Several researchers have attempted to benchmark CoPs as regards characteristics and the appearances.
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Wenger’s various writings on CoP are clearly premised on his views of learning and practice, which he explored previously (Lave and Wenger, 1991). For Wenger, CoP are an informal group sharing knowledge, composed by three critical elements of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repository. Wenger (2004) claims: ‘Knowing is not merely an individual experience, but one of exchanging and contributing to the knowledge of a community. Knowledge from this perspective is what our human communities have accumulated over time to understand the world and act effectively in it’ (1). He goes on to stress the paradox of learning in CoP as: ‘No community can fully manage the learning of another, but no community can fully manage its own learning. This is both a relief and a challenge. It is a relief because the responsibility for managing knowledge is one that can be shared. It is a challenge because it is not easy to create an environment that is conducive to and enabling of practitioners acting as knowledge managers’ (3). Wenger (2004) reaffirms his classical definition of CoP as: ‘The combination of domain, community, and practice is what enables communities of practice to manage knowledge. Domain provides a common focus; community builds relationships that enable collective learning; and practice anchors the learning in what people do. Cultivating communities of practice requires paying attention to all three elements’ (3). Wenger (2004) concludes the paper, which links the principles of CoP to knowledge management:
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‘Unless your organization is engaged in this learning cycle, I would say that it is not really engaged in knowledge management’ (8). Although, CoP theory is useful in getting one so far in analysis, it has clear limitations and it is important to both recognise and appreciate that. There is a sizeable dissident literature which questions the social practice theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Weneger, 1998), that drives the notions of situated practice, knowledge and learning. Greiffenhagen and Sharrock (2008) recognise that with social practice theory, there is correct rejection of simplistic conceptions of rationality but that there is both a dismissive and flawed view of phenomenology. For them, the result is: ‘ …the superiority of social practice theory over both phenomenology and the experience of the subjects’ (Greiffenhagen & Sharrock, 2008, 82) Lynch (1995), stresses that practice is ‘but the latest in a long line of theoretical hopes’. He raises doubts about practice, often presented as novel and radical shifts, as another example of an ‘infectious theoretical trends’ of the academy. He describes the typical problem of the theory of ‘situated practice’ as: ‘ The often-cited ‘heterogeneity’ of situated practices raises immense trouble for any theory that would link such practices to static, schematic conceptions of ideology, discourse or structure lying beneath the apparent surface of action’ (Lynch, 1995, 596). On less philosophical grounds and with regard to organisation studies, Cox (2005) argues that the ambiguities of the term community and practice are both a source of the concepts reusability and its questionable generalized applicability. Cox (2005) argues that there are several sources of CoP, which share some theoretical commonalities
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but also have important differences. Cox (2005) adopts a pluralistic line and stresses: ‘There is increasing recognition that if organizations are to be seen as communities of communities, they contain many different types, not just communities of practice’ (Cox, 2005, 538). Gourlay (1999) cogently argues that it is impossible in the context of organisational studies to distinguish CoP from the informal organisation, a phenomenon that has been studied for many years. For him, in many ways, it is a rediscovery of neglected ideas from the human factors and work group psychology approaches. He also stresses that CoP is used in ambiguous and contradictory ways, which deviates from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) ‘central preoccupation’ with a social theory of learning, Turning to the topic of creativity more theoretically, the links between creativity and entrepreneurship have been long explored, but only relatively recently has creativity become a common component of business and management toolkits. But what is creativity in a management context? Creativity may be related to, but is not the same as innovation – they are analytically distinct. While creativity is more directly concerned with generating ideas, innovation is more concerned with the actions and outputs of ideas (Rickards & Moger, 1999). Whatever the specific definition, the belief that creativity is a positive process with beneficial outcomes is common thread in sociological and management literature. Several theorists have tried to behavioristically pin it down more firmly and explore how it works in a management context (de Bono, 1982). Despite this shift to ‘team’ or ‘organisation’ based studies, creativity is still somewhat individualized. The individualist approach has covered various famous scientists, artists and writers and their discoveries. Related to this rather essentialist search, some theorists have proposed prescriptive handbooks on how
to become creativity and in what ways it can be measured. Put crudely, one of the key questions, is can we learn to be creative? One of the obvious problems here is that individuals might be creative but this does not necessary lead to nor translates into a more collective success. How do these concerns relate to organisational learning, which for many lies at the heart of how organisations become more creative but any transfer process is complex. More companies are now making it a priority to share learning within organisations as a key capacity and capability and cultural orientation. An attached problem is that creativity and learning are related in complex ways to, tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958) which is under-developed conceptually, not least of all, because it is difficult to codify and quantify. Additionally, communities may learn in different ways, and we thus have to develop appropriate learning tools for each community. For many theorists, reflection is the mechanism that transforms tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, not only for the individual but also for the larger organizational community. Elkjaer (2001) presents an interesting case study of a failed learning organization and in so doing argues that the reasons for failure was the way in which learning in the learning organization was understood and enacted. Elkjaer (2001) stresses that few organizations have active situated learning programmes, which is particularly pertinent in project-based learning, where project appraisal processes are either superficial or poorly applied. In many cases, the emphasis is placed on changing individual employees while the organization itself, in terms of managerial structures and work practices, remain the same. Elkjaer (2001) proposes that there is no such thing as a ‘quick pedagogical fix’ to a learning organization but it is, instead, a ‘long and winding road’ to the ‘learning learning organization’.
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ETHNOGRAPHIC DATA
Working Things Out as a Negotiation
What I hope to demonstrate from these snapshot selections of interviews extracts from a broader ethnography of creative multi-media SMEs in Manchester, England, are some interesting themes such as negotiation, collaboration, management, persuasion and competition, to usefully hang the analysis of CoP around. The interview data is taken from a range of participants in a number of organisational roles, with varying levels of experience and expertise. The enterprises the extracts are from would be classified as micro to small business rather than larger medium sized organisations. The typical context of most of the SMEs is that they do not have large training budgets and often require artful compromises around problems. They are actively involved in business and professional networks and communities, although this is often done informally. What I hope to do is suggest and indicate some exploratory themes that might be useful in how we explore situated practice, which is grounded in their everyday lived work routines and realities of the participants.
E: Do what extent do you collaborate with the client?
Learning with the Client
The Management of Creative Teams
E: Do you learn from the client or from colleagues?
E: What do you understand about the good management of creative teams?
R: Definitely both. I will encourage my clients to be creative themselves, I will show them ways of doing that. If you sit with a gang of designers and try to come up with an idea for something it can be quite insular and we all have a certain approach to things and we might miss out on something quite good. It’s really about a adding value to a process, whatever it happens to be and that can come from colleagues or the customer (young male trainee web designer, new company, one year old)
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R: I mean it’s got to be in collaboration because you’re actually looking at what the problem is or what their requirement is and looking at ways to provide, you know, a way of delivering a solution. So you can’t do that in isolation, it is in a partnership long term basis and I think we have to be choosy about who we work with, otherwise it becomes a very short term relationship. So, it is about a relationship and in many cases it’s a long and ongoing relationship. E: Is it important for the client to be closely involved? R: If clients feel that ‘that was my idea’ they’ll feel some sense of ownership and you’d be surprised at what they can do. I mean, you can’t own knowledge in teams, you must want to share it and learn from each other (female junior programmer, small company established three years)
R: Good management is about working things out. In our team nobody is precious about knowledge, everybody will help. I mean what ‘organised looseness’ can we have in the organisation that accommodates different variables in personality types and people’s way of working. I think it is important that creative people are encouraged to play to their strengths. I mean you can’t force a blues player to produce classical music. There is a balance. I am always trying to give different projects to people to give them variety but you have to manage it.
Creativity in Action
E: Does the manager have to be a creative to identify with them? R: The manager of the team doesn’t need to be creative as long as they can enable it. They say managing creatives is like herding cats but it’s more like a play really, you know all these lovelies and they do all these odd things like having hysterics behind the scenes but when they walk in on cue they have got to deliver the lines and most of the times they do. E: How important is an empowered environment? R: You need to work in a place which doesn’t suppress ideas and suggestions and encourages people to come up with things. If somebody finds a better way of doing things then it’s not celebrated with a brass band and a case of champagne, but it’s recognised by simply saying ‘that’s a good idea, let’s try it’. I think the other side of the coin, is, if anything goes wrong, it’s a question of finding someone to blame. Organisations that are not prepared to give people the opportunity to make mistakes are not going to grow the right people. Ideas develop because they are allowed to evolve. Creativity is not something that necessarily happens in the right side of the brain, it’s something that happens within an environment. (male, experienced graphic designer/team leader, medium sized company established six years).
The Politics of Persuasion E: Do you have to persuade the client in certain ways? R: In some ways, you have to persuade clients about solutions. If someone at a senior level takes it up then it can happen but a lot of new ideas are not supported and lost. Sometimes it’s about finding people with a similar outlook on life, people who want to find something new and interesting and challenging and
hopefully someone who has a budget. Some clients may have some fantastic ideas of what they think can be done and have to be brought down to the real world given the fact they haven’t got Disney like budgets. Part of the creative process is about developing a product that does the job but at the same time does not bankrupt you. I have to sell the creative product, but clients don’t necessarily know what creative is. They know it afterwards. When they first see it they think, ‘Oh God, we don’t want that, what we want is something like this’, because that’s their reference, the whole process is managing the customer to accept the creativity as worth it. You can’t be too creative. You must understand and analysis the target group, more asking not telling. So creativity is always keeping in mind what the problem is for them, not just producing pure creative ideas. (male, senior designer, small company, established for ten years)
Communities as Competition E: What are the realities of small business life. Are you part of a wider community? R: The problem for smaller companies is that collaboration can become competition. I know that the best way of building a thing up is through networking but it is one of these necessary evils. I mean you don’t want to give the game away with the competition, I mean you are still trying to get the order instead of a rival at the end of the day no matter what the bigger community is like. I mean I want to develop my team as creatives but, at the end of the day, money pays the bills not ideas (male, experienced creative director in a larger company, established for eight years).
AN ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL GAZE The data I have explored is neither extensive nor longitudinal and only presents reflections on
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snapshots of particular instances of organisational life. However, it is a preliminary basis for further inquiry. What can we then make of these ethnographic comments and reflections on learning, business realities and communities of practice? Clearly, this is dependent on what position you take on such data and what intellectual gaze you apply. I wish to apply ethnomethodology, other may wish to apply a different gaze. Ethnomethodology can usefully inform us about the co-ordination of accountable action and discernable division of work labour. As displayed in Button and Sharrock’s (1998) study of technology producers, the creative teams co-ordinate their work partly by effort bargain and partly by who is expected to do the work and in what time frame. Such actions and the consequences of not doing them in time is organisationally accountable. That is not say that people do not collectively ‘pitch in’ when necessary but that the production of a product is premised on a task structure. Ethnomethodology has consistently identified and emphasised the detailed explication of the ordinary, practical ways in which people go about doing the things that they construe as relevant, important or necessary in the technological context which they inhabit and produce. Ethnomethodology provides one way of orienting to the phenomena or work and organisational life. It provides a distinctive analytic sensibilities and commitments. I recognise, of course, that work and organisations can be analysed and theorised in sociology in a variety of ways and from different traditions, some which are more prominent than others. Harold Garfinkel (2002), the founder of ethnomethodology, proposed a programme of inquiry into the nature of social activities, to be built around the leading idea that the orderliness of activities is achieved ‘from within’. Hence, ethnomethodology is a programme of empirical studies about a series of work settings and sites. An ethnomethodological ‘study of work’, therefore, commonly requires intensive immersion in the setting being studied,
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leading to close familiarity with the topic studied. At the very least the ethnomethodologist will seek to acquire ‘vulgar competence’ in the field of practice, while in some cases, it has involved researchers becoming competent practitioners in technical fields in their own right. What is addressed here is the question of how organisational rules are interpreted and used in practice, within a specific work setting in a work setting. Harper et al (2000) apply this type of analysis and document the ways that bank cashiers find flexible ways of dealing with customer and queries. Anderson et al (1989) studied the everyday organization of an entrepreneurial small catering company. In recent years, much ethnomethodological work has centred on the organisational uses of technology, and ethnomethodologists have played a major role in the emergence of the new research field called Computer Supported Co-operative work (CSCW). Such work focuses upon the knowledge and competences involved in working with technology and explore how control and communication systems are realised interactionally and collaboratively. In other words, the knowledge required to operate technological systems effectively is rarely lodged in any single individual, but consists of a social order of knowledge-in-action. Ehnomethodological studies, then, in a way, seek to reveal the ‘missing whatness’ of work, the taken for granted knowledge about work. Put another way, it is a recovery of work practices (Luff et al., 2000). The interview extracts, which reflect on practice and routines typically involves the participants orienting towards creativity as a routine accomplishments, practical achievement and interactional practices rather than any mystical or essentialist matters. Hence, ‘doing creativity’ becomes part of a range of task troubles including meeting targets, fulfilling tasks, completing paperwork, attending meetings, hitting deadlines, making decisions, orienting towards hierarchy, working out a division and labour, placating managers, satisfying clients, following procedures, instructing assistants,
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collaborating with colleagues, working with and through technology, flexibly finding solutions and bending the rules. What creativity becomes then are a ‘locally produced orders of work things’ and a series of routine and mundane practical decisions to be made, within a designated work flow and task structure, which is often flexible and reciprocal. Namely, a sort of ‘who does what’ and ‘in what timescale’ calculus. Such calculus is morally mediated by perceptions of effort bargains and expert knowledge’s in the workplace. The interview extracts suggest, in some ways, that the creative process is a mundane and routine matter, which is worked out in the doing, with colleagues and customers, in and through talk and action. This talk and action does represent a repiotre of shared methods, aesthetics, practices, language and background knowledge’s. These workings out of design briefs, customer requirements, making deadlines, meetings costs, doing pitches are artful practices. The work is profoundly methodical with workflows, in that it is carried out according to known and shared patterns of timing, activity, practices and resources. Working the process out does not suggest that it is a chaotic and relativistic process but it relies on standard expectation and typifications between the company and the customer. Accordingly, managing these SMEs involves ad hoc decision-making and tailored problem solving, whereby the information available to managers for executive decision making often was loose and anecdotal rather than precise and reliable. Accounting then became much more about mundane reasoning, including bits of ‘occasioned guestimation’, rather than necessarily formal reasoning. Judgements about realistic timescales and contingency budgets relied on previous experience and knowledge of likely outcomes and scenarios. This analysis of ‘working economics’ stands in pointed contrast to the formal and rationalist theorising on decision making, planning and forecasting. What SMEs are often typically faced with is being asked to improvise solutions, strategies and
competencies in response to a changing customer’s demands, requirements and wants. Particularly, in the SME context, high levels of trust between customers and companies are evident, considering the order could be taken elsewhere and much business is based on return trade and word of mouth. The SMEs relate to communities of practice in a complex and myriad way, which is mediated by trust and competitive advantage. When we look closely at the organisational settings of the SMEs in our project, it becomes clear that rules and procedures play an important part in organizational work, but not in a determinate sense. Thus, it becomes a matter for participants of what is reasonable and appropriate in a given setting in the light of perceivably relevant circumstances and constraints. Thus, for example, co-ordinated work flows and rhythms are often part of a temporal order, where activities are completed within certain time frames, resource considerations and practical contingencies. Hence, organisational researchers can gain rich understanding from the examination of actual situated practices rather than approximations, abstractions or generalizations about them. The position I take here is counter to the pervasive ‘black box paradigm’ (Martin et al, 2009) which entails heroic ‘eureka’ moments (e.g. in major scientific discoveries) or as a solitary, perhaps cognitive, pursuit (e.g. music composition). Rather, creativity is an artful collaborative achievement. There are still relatively few studies of creativity, if you will, ‘in the wild’ (Martin et al, 2009) as opposed to more reflective approaches or, more commonly, the vast literature that seeks to produce taxonomic models and metrics for creativity.
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS In many ways, Wenger continues in a long tradition linking back to the classical sociologist Max Weber’s seminal analysis of the duality of
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formal and informal aspects of organisational life. Wenger admits that although the term CoP is of ‘relatively recent coinage’, the phenomenon is refers to is ‘age old’. For him, the concept has ‘turned out to provide a useful perspective on knowing and learning’. Where the innovation lies is in its vigorous application to a wide range of professional communities. Thus, how and in what do members of a community learn and display their ‘shared repertoire’ of practice, professional aesthetics, habits, story telling and sensibilities is interesting and CoP is robust in unpacking that. The philosophical move around CoP that needs to be made is the separation of the analytical and the moral. Thus, put simply, CoP can be usefully applied to analyse practices but less useful in analysing community as the latter term is tied up with moral assumptions. The analysis offered is a snapshot of a community of practice in operation. Learning does not automatically occur once participants came together as a team. Nor could we assume that everyone in a learning community contributes equally to the learning process. Thus, learning is profoundly a situated and negotiated process. Trust and credibility is a vital issue in sharing, which lies at the heart of collective learning. Namely, we discern between best and bad practices and layers of information around use, reputation and credibility. Therefore, not all practices are counted, shared and assigned the same amount of status and consequence. What CoP provides is a cluster of dynamic concepts, that need to be unpacked, distilled and fleshed out. The importance of CoPs is clear. My call, is for more detailed and in depth probing into the collective learning experiences of different communities of practice. CoP can be a useful concept for analyses in terms of understanding how participants orient towards their sense of professional sensibilities, obligations and loyalties and how they communicate, share and define what they do. Thus, an actors sense of self and occupational worth is intimately bound up with how good a professional job they have done
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as a creative. However, the CoP concept needs to be further unpacked and distilled as regards adequately capturing the lived business realities participants face where social learning is driven by a pragmatic and commercial imperative and logic rather than a pedagogic or collegial one. What I am appealing to here, drawing on ethnomethodology, is a situated and negotiated notion of creative practice, which is grounded in the everyday activities of participants. It is a creativity that is collaborative and negotiated in character, which can involve disputes and does not always result in successful solutions. In order to better understand, and in some cases support, situated learning it is best to move away from this ‘fetishisation of product’ and to concentrate more on communality and interrelationship of process within organisational contexts. Moreover, often, what we have in SMEs is project-based learning, due to the nature of the routine work that they do and the resource realities that they face. Put simply, they often do not have resources to throw at organisational learning, less so a training department. More realistically, learning is, if you will, in service and effectively ‘on the job’ where painful lessons have to be learnt and embedded for business survival. Creative multi-media industries are commonly seen as central to the knowledge economy. Further, it is apparent that many European agencies, are encouraging SMEs to accept the benefits of adopting a ‘lifelong learning’ philosophy and to participate in the creation of new creative partnerships and learning networks. The EEC (Economic European Commission) has announced plans for making 2009 the year of creativity. The fear, due to their business realities, is the focus of SMEs, despite support and enthusiasm, might be on shorter-term performance that longer term learning. An important aspect to bear in mind is that just labelling a job creative can be cynically done to attract workers to mundane jobs with little autonomy, who are then exploited in individualised ways despite the illusion of freedom. Hence, there is a self-conscious drive for creativity but it has
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elements of a more widespread demoralization of the creative industries. To what extent there is a demoralization has to be worked out and grounded in a more sophisticated analysis of identity at work with a larger sample of companies. Banks (2006) argues, based on a study of cultural entrepreneurs in Manchester,that we need to reject the simplistic dualism that the culturalized economy can only be either ‘emancipatory or enslaving’. It is not a simple either or choice but often a complex web of issues to be analysed. Thus, creative work can be both inspiring and repetitive, it depends on the context. Banks (2006) sensibly suggests: ‘ …further unpacking of the heterogeneity of motives and actions that underpin economic activity may now be essential in helping to develop more progressive workplace futures’ (467-468). As stated previously, there are gaps in the literature in understanding the business realities of SMEs with much of the conventional theories on organisational learning based on corporate settings. For my case study, although there are commitments to life long learning, the everyday character is very much ‘on the job’ and ‘just in time’. The interesting contradiction is that knowledge sharing, which some communities of practice are premised on, is strongly mediated by competitive advantage and, put simply, ‘getting the order’ and ‘keeping the client’. Hence, there can be, if you will, a community of professional practice wherein the obligation is to a particular creative discipline or field but this is mediated by competition and rivalry. The SMEs sampled in the research were characteristically project-based and they confront difficulties that are not commonly encountered by non-project organisations. Unlike corporate organisations, who can also be project based, the SMEs typically work on project that have short life-cycles on bespoke tailored projects, with tight budgets and time constraints. It is generally rare for project lessons to be reviewed during the progress
of the project; there is too often inadequate review of the project upon completion; and only infrequently are attempts made to utilise such insights elsewhere. These difficulties are exacerbated by problems of measuring the performance in projects and definitions of success vary between participants and over time. Clearly, more work needs to be done on adequately working out the diversity within professional CoPs (Stoll & Louis, 2007). Whether individual or group in emphasis, there is a creativity paradigm, which is cognitively driven within management and business contexts and is thus de-politicised in most ways. Although there are success stories that testify to the effectiveness of these single approaches in making organisations more creative, in wider reality, managing creativity is a complex problem and somewhat messy business. By concentrating on particular real life episodes, projects and initiatives, as they develop and unfold in negotiated ways, we hope to shed light on the different dimensions and components of management creativity. Even if you can identify key components and strategies of management creativity, there is no guarantee that you can successfully transfer our recommendations from one firm to another as SME learning strategies are diverse and often idiosyncratic. The majority of espoused theory in this field is based on application of learning concepts in larger corporate firms - moreover, there is very limited empirical research that supports the fundamental assumption that organisational learning always contributes towards enhanced performance. Given the apparent failure of creative consultancy schemes or training programmes to assist small firms (Raffo et al., 2000), there is a need for a fresh approach, which is more sensitive to their learning needs. Our knowledge of how, rather than why, multimedia SMEs engage with creativity, and mobilise it in management and learning contexts, remains embryonic. Namely, the analysis of ‘creativity in action’, as firms work to accommodate demands and limited resources for convergence and
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change. In terms of wider intervention and policy, a careful dialogue between SMEs, particularly micro enterprises, and support agencies needs to be maintained, otherwise they shall find it extremely difficult too survive, never mind prosper, particularly in monopolized global marketplaces. I suggest that, a more nuanced understanding of the role of CoPs within and across multimedia firms may enable more strategic interventions to be made that support or even stimulate growth in this strategic, yet fragile economy. Ultimately, CoP is a rich metaphor and useful tool of organisational analysis. It has become a popular concept, which is variously used and abused, across a range of disciplines. For me, more descriptive detail of situated practices and lived experiences in various communities of practice and work settings are called for and not more taxonomic theories of CoP, which codify and quantify. We must be careful that CoP does not become a blunt, lumpen and clumsy tool of analysis with regard to complex and slippery topics like creativity, practice, knowledge and learning. Community is a very contested and value-laden term that can easily lead to conceptual ‘category mistakes’. The cautionary reflections on analysis by Garfinkel (2006) in the introduction to his recent book, seem very apt: ‘The attempt to approximate some sort of precision in the study of human conduct is not unlike the task of swatting flies with a hammer’ (Garfinkel, 2006, 99).
REFERENCES Anderson, R. J., Hughes, J. A., & Sharrock, W. W. (1989). Working for Profit: The Social Organization of Calculation in an Entrepreneurial Firm. Aldershot: Avebury. Banks, M. (2006). Moral Economy and Cultural Work. Sociology, 40(3), 455–472. doi:10.1177/0038038506063669 394
Banks, M., Calvey, D., Owen, J., & Russell, D. (2002). Where the art is: Defining and Managing Creativity in New Media SME’s. Creativity and Innovation Management, 11(4), 255–265. doi:10.1111/1467-8691.00257 Button, G., & Sharrock, W. (1998). The Organizational Accountability of Technological Work. Social Studies of Science, 28(1), 73–102. doi:10.1177/030631298028001003 Cox, A. (2005). What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works. Journal of Information Science, 31(6), 527–540. doi:10.1177/0165551505057016 de Bono, E. (1982). Lateral Thinking for Management. Harmondsworth: Pelican. Department of Culture. Media and Sport (1998). Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: DCMS. Elkjaer, B. (2001). The Learning Organization: an undelivered promise. Management Learning, 32(4), 437–452. doi:10.1177/1350507601324002 Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s progam: working out Durkheim’s aphoris. (Edited and introduced by Ann Rawls). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Garfinkel, H. (2005). Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Gourlay, S. N. (1999). Communities of Practice: A new concept for the millennium or the rediscovery of the wheel. In Easterby-Smith, M., Araujo, L., & Burgoyne, J., (Eds.), Organizational Learning. 3rd International Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 479-495). Lancaster University. Greiffenhagen, C., & Sharrock, W. (2008). Where do the limits of experience lie? Abondoning the dualism of objectivity and subjectivity. History of the Human Sciences, 21(3), 70–93. doi:10.1177/0952695108093954
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Harper, R., Randall, D., & Rouncefield, M. (2000). Organisational Change and Retail Finance: An Ethnographic Perspective. London: Routledge.
Stoll, L., & Louis, K. S. (2007). Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Depth and Dilemmas. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luff, P., Hindmarsh, J., & Heath, C. (2000). Workplace Studies: Recovering Work Practice and Informing System Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511628122
Wenger, E. (2004). Knowledge management as a doughnut: shaping your knowledge strategy with communities of practice. Ivey Business Journal. January/February.
Lynch, M. (1995). The Idylls of the Academy. Social Studies of Science, 25(3), 582–600. doi:10.1177/030631295025003008 Martin, D., O’ Neill, J., & Randall, D. (2009). Talking about (my) generation: creativity, practice technology and talk. In Proceedings of ECSCW, Vienna, Austria, Springer Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Raffo, C., Lovatt, A., Banks, M., & O’Connor, J. (2000). Teaching and learning entrepreneurship for micro and small cultural businesses in the cultural industries sector. Education + Training, 42(6), 356–365. doi:10.1108/00400910010353653 Rickards, T., & Moger, S. (1999). Handbook for Creative Team Leaders. London: Gower. Russell, D., Calvey, D., & Banks, M. (2003). Creating new learning communities: towards effective e-learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15(1), 34–45. doi:10.1108/13665620310458802 Russell, D., Calvey, D., & Banks, M. (2004). How e-learning businesses meet client and end user needs: Analysing the collaborative contexts. In Ottewill, R. (Eds.), EDINEB VIII: Educational Innovation in Economics and Business. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ethnomethodology: A school of sociology, founded by the American theorist Harold Garfinkel, which attempts to analysis social life in a non-corrective and descriptive manner. Ethnography: A qualitative orientation to undertaking field research, popular in the social sciences Creativity: A form of tacit knowledge and organisational process associated with innovation and novelty Community of Practice (CoP): A concept initiated by Wenger and colleagues to analyse social learning. Organisational Learning: The context where situated learning takes place, involving certain knowledge transfers Small Medium Sized Enterprises (SME): An organisational type, which ranges between single figures (micro) and up to a maximum of 250 staff employed. Multi-Media: A convergence of artistic and technical skills, competencies and technologies. It refers to both a process and product and is often associated with computer design fields.
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Chapter 22
A CoP for Research Activities in Universities Willi Bernhard Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Marco Bettoni Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Gabriele Schiller Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
ABSTRACT This chapter investigates how to manage research knowledge and perform research activities in universities of applied sciences by means of CoP. In this investigation we use as an application case CoRe (community of research), the CoP of all researchers of the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences. We will explain how we faced the challenge of answering the question of how to improve overall performance in all research activities of our university, and then illustrate our findings by telling the story of how we have been answering it by means of a new kind of knowledge network called CoRe. We will explain the tools we have been developing in order to address the needs of such a CoP and finally reflect on lessons learned while establishing a CoP in a research environment.
INTRODUCTION The Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences is organized in a radically decentralized way. This structure is consistent with its mission but on the other side it creates some challenging situations, for example an insufficient level of interactions between geographically distributed DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch022
university members (academic staff, students), research activities too much isolated in the departments, human resources dispersed and limited knowledge flow. How to meet the challenge of improving research performances under conditions like these? Our approach consisted in a collaborative knowledge strategy: to create and cultivate CoRe, an intra-organizational knowledge network of researchers (academic staff, students) organized as a
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CoP connecting its members around the common task of stewarding research knowledge.
BACKGROUND AND MAIN FOCUS In this chapter we will provide an in-depth view of our application case CoRe: we will show how we are designing, implementing and cultivating the CoRe knowledge network and will describe the tools we developed in order to face this task. To this end - after introducing the background of the CoRe project as well as our approach to knowledge cooperation - we will reflect on the development process and focus on the evolution of the network requirements on the example of a specific community instrument: our Yellow Tool. Considerations regarding views of others that support our position are distributed over the related parts of the chapter.
THE COMMUNITY OF RESEARCH: CORE As previously mentioned, the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences is organized in a radically decentralized way combined with traditional hierarchical structures and functional divisions. This has led to an insufficient level of interactions between geographically distributed university members (academic staff, students) so that weak ties have become the norm. For research work one major consequence was that research activities were too much isolated in the departments, human resources were dispersed and research knowledge did not flow enough. Projects were small and less recognized, know how got easily lost and research tools’ development was too slow. Our approach for improving research performances under conditions of weak ties like these consisted in a collaborative knowledge strategy: to create and cultivate CoRe, an intraorganizational knowledge network of researchers
(academic staff, students) organized as a community of practice connecting its members around the common task of stewarding research knowledge with a community-oriented approach. The business strategy for research activities that had been given to us by the top management of the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences - and that we wanted to implement by means of the CoRe network - had two main strategic purposes: (1) acquiring and realizing major research projects; (2) integrating teaching and research (Bernhard & Bettoni, 2007). Other universities approach the first task by hiring a large number of professional researchers and by putting them together in conventional institutes composed by one or more teams; for the second task the mainstream approach is to simply organize teaching and research activities within one department under the responsibility of one or more professors with remarkable research experience. In our case the situation was different: we did not have the financial resources for hiring a fixed staff of many researchers and we did not have heads of departments with research experience. What we had was research experience distributed over different professors, limited internal research resources within our staff and a large amount of potential external research resources distributed over a wide network of connections. Given this situation and the mentioned obstacles we found a solution in the new concept of CoRe as a network that connects researchers from two groups: (a) from the internal staff and (b) from the external connections. The new and most challenging aspect of our concept was the way in which we designed the connection between these network members: in fact our idea – based on our constructivist view of knowledge (von Glasersfeld, 1995) - was to connect them around the common task of stewarding their research knowledge in a participative way (Bettoni, 2005).
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Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge-Networking Each human being has this innate desire to exchange and develop its knowledge and ideas with others. This principle is valid also for the educational sector. But because of today’s decentralization of enterprises and competences new ways are needed in order to cultivate, and use this knowledge. Knowledge Cooperation (Bettoni, Andenmatten & Mathieu 2007) is a new method, which helps to foster participative cultivation of knowledge. Here, in contrast to the classical approach of knowledge management, the intellectual and the social capital of human beings get considered as a cross-coupled system and supported accordingly. Social software tools, like blogs and wikis serve as development tools for this new knowledge culture. Based on the complexity and dynamic of markets and technologies, decentralization of company structures and therefore the decentralization of competences become a stronger trend. This of course has an impact on the priorities of knowledge management as well in theory as in practice. While till now the technical realization of knowledge management tools was the prevailing standard, the objective now and in the near future should be primarily in embedding knowledge management in decentralized, dispersed organizations and using the possibilities, which are arising through new socio-centered and open ways of dealing with knowledge. How can these typical tasks of knowledge management be realized in a decentralized structure that is characterized by weak ties (Granovetter 1982)? How to pass on individual competences, to generalize single solutions to problems, to develop consensual opinions, to make the dispersion of competences transparent and to integrate these dispersed competences? After all, even the Swiss educational system as a whole can be looked at, as a distributed organization in itself, with strong and weak ties between the involved parties.
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The solution is called “Knowledge Cooperation” (Bettoni et al. 2006, Bettoni & Borter, 2007, Bettoni M., Andenmatten S., Mathieu R., 2007). In contrast to the idea of knowledge management, the new approach of knowledge cooperation deals in equal parts with intellectual capital and with social capital. It functions thanks to the interdependency of the three knowledge processes “cultivation”, “utilization” and “socializing” of knowledge. Knowledge cooperation describes the process of “participative cultivation of knowledge in a voluntarily, informal social group” (Bettoni 2005). In this model the classical knowledge management constitutes only part of the process, which only through the socialization process of knowledge cooperation develops to its full extent. The nowadays often mentioned social software tools serve as tools of knowledge cooperation. One very important element of this shift in thinking might be the conclusion that knowledge is not an object, nor a thing, which can be managed like other economic resources. Knowledge demands organic approaches, which consider its peculiarity. One possible approach to cultivate knowledge is given by the actual trend in knowledge management through social software, also known as Web 2.0 (Bendel 2006; Schütt 2005; O’Reilly, 2006). Social software, seen as a tool of knowledge management, offers with its blogs, wikis and other tools, the possibility to exchange knowledge in an organic, spontaneous, open way and without any delays. With the help of these tools contributions i.e. about the actual situation, new developments and projects can be quickly created and commented. Interaction is supported through this process, and networking on certain domains of knowledge and interest can develop and flourish easier. The newest trend in knowledge and learning theory moves from instructional design towards constructivism (von Glasersfeld, 1995), which anchors the concept of knowledge more than ever in the human being (individually and socially). The essence and uniqueness of knowledge is based
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according to Wenger et. al. (2002, pp. 8-10) on four central points:
human existence (Fromm, 1976): the one of having and the one of being.
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Using the Theory of Etienne Wenger
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Knowledge lives in the human act of knowing Knowledge is tacit as well as explicit Knowledge is social as well as individual Knowledge is dynamic.
Accordingly knowledge can’t be reduced to an object, but has to be considered as a “human factor”. This approach to knowledge as a human factor and not a merely economic factor is consistent with the findings of constructivism, according to which knowledge can be characterized by four main features: • • • •
Autopoietic (doing creates being), Constructive (the How determines the What), Inseparable (tacit knowledge constitutes identity) and Objective (the logic of experience validates experience).
As a consequence one insight is today of huge importance for knowledge management: that based on these characteristics tacit knowledge must not be separated from and dispossessed to the individual or group, which are creating and cultivating it. Why must the knowledge owner of tacit knowledge not be dispossessed? Because whereas explicit knowledge is something we “have”, tacit knowledge is something we “are” and which therefore constitutes our identity. Dispossessing knowledge is then the same as negating the individual who owned it. Knowledge processes therefore cannot be cultivated in the same way as working or performing processes. The insight into the difference between the mode of having and being in regard to knowledge shows this very clearly. In knowledge management we are facing a similar dilemma as in life dealing with both basic attitudes towards
Based on the results of ethnographical studies Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (Lave & Wenger, 1991) had analyzed the trajectories of social learning processes in Communities of Practice (CoP), which allow a novice to become a master. They found out that newcomers to a CoP in most cases learn in an informal and social way through the communication with masters (experts) in contrast to the normal pupil and student, where the learning process has a formal and cognitive connotation and often proceeds in an abstract and loose way in regard to the context. Newcomers learn in an informal way through a learning process which is tightly related to specific, practice oriented situations. This learning process is based on participation in the practice (or practices) of a community, in which novices are involved as legitimate participants and betake themselves to a learning path which begins with peripheral practices, and then step by step leads to more demanding tasks, to growing competence, to more engagement, to more identification with the community, and thus to the centre of the given practice. Lave and Wenger called this concept, which says that the learner learns most through the legitimate, peripheral participation in a CoP “legitimate peripheral participation”, and it constitutes the bases of their social theory of learning (Lave & Wenger 1991, p. 29). “Learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process that we call legitimate peripheral participation. By this we mean to draw attention to the point that learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and that mastery of knowledge and skills requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the socio-cultural practices of a community. Legitimate peripheral participation
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concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice.” Our experience in research has led us to the assumption that this organization and learning model of communities of practice due to its foundation in the concept of «legitimate peripheral participation» provides big chances for the realization of an intensive knowledge flow between teaching and research, and for the cultural change from bureaucracy (see Bologna reform) towards an open and cooperative educational culture. As the core element of a community oriented strategy for the integration of teaching and research we therefore envision a community of practice •
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which functions as an informal organizational structure (knowledge network instead of hierarchy) which is open to teachers, students, alumni and external guests in which members participate voluntarily and without being subjects to directives in which members share the interest in teaching and research (in one specific topic) in which members share the task of cultivating teaching and research knowledge (knowledge stewarding) in which members apply the results of their interactions in further teaching and research activities
THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF CORE Viewed as a social structure CoRe is constituted by seven basic elements, seven interaction and cooperation areas which correspond to aspects of community life. The individual elements are: (1) Community, (2) Practice, (3) Domain, (4)
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Leadership, (5) Individual, (6) Connections and (7) Resource Development. This concept is based on Etienne Wenger’s social theory of learning and on his international online workshop “Foundations of Communities of Practice”. Since CoRe is a distributed community, interactions among its members are supported by an online collaboration platform on MOODLE called “CoRe Square”, a virtual space for meeting and stewarding research knowledge (Bettoni, Andenmatten & Mathieu 2006). The CoRe Square platform is designed as a “community cooperation space” for research tasks: for each aspect of community life in CoRe there is a corresponding cooperation area in CoRe Square collecting a specific set of resources that support and facilitate the activities in that area. The first three of these elements – community, practice and domain - combined together constitute the necessary central framework of the structure: it is here where the main part of CoRe activities takes place and it is this triad of areas that needs to be cultivated first. The next three elements – leadership, individual and connections - are important and useful extensions with a lower intensity of activities so that their development can be delayed to later stages. They build the peripheral framework of CoRe, like an interface to the outside or a membrane that regulates what enters and exits the central part of CoRe. Finally the seventh area is where members of the community interact and cooperate for supporting the structural and functional needs of CoRe by developing the resources needed by the previous six structural elements. These elements and their combination distinguish CoRe from other types of social structures; they also provide a practical model to guide community development by clarifying the definition of “community of research” in terms of a structural model and by indicating the various areas on which the development and evaluation process will have to be focused.
A CoP for Research Activities in Universities
Figure 1. Structural model of CoRe
The Central Framework of CoRe The main part of community life in CoRe is organized in three types of interactions which are also three distinct areas of cooperation for stewarding research knowledge: Community, Practice and Domain. These aspects of community life constitute the central framework of CoRe viewed as a social structure. Community is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which members gather to build connections as an incipient or mature community, share announcements and professional profiles and reflect on their experience as a community. The main characteristic of a Community of Research is that it is a community. Thus CoRe needs to cultivate interactions that embody this being a community, needs to support its members in exploring who is who, who knows what and how they function together. It is here where community members build their first connections as CoRe members and begin to coalesce into a community. In the early stages of development the three primary activities that helped to build a solid foundation for the community element of CoRe were: (a) launching the community, (b) knowing who is who and (c) reflecting on the case for participation. Practice is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which members engage in joint activities to solve problems or to build shared knowledge in their domain by telling stories, discussing their own cases and conducting
projects. Accordingly in this area of CoRe members focus on three types of activities commonly used by communities: storytelling, case-based problem solving, and collaborative tasks toward an outcome (projects). Stories are experiences told or recounted in the form of a happening or connected series of happenings that happened to the storyteller. Finally Projects are collaborative activities that members can initiate or join. These projects are more than exploration and discussion of research issues because they have set outcomes and end-products. Each project should have personal meaning for the member proposing it and should reflect her own research goals but it should also comply with the FFHS research strategy. In the early stages of development the three primary activities that helped to shape the practice element of CoRe were: (a) projects, (b) conferences and (c) publications. Domain is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which members discuss current topics and share best practices and lessons learned from past research practice. A community of practice is brought and held together by a joint interest in a domain of knowledge, such as designing a product or carrying out a social or organizational function. This domain is a matter of personal passion to all participants and all want to pursue a joint inquiry into it. They also agree to preserve lessons learned and best practices for use in later inquiries and projects. The domain of CoRe is Research at FFHS and interactions in this area are dedicated to discussing and negotiating
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together research strategy, research methods, research programs etc. and preserving the results of these discussions and the research know-how that comes from applying discussion outcomes in projects. In the early stages of development the three primary activities that contributed to develop the domain element of CoRe were: (a) research strategy, (b) research programs (funding sources) and (c) research methods.
The Peripheral Framework of CoRe Around the central part of CoRe community life is organized in three types of interactions which in a sense, like a cell membrane, regulate what enters and exits the center: Leadership, Individual and Connections. A fourth peripheral component finally is constituted by the collection of activities devoted to supporting all the other six elements. Leadership is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which members sign up for and discuss about tasks related to community leadership understood as engagement for the community. This kind of internal leadership is crucial for regulating and activating the life of communities of practice: it is about people who take the initiative to engage in community-building tasks or set out to extend a community’s practice. This leadership can take multiple forms, for instance: coordinating the work of building or collecting important insights and questions from various conversations, etc. Individual is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which members steward their individual knowledge, keep a journal, visit each other to start conversations on the side and build personal relationships. Why did we include this individual element in the CoRe structure? Because in our approach we focus on knowledge in its two fundamental dimensions: individual and social. Accordingly, our community life has to distinguish and organize these two important aspects: individual and public (social) life.
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Connections is that aspect of life in CoRe that collects interactions in which our Community of Research interacts with visitors, hosts guest speakers and takes fieldtrips to other communities or websites. These interactions broaden up the scope of inquiry in CoRe and connect its members with a wider circle of people than the community itself. Remaining open to the world through connections with other people and other communities that deal with related domains is key to keeping in touch with the newest trends and with opportunities for development. Resources Development, last but not least, is the seventh aspect of community life in CoRe that needs to be organized. It is here where the core team of CoRe meets and works for developing resources like: Yellow Pages, a Knowledge Map of the member’s profiles, a tutorial for newcomers, help pages (on starting new discussions, on extending existing documents, on working with wikis, on using synchronous communication technologies), guidelines for project spaces, frequently asked questions about CoRe, etc. In the early stages of development the three primary activities that helped to build a solid foundation for the development element of CoRe were: (a) building the core team, (b) performing a competence analysis and (c) conceiving a research incentives program.
The Online-Platform of CoRe Since CoRe, as mentioned above, is a distributed community, its members cannot rely only on face-to-face interactions or meetings for working together in research projects, stewarding their research knowledge and building relationships. For supporting and facilitating interactions among distributed CoRe members we have developed CoRe Square, an online collaboration platform on MOODLE. In this section, after introducing our technology requirements and our approach to selecting a suitable software tool, we will shortly sketch the main elements of our implementation.
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The Platform Technology Our first approach for selecting a technology for the CoRe Square platform was to start evaluating only the two open-source web platforms already in use by our lecturers: a phone-based intranet and a MOODLE e-learning platform (Williams, 2005). The reasons for this very solution-oriented, highly focused approach are summarized in the following requirements for supporting community life and development (see also Agostini, Albolino, De Paoli, Grasso et al., 2005): • • • •
Lowering the cost of participation in the system (while performing daily work) Promoting occasions for informal knowledge exchange Increasing the visibility of community activities and of personal contributions Support getting started with research activities (organizational learning)
We decided to work on the well known MOODLE platform that lecturers use for teaching. First of all MOODLE would allow to have our research cooperation space easily integrated with the teaching space (same login, same tools, same conceptual background in constructivism). Since lecturers do their teaching on MOODLE, having the research space also in the same platform would support the nexus between teaching and research both for academic staff and for students.
The Platform Design In order to contribute to the creation and cultivation of CoRe, the CoRe Square platform is designed as a “community cooperation space” for research tasks. For each aspect of community life in CoRe there is in CoRe Square a corresponding cooperation area collecting a specific set of resources that support and facilitate the activities in that area.
The central framework of CoRe is supported in CoRe Square by the following three cooperation areas: •
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Community Circle: in this area members gather as an incipient community, share announcements, and reflect on their experience. Currently the three primary resources of the Community Circle are “Annual Conference”, “Yellow Tool” and “Reflection on CoRe”. Practice Lab: in this area members cooperate in different kinds of problem solving activities by working on projects (from conception to delivery of results). Accordingly, the three primary resources of the Practice Lab are: Projects, Conferences and Publications Domain Club: in this area members discuss the hot topics of “Research at FFHS”, the knowledge domain of CoRe, share related best practices and collect lessons learned from past research experiences. Currently the three primary resources of the Domain Club are “Research Strategy”, Research Programs (Grants)” and “Research Methods”.
Around this center, CoRe’s peripheral framework is supported in CoRe Square by the following three cooperation areas whose resources, in the current stage are only sketched and waiting to be fully implemented: •
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Leadership Lounge: in this area members can sign up for tasks related to community leadership and discuss about how to organize and perform them. Connections Room: in this area members can welcome guest researchers or visitors, host guest speakers, take fieldtrips and more generally open the access to CoRe Square for non members.
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Figure 2. Circular processes of knowledge cooperation
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Individual Hut: in this area each member can initiate and organize her own personal platform space and can visit each other.
Finally the activities of “Resource development”, the seventh aspect of community life in CoRe, are supported in CoRe Square by a cooperation area called “CoRe Development Corner”. Currently the three primary resources of the Development Corner are: CoRe Team Office, Competence Analysis and Incentives System.
Duality of Tools within Activity Spaces For designing the inner structure of the activity spaces of CoRe Square we initially began by identifying a set of requirements. Experience shows that particularly the first step, just after entering any activity space, should provide a familiar view and make sense quite immediately. One way to implement these objectives is to keep the inner structure of an activity space very simple (but not simpler than required) and to make it as similar as possible and useful across all the seven spaces. But how and where could we find a solution to the required simplicity and useful similarity? The answer came from our participatory knowledge management model called “Knowledge Cooperation” and defined as “the participative cultivation of knowledge in a voluntary, informal social group” (Bettoni, 2007a). According to this model cooperating and collaborating on research knowledge consists of two cross-coupled learn-
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ing loops that activate and sustain one another: “cultivation of knowledge” and “participation in knowledge”. The right loop, cultivation of knowledge, is the circular process by which a community stewards its knowledge resources (by processes like acquiring, developing, making transparent, sharing and preserving knowledge) and uses them in daily work. The left loop, participation in knowledge, is the circular process by which community members build social capital (establish and take care of personal relationships, develop individual and collective identities, etc.) and “invest” this social capital to steward the knowledge resources of their community. These two processes are circular because in both cases the output of one process is transformed by a second process and returns to the previous one as input. In this model cultivation and participation come as a pair, a dyad: they form a unity in their duality. Accordingly we have designed also the inner structure of our activity spaces as a pair of tools that should form a unity in their duality: the dyad constituted by a forum and a wiki. The forum is a tool for conversations (sequences of verbal interactions bound to time): creating new discussion threads, reading posts and replying to them supports participation as the social experience of being connected with other and being actively involved in a collective enterprise (stewarding research knowledge). The wiki is a tool for reifications that preserve the results of conversations (new ideas, insights, best practices, lessons learned, definitions, procedures, etc.) by organizing them in a structured way and independently of time.
The Implementation of CoRe The seven cooperation spaces (areas) of CoRe Square are implemented as one single course in the MOODLE topic format. Each area is implemented in an own topic that can be accessed directly by a navigation bar placed in the upper part of the Top section of the CoRe Square home
A CoP for Research Activities in Universities
Figure 3. Practice lab area
page (see Figure 3). This navigation bar contains seven icons placed in a way that visualizes the structural model of CoRe: thus navigating in the CoRe Square space is at the same time a way to experience and understand the social structure of CoRe. Each icon in the navigation bar is linked to a specific cooperation area: clicking on the icon (or on the title below it) opens the associated area under the top section. Right of the navigation bar, a column ranging from the top to the bottom of the screen offers a set of quick links to the most used views of CoRe Square and to useful functions or lists. As an example of an activity area the “Practice Lab” is shown in Figure 3. Just below the title bar there is a file named “… about Practice Lab”. It explains the primary activity in this area. Further explanations are given in three additional “about” files below it. This kind of documents is provided also in all the other areas: they offer guidance and step-by-step instructions for initiating a new activity or cooperating in those already running. When visiting an area for the first time, members are encouraged to review the “about” file. Below
the about-file explaining the Practice Lab, this area gives access to 3 dyads: Projects, Publications and Conferences.
THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING & USING CORE The CoRe project began in October 2005 as a pilot project with the objective of creating and cultivating a prototype of the CoRe network. It was planned to end in December 2008 and to run through 4 phases: • •
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Phase 1: Planning = defining the project and preparing all community components Phase 2: Resources = community launch, resources development, informal assessment Phase 3: Practicing = community maturation and practice development Phase 4: Outcomes = resources validation, project evaluation and transfer.
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Phase 1 & Launch of CoRe In Phase 1 (“Planning” - between October 2005 and Mai 2006) we began by sketching a project definition (business case) and then worked on preparing all community components. This involved creating ideas and models of how the community might work, starting the development of a community core group, beginning to address basic cultural issues as well as preparing the organizational and technical infrastructure (the MOODLE platform “CoRe Square”). The community launch took place in Brig (Valais, Switzerland), in June 2006 and it was designed as a two days conference based on the method of Future Search. The about 45 participants represented employees with research tasks, professors, students and former students of the FFHS. The goal was to recognize shared visions, to invigorate the “FFHS- attitude” and to do a SWOT analysis. Based on the four fields of action identified during the future search interactions, the specific requirements for CoRe were to develop four key resources: •
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Research strategy: a shared research strategy had to be collaboratively developed that would specify how to realize the research mandate (strategic goals) of our university Incentive system: an incentive system had to be developed that would motivate community members to participate in projects and in stewarding research knowledge (Bettoni, Braun & Weber 2003). This work produced a questionnaire that collected the key motivational factors. Analysis of competences: a collection and an overview of the competence profiles of each member of the community, a work which eventually produced the Yellow Tool (Bettoni et al. 2007) Communication strategy: guidelines and tools on how to increase the visibility of research within the university as well as out-
side (other universities, business partners, government).
Phase 2 & 1st Annual CoRe Conference In Phase 2 (“Resources” - between June 2006 and June 2007) the CoRe network prototype started its activities with the 45 members that had participated in the mentioned 2 days “Future Search” conference. Our approach for addressing the 4 main topics identified in the conference was to build a strong core team and have its members work - with the support of the other community members - on the development of four community resources: a competence tool (Bettoni, Bernhard et al., 2007), a research strategy with a research plan draft, an incentives plan and an internet site about research at FFHS. After one year, in June 2007, during the “1st Annual CoRe Conference”, we took an informal check on the community’s health to see whether community building is on the right track. In particular we collected feedback on the following issues: how members experienced first year of the community, their thinking about the work that had been done in developing the 4 resources, their understanding of the plans for the second year of CoRe and finally their wishes, expectations and positive ideas for contributing to the success of the community. The 1st Annual CoRe Conference was our second plenary event and took place in Bern, Switzerland in June 2007, one year after the first one. Since in the meantime a core group had been established around the founding members, the conference was therefore organized by a committee recruited out of them. Such they invited people who had contributed to the community, who had signalized interest in the community during the last year, or who were identified as potential key players. The goal was to present and discuss the concept for year two, and to investigate in what had happened in year one. Another important aspect was to give space for feedback and to collect these
A CoP for Research Activities in Universities
Figure 4. CoRe requirements
inputs for further analyses. The results provided enough material for further analyses and helped to create a catalogue of requirements for year two.
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Requirements of June 2007
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The task of the second event was to evaluate the first year’s achievements, and to determine how to continue. Therefore, whereas the first event had been a more strategy oriented meeting, the second event became a more operative one. Based on the results of the workshop a mind map was developed which clustered the compiled results into six key elements: structure, motivation, commitment, projects, knowledge and communication (see Figure 4). Each of the mentioned 6 key elements included several sub-requirements as follows: •
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Structure: interactions should get a stronger guidance, discussions should be more moderated and related spaces (contents) on the platform should be simplified and made more user friendly Motivation: there should be clear visible benefits, a stronger shared identity (both among community members and at the university level) and a core team which stays motivated as in the first year
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Commitment: there should be a certain obligation to participate and the use of CoRe Square as a general working tool should become mandatory Projects: should be practice oriented and interdisciplinary, discussed in the community and started from shared knowledge Knowledge: should be shared and participatively cultivated following the community of practice model Communication: should be possible in a fast and easy, anytime and anyplace professional exchange and should create contacts among research fellows actively supported by competence mapping
This time the overall importance was such considered completely different from the one of the inauguration meeting. The expectation had shifted. When at the first meeting people thought that the mere act of building community spaces would immediately solve all the problems, at the second meeting they were expressing the need for less self-organization and more structure, guidance and directives (managing commitment) on how those spaces and their resources could be fuelled with life.
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Phases 3 and 4 as they were Planned Phase 3 (“Practicing”) was planned to last from July 2007 to June 2008. Based on the informal assessment completed in the phase 2, activities in this year of community maturation began with a first report on the efforts of the project up to now including an outline of recommendations. After evaluating these recommendations it was planned that their implementation would guide the second phase of community cultivation that had to focus on strengthening the community and contributing to the development of research practice by focusing on projects and on ‘open cooperation’, i.e. a new way of collaborating on research projects whose steps, procedures, methods and structures are visible to the whole community (Bernhard & Bettoni, 2007). Finally in Phase 4 (“Outcomes” - from July to December 2008) work was planned to address the questions of how to justify the organization’s investment and what did we learn in the CoRe project. To this aim we wanted to focus on the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the two main strategic efforts of the project: improving the FFHS research performances and developing a community-oriented strategy for integrating teaching and research. Due to a reorganization of the hierarchical research structures at our university, which lasted from November 2007 to April 2008, the development of CoRe was interrupted in January 2008 so that Phase 3 and 4 could not be implemented with the planned schedule. Phase 3 restarted in November 2008 from where it had stopped but is undergoing some modifications for taking in consideration the new organizational structures.
EXPERIENCES AND IMPROVEMENTS Which improvements were needed and what developments have we realized or are still on the
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way to be fulfilled? The need for tools was one of the early developments. CoRe members always expected an efficient way of collaboration. Since virtual meetings, distance work and weak ties cooperation need more than a telephone line for conversation; we had to develop appropriate tools for cooperation, information and collaboration tasks. Especially tools for asynchronous as well as synchronous communication were strongly requested.
Development of the Yellow Tool The vision of our Yellow Tool is that its use will generate 1-to-1 conversations which will act as catalysts for further knowledge interactions among people doing research at FFHS (academic staff, students). A useful set of ideas came from analyzing successful implementations like ‘KN Yellow Pages’ and ‘Connect’. KN Yellow Pages is a tool for knowledge networking used at Siemens Information Communication Networks (Sales Germany), a combination of an expert locator system with a knowledge base (Trillitzsch & Klostermeier, 2002 p. 239; Jonczyk 2005). Connect is a knowledge directory created at BP in 1998 that seven years after its launch was still perceived as successful (Collison & Parcell, 2004, Collison, 2005). Based on our conception of Knowledge Management as “Knowledge Cooperation” (see above) we see the following four characteristics as the key factors for creating a sustainable Yellow Pages system: (1) Ownership which ensures that control over the information lies with the individuals; (2) Informality: so the system can integrate contact details, work and training histories but should remain clearly separated from HR applications or control; (3) Personal disclosure: the profiles should express the less formal side of people’s professional and personal life; (4) Negotiation of meaning: the system must allow for and promote the negotiation of meaning, since human engagement in CoP “is first and foremost a process of negotiation of meaning” (Wenger, 1998, p. 53).
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The Yellow Tool is constituted by the following three components: (1) Yellow Pages, a collection of competence profiles in a wiki; (2) Yellow Map, a knowledge asset diagram visualizing the competence profiles with a city map metaphor; (3) Yellow Talk, a moderated conversation event, for talking about the competence profiles and more informally by sharing personal details both asynchronously on a discussion board and synchronously by means of chat and phone conferences.
Yellow Pages For designing our Yellow Pages component we focused on three essential issues: firstly a new competence profiling model that would be consistent with the principles of Knowledge Cooperation and allow a broad and deep representation of the person, secondly a way of collecting the profile data that would guarantee a high response rate and thirdly a way of storing the profiles that would ensure ownership by the individuals. For the new profiling, we launched a survey which had only five questions, they covered (1) personal information (2) question about actual working themes and activities (3) question about former working themes and activities; (4) question about further working themes and activities (5) other interests or additional information. The results of this survey have been settled as a wiki-text on CoRe Square. This allows the individual person to change their data whenever needed. In this way, the personal information can change and develop over time, and is therefore not hammered in stone for eternity.
Yellow Map The idea behind the Yellow Map is that you can handle “chameleonic” information in a way that everybody understands at first sight (chameleonic meaning complex and versatile information about each individual participant in this map). For this reason, a city metaphor has been used: a map of areas of operation of the people involved. In
addition to the Yellow Pages, a map of former-, actual- and future activities has to be constructed. This provides an overview of the extensive amount of individual competences summarized in a visual structure that can be easily picked up. This section describes how the actual Yellow Map was constructed. The Yellow Map consists of theme areas, theme houses, theme ways and residents, all of which are common things that can easily be understood as individual items. For each individual working theme of a person, an allocation or association to one to three main working themes has to be made. These main working themes are called the map’s theme areas. It is important, that these theme areas represent the actual working theme in at least one property. For example: the working theme e-learning corresponds to the three working areas internet, knowledge and learning. In other words: e-learning really needs the area of internet, but this is not enough. It also corresponds to the area of learning as well as to the field of mediating knowledge. To find the corresponding theme areas you have to create a kind of ontology. The assigned working themes of a person are the houses of the corresponding theme areas, and the owners of the working themes are the residents of these houses. The ways in the map connect the corresponding theme areas of an owner’s theme house. In the example above, a theme way connects the theme areas internet, knowledge and learning. The size of a theme area in the map is proportional to the amount of theme houses it owns. The same is true for the theme ways, the more houses it connects, the wider it is. Because of the large numbers of theme house combinations, a computer program was developed in the programming language Simscript, in order to find the ways and dimensions of the map. Figure 5 shows a Yellow Map of 36 residents including over 150 working themes, grouped in 13 theme areas which are connected via 13 theme ways. The visible theme ways are only shown at a
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Figure 5. A Yellow Map showing theme areas and theme ways.
certain width. In this case, 3 or more residents are necessary in order to build a visible theme way and 9 or more theme houses are needed for a visible theme area. The cloud-shaped area comprises more than one small theme area.
to “anchor” the CoRe community around issues of individual competence.
Yellow Talk
Each community has to go through the same live cycle from planning to implementation and finally to transformation. But for each community these life cycle phases are characterized by unique details which belong only to that particular community. In short, each community has its own story. Story telling anyway in itself is an important aspect of CoP, but it can also be used as a way to transmit the experience of the development of the CoP, in our case CoRe, along the path of the life cycle of a CoP. The project CoRe started at a point where the research department needed a boost in project activities. The overall situation could be described as so much unsatisfied with the given situation that people were even willing to look at com-
The third element of our Yellow Tool, called “Yellow Talk”. A Yellow Talk is a moderated conversation event, for talking about the competence profiles both asynchronously on a discussion board and synchronously by means of chat and phone conferences. In line with our model of Knowledge Cooperation the Yellow Talk allows to promote an informal process of socialization among researchers (tacit to tacit knowledge conversion) which is complementary to the more formal process of defining and maintaining explicit competence profiles. A Yellow Talk event is a regular event with a community member as “guest” that helps
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Experiences from a SocioPsychological View
A CoP for Research Activities in Universities
Table 1. Emotional state of users corresponding to five stages of a community Five stages of a community according to Etienne Wenger (www.ewenger.com)
Emotional state of potential users corresponding to the life cycle of CoRe in analogy to Wenger’s five stages of a community
Potential – finding the common ground
need
Coalescing – long term viability
hope
Maturing – communal identity
frustration
Sustaining – recognized stewardship
willingness for consolidation
Transform – ongoing legacy
trust to form a new CoP
pletely new ways of solving their problems. And therefore the overall importance was seen in changing the given situation by the means of establishing a community of research that would solve all the existing problems (“holy cow”). After a closer examination of all the possibilities in regard to establishing communities, the choice fell on a model based on Etienne Wenger’s work on CoP. In June 2006 CoRe and the CoRe platform got officially inaugurated. With it came along a lot of hope: The hope to finally have a space for all the projects at FFHS and a space with which new projects could be generated. In the following year to come, the platform and diverse tools like the Yellow Tool got built up and established according to the initial inputs at the inauguration meeting and the resulting plans developed by a core team. After one year during a follow-up conference, members and users should evaluate the development and achievements made so far. How had the expectations been met? What should be improved or changed? Participants of the first annual conference in 2007 uttered the wish for more structure and for more discipline. Reason for this was a shift of expectation. When at the first meeting people thought that the mere act of building community spaces would immediately solve all the problems, at the second meeting they were expressing the need for less self-organization and more structure, guidance and directives (managing commitment) on how those spaces and their resources could be fuelled with life. Frustration was the dominating
feeling coming along with the not fulfilled hope of solving all their problems with the help of the “holy cow”. The willingness to give it time and effort was diminished by the pressure to create new projects and such to generate turn-over. The spirit of CoP and the economic necessities encountered in a crash of different world views. The world of “being” collided with the world of “having”. Like in any situation of economic pressure people suddenly again felt more safe with the old and known ways, even if these meant going back to the old top down style of dealing with them. We can see from this example that each CoP follows certain rules of community development, like a human being grows from a child into a grown up person, but in the same analogy each community has its own life story.
Limits of the System Since we (the three authors) as members of the core team have been using the platform and the other tools ourselves, we were the first ones also to experience limitations of the system. For example using Skype for conference calls was a thing done on Etienne Wenger’s CP Square platform and consequently we too were using it. We, the core team, who have been working in different places all over Europe and the U.S. got used to the limitations like echo, or interrupted calls, and thought that even if it was not THE best solution it was altogether the best solution for the given moment in time to stay connected in an easy and affordable way.
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One day we had a conference call with the director of FFHS and he was upset about the low standard of our conference system and why we wouldn’t simply meet face-to-face or at least use a standard teleconferencing system. Yes, why? Like this it became obvious that we, the core team, had implicitly agreed to accept limitations as part of the game, which for others were simply not acceptable, but which allowed us to communicate in a much uncomplicated way any time and any place. If necessary we could log on in the next internet café or at home. Like this we could meet with the U.S. also late at night. This was why they were using Skype at CP Square. In order to accommodate people from the entire world at a time window suitable for all time zones, it could not be avoided that some people had to log on late at night or very early in the morning. Looking at it from this perspective, echo and other limitations did not matter as much as the possibility to have access for everyone and everywhere in an uncomplicated way. It became evident that what was good for the core team would not necessarily be good for the target group of the FFHS, namely researchers mainly based in Switzerland. At this point we got faced with the typical question that arises to every pioneering team: “How to satisfy the main stream”? And “how to transfer our experiences made in a core group to a wider audience”? The solution was to look at our experiences from a meta level. And so we used Skype to discuss these things.
bionic weak ties strategy can be considered as a viable, enriching path for knowledge management initiatives. Thus, implementing our collaborative knowledge strategy under conditions of weak ties by building a bridge between Nature and Culture will be an attractive challenge: a strong burden but, we hope, also a great blessing.
Organic Growth and Bio Teaming Principles In the search for successful weak ties teamcooperation, we found them in nature. There are many examples, such as bees, geese, ants and dolphins which show us on a small number of fundamentally different principles how they build social networks which work with a better performance than the traditional organization teams we all know today. In the field of bio teaming, we can learn from the teams in nature, so we can base our teams on natural principles, which have developed through millions of years of evolution. According to Ken Thompson’s (2006a) introduction into shared know-how on team dynamics, virtual collaboration and bio teaming, the basic common characteristics are the following: •
Redesign of CoRe Due to the limits of the current system in coping with weak ties cooperation, we decided to go a step further and try to approach our problem by looking at already developed strategies from Mother Nature. In nature weak ties strategies seem to be an established part of animal social networks and also we as humans are by nature adapted to this strategy; even if it seems to be something arduous, as we sometimes experienced in our project, a suitable
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•
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Self-management or autonomy: each team member manages itself and does not need to be told what to do. It is completely different from our traditional teamstructure of what we know as command and control. Autonomy still allows some team-leaders, but allows also enables every member to be a leader in some way. Non-verbal communication: bio-team communication does not rely on direct member to member communications. They communicate through different types of messages like scent trails used by ants. Action-focused: bio-teams have very concrete goals which are mostly hardwired in their genetic program and they don’t have strategies for achieving them. If something
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•
•
•
works and solves the problem, it gets reinforced the next time. three dimensionality: means that bioteam members maintain a dynamic relationship with the other members, the external environment and the colony as a whole. Motivation to do something and to act as a whole: human beings have that potential but often there is a conflict between individual and group interest. Allowed to fail: this is a key factor in bio teaming because it gives space for individuality. If one member of an ant colony gets it wrong there are so many others who get it right that it does not matter. A traditional human team can get lost if an important member on the upper hierarchy fails.
Bio teaming is not about behaving like ants; rather it is about how we incorporate natural principles, based on millions of years of evolutionary experience in order to make us more effective. From the big variety of bio teaming principles found in nature, we found that the collaborative strategy of dolphins fits exactly our needs. Dolphins practice the way of weak ties cooperation when they go for the hunt of big fish-swarms. As dolphins live in small groups, they are too few for a successful hunt of big swarms. But instead of giving up, they developed a new strategy, the strategy of weak ties cooperation. A small group directs the fishes to the surface, where seabirds are attracted and converge on the spot, thus giving a signal to other groups of dolphins to collaborate for an upcoming hunt. They can hunt together, even if they don’t know each other and when the task is fulfilled, they leave without having further contact. This well known strategy which works quite well for the dolphins can give lots of hints for human teams too. Such hints are covered in Matthias Nöllke’s book (2003) about the nature’s management skills – where the author explains useful strategies for human teams like:
•
•
• •
• •
Keep the flexibility with small teams and keep them working, even if the group will grow. Always set a time limit for your tasks when working together and let variation in size and composition of the teams happen. Teams like challenging tasks, keep them working with motivating stimuli. Set up clear tasks which cannot be misunderstood, a group always needs a consensus in some way. Coordination is all it is about, adjust the different tasks so they can easy work together. Be open-minded to expand your domain and integrate others like the dolphins do it with sea-birds. Fulfilling big things will need great partners.
Social Dimensions For the redesign of CoRe we have to take into consideration several social dimensions. Social dimensions that could be considered include, amongst others, people involved, physical places, events, economics, and politics. Here we are looking only at the issues that are important especially in regard to the redesign of CoRe. The two social dimensions economics and politics are without any doubt very important, but belong more to the overall situation at the FFHS and need an evaluation in the bigger context and are therefore not considered here. Social dimensions that play a crucial role for the redesign of CoRe are definitely the users, where they are located online as well as off-line, and what is important to them in order to achieve the goal of creating a flourishing space for the community of researchers at the FFHS. Therefore we have chosen the following nine social dimensions as being important to the redesign: Users involved, places/locations, events, information/knowledge, time, activities, goals, feelings, commitment. As we have seen expectations have shifted over time. Therefore it is necessary to define questions
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Table 2. Social dimensions Social Dimension Users involved
Questions of Interest for the Redesign of CoRe
Details
Who are the users of CoRe?
Age, gender, nationality, language
Places/Locations
Where are the users located? How do they meet online and off-line?
Countries, cities, possibilities of meeting online and face-to-face
Events
What events are important for the users? Online and off-line.
Annual FFHS conferences, monthly meetings, international and national conferences of interest, workshops
Information/ knowledge
What information/knowledge are important/necessary for the users in order to generate and work on projects and to accomplish the tasks that go with it?
Yellow tool, EU project deadlines, common holiday planner, meeting planner, resources like articles, books etc.
Time
How is time viewed? Are schedules important? When are activities/ events done?
Time spent on CoRe platform needs to be considered work time. More structure is a prerequisite to this.
Activities
Which activities are important for the CoP and for the user? Online and off-line.
Communicating via chat, messenger or face-to-face, weekly/monthly meetings, reporting, presenting, exchanging ideas with others from outside
Goals
What are the participating parties trying to accomplish? What do they do to reach the goals?
Project management and project generation are the original and also the new goals of CoRe and its successor.
Feelings
What are the user’s feelings about, people, places, events, information/knowledge, time, activities, time, and goals?
In order to find out about the feelings, close monitoring and feedback possibilities are necessary.
Commitment
How strong is the social commitment of the users? What are the motivating factors?
Commitment online can be widely described as active or passive. The principle of legitimate peripheral participation is part of this.
of interest for the redesign and inspect the details that determine these social dimensions. Collecting the answers to this, will be an important part of the transformation phase in Winter 2008/2009.
LESSONS LEARNED What lessons have we experienced and learned while developing and working with a CoP for research activities in universities? There are different aspects of a CoP which influence the later usability. The main component of a CoP is surely the voluntary participation based on own interests but also on interests of the whole group. It’s a give and take principle. In a research environment the motivation may differ from a CoP for industrial usage. The goal, to bring people together for a successful collaboration, is not easy because people are not used to work on a voluntary basis. But if you change to an ordered system, where a person with a higher hierarchy commands what you have
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to do, and then you give up also the system and its CoP based model. Establishing a CoP in a research environment needs a well articulated and organized concept, because you not only deal with different types of teachers, you also have to involve all the different types of students and bring them together for a successful work. There are moreover many aspects of costs, beginning with how to finance the development and later the support of the CoP. As this chapter focuses more on conceptual, social and technical aspects, we will not cover cost aspects in detail.
Social Aspects Looking at the development through the glass of Wenger’s Learning Theory we have learned something from experience, which is the essence of improvements. And when we reflect on our lessons learned over the last few years looking at the social aspects, we can only agree with Etienne Wenger, who said that
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“Communities of Practice are not only a context for the learning of newcomers but also, and for the same reasons, a context for new insights to be transformed into knowledge. A well-functioning community of practice is a good context to explore radically new insights without becoming fools or stuck in some dead end. A history of mutual engagement around a joint enterprise is an ideal context for this kind of leading-edge learning, which requires a strong bond of communal competence along with a deep respect for the particularity of the experience. When these conditions are in place, communities of practice are a privileged locus for the creation of knowledge.” (Wenger, 1998 p. 214) Based on this we can differentiate between the lessons learned for ourselves and those in regard to the user.
Inside View The core team of CoRe definitely has made this experience of leading-edge learning. The insights that we gathered have several outputs. On one hand we can use them for the redesign of CoRe, and on the other hand we can use them for the design of completely new communities outside of FFHS. This means that we can offer our first hand experience for the benefit of other communities. Only through this initiation-like phase has it been possible for us to learn as a community, and as individual beings. The whole process of ups and downs of a CoP was sometimes very painful, but most of the time a very positive, and therefore altogether a very rewarding endeavor.
Different Needs of Different User Groups As already mentioned, the needs of the core team are not necessarily identical with the needs of the targeted user group. To address these needs, in fact is the biggest challenge. Once the core team has
established the environment on the platform, this must be adjusted to the wishes and expectations of the users. And these expectations can shift over time, as we have experienced with CoRe. Therefore one lesson we definitely learned out of this experience is to monitor the needs and expectations of the future and early user more closely and at shorter intervals.
KNOWLEDGE COOPERATION & WEAK TIES: THE CHALLENGE OF AUTONOMY VS. GUIDANCE In our experience the evolution of the CoRe requirements from the launch of CoRe in June 2006 to the conclusion of the first year of its life in June 2007 leads to a clear challenge for implementing a collaborative knowledge strategy under conditions of weak ties: that of balancing self-governance, self-organization and voluntary participation on one side and stronger guidance, obligatory interactions and mandatory use of tools (CoRe Square) on the other side. Thus we see a clear emergence of a tension between two opposing tendencies, autonomy and guidance, that must be addressed by any design in order to foster knowledge cooperation among partners which are connected by weak ties.
Focus on Projects Based on the previous reflection, our approach for meeting the challenge of autonomy vs. guidance has been to redesign our community initiative with a stronger focus on projects that will temporarily transform CoRe into a project-oriented knowledge network. A main source of inspiration for conceiving this new approach came from the principles of bio teaming, particularly from some insights into the social behavior of dolphins based on research reported by the Western Illinois University (Thompson 2006b). The reasons for taking this research as a source of inspiration were on one side
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simply the fact that dolphins have demonstrated to be successful with their complex social organization, and on the other side the weak ties character of their relationships. Dolphins embody in their behavior two principles that in our view could help in redesigning CoRe, the ‘pod-principle’ and the ‘herd-principle’: •
•
Pod-Principle: Dolphins live in close knit groups; these groups, called pods, are coherent long-term social units with strong ties and bonding of social capital; Herd-Principle: Dolphins can operate in larger communities. Several small pods may join to form larger groups called herds or aggregations: these groups are shortterm units with weak ties and bridging of social capital.
Inspired by the pod-principle and keeping in mind social network research (Kavanaugh et al. 2003) – based on what Granovetter originally distinguished as weak ties (Granovetter 1973) among members of low-density networks (Granovetter 1983) - we have devised for CoRe the idea of continuing the network development by focusing on building and cultivating individual “project pods”. Each project pod (team) will be created around the common task of realizing a research project within and outside of CoRe from its definition and acquisition to its dissemination. During the realization of their research project the project pod’s members will have the opportunity to develop strong ties but, more importantly, they will be guided by the CoRe coordinator (and his team) to implement in a small scale the same requirements that they had requested for the large scale of the whole CoRe network. At the same time the CoRe coordinator, following the herd-principle, will create selected opportunities for all the project pods to form temporarily larger groups called “project herds”. These opportunities could be for example a series of regular events like monthly face-to-face meetings, teleconferences or
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Web events (like virtual field trips etc.), in which all or some of the project pods meet and have the opportunity to build bridges to other project pods. Currently our main effort is concentrated on organizing a „Pod and Herd Office“(PHO), a kind of Project Management Office, with the aim of supporting and guiding the formation and cultivation of the individual project pods and the temporary formation of the global project herds. In this initial, exploratory phase of the redesign, the PHO will have two main tasks, one at the pod level and one at the herd level: •
•
Main Pod-Level Task: create and cultivate a dedicated virtual pod room (a space on MOODLE) organized as a project environment for supporting the whole project lifecycle from acquisition to dissemination Main Herd-Level Task: design, organize facilitate and lead a ‘research colloquium” (called FOKO, an acronym from German “Forschungskolloquium”) as a regular meeting of all the project pods’ members where participants have the opportunity to profit directly from the many benefits of CoP interactions; for internal cultural reasons this event will initially be face-to-face and evolve later to a blended format of alternating face-to-face and virtual meetings.
FUTURE TRENDS All universities are looking for activities in research projects, some of them start their own projects where others are involved as a partner of a funded research project. Especially when partners come from different countries, the need for virtual collaboration sooner or later comes up. A CoP can ensure effective collaboration in a big variety of applications like virtual meetings, virtual project management and knowledge-sharing. Today’s researchers are used to work with well-known people within their network and there seems to be a trend towards expanding this network to
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other people. This social-networking trend shows that the traditional way of getting to know each other only in a face-to-face meeting will change in future. But the network trend allows more than becoming acquainted with someone, it allows to complement one another and to work together with someone who has common interests or collective goals for a joint action. We experienced also a growing interest in building CoP within global working companies, where they use it as an instrument for knowledge-sharing as well as for learning in distributed environments.
RESULTS OF THE EXPERIENCE Which are the results of the CoRe initiative and how can we evaluate its success so far? As we have seen in the previous exposition, our research was planned to last about 2 years. At the end of this phase, we have experienced that a further engagement of the involved people would need some changes in order to have a stable or even a growing community. We realized that there exist three groups of people which were using the community of research in a different way. The first group, called the core group, feels responsible for activities and its management, the second group is the beneficiaries – they participate on certain actions only, if there is some real benefit for them. The third group is the passive members, they read information, but do not really participate. Those groups were more or less stable over the time, but in order to have a successfully working community, it would need participation of all members. We are continuing our work, and from the point of view of evaluation we are going into a new phase. In terms of the stages of a community we are now past the transformation phase. Even if the CoRe initiative has turned into another direction it provided us a set of very precious insights which are guiding our current
research in e-collaboration. These are the seven CoP insights we would like to share: 1. The First Insight: Respect Autonomy and Tacit Knowledge. Tacit knowledge must not be separated from and dispossessed to the individual or group, which are creating and cultivating it. Knowledge networks can increase and improve the knowledge flow within an organization, but in order to be successful they need an interaction and collaboration approach in which autonomous, voluntary participation and tacit knowledge are respected as constitutive elements of human identity. 2. The Second Insight: Relieve Hierarchical Pressure. Employees who live a dual role as both business unit members (hierarchy) and community members (network) tend to take the hierarchical background of business units with them, when they enter the community environment. For example they feel the pressure of their bosses’ skepticism and hostility. As long as this is the case they will not be able to participate autonomously and voluntarily as is needed for becoming an engaged community member. 3. The Third Insight: Balance Autonomy and Guidance. Knowledge cooperation among partners which are connected by weak ties gives rise to a tension between two opposing tendencies, autonomy and guidance. The challenge here is that of balancing selfgovernance, self-organization and voluntary participation on one side and stronger guidance, obligatory interactions and mandatory use of tools on the other side. 4. The Fourth Insight: Dolphin Network Organization. Under conditions of weak ties a knowledge network will not be able to coalesce directly from a set of individuals to a cohesive and stable large group. You need a different organizational principle; for instance one which supports and guides the
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coalescing of individuals into stable small groups (pods) and sporadically provides opportunities for the temporary formation of large groups (herds). This has been validated by Nature in millions of years and can be learned from the social behavior of dolphins (bio teaming). 5. The Fifth Insight: Integrate common routines. Most people use emails and attachments for every kind of communication. To discuss issues in a forum is a convenient and transparent way, but emails are still used for this case because it is a common routine. To break this routine is more difficult than to integrate it. Therefore, the integration of common routines, especially email-possibilities seems to be an important factor. 6. The Sixth Insight: Community Training. Although, the working-principle of a Community of Practice seems to be simple, it has to be trained. Before launching a community, it needs some training to its members. They have to experience the advantages of this kind of teamwork under “non severe” conditions. 7. The Seventh Insight: The Meaning of Transparency. Since a Community of Practice by nature creates transparency and needs an open system in order to flourish, it is very important to check if this system change was also intended or at least considered at the formation of the community. The question to be asked needs to be whether it was only the urge to relieve pressure - with the implicit intention to continue with the old system - or whether the driving force was a real desire to create transparency and openness in order to create also a new system (culture) of open cooperation in the whole organization.
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CONCLUSION Building a successful CoP seen from an organic point of view depends on interconnected factors like people, technology, the given frame and also the political context and the complex evolution of their interconnections over time. The development of a CoP is like the growth of an organism; it begins very small and only grows step by step, always trying to be on the safe side of life. As Wenger et al. remark (2002, pp. 12-13): “You cannot pull the stem, leaves or petals to make a plant grow faster or taller. However … you can till the soil … supply water, secure the right amount of sun exposure …” Social and technical problems in this analogy are the teething troubles. Distributed, virtual CoP like CoRe can give enormous flexibility within a big variety of applications like weak-ties cooperation or knowledge-sharing where people are geographically distributed, far away from each other. The success rate also depends on people themselves, their openness to other people and their relation to technology; some are more visionary whereas others are more conservative.
REFERENCES Agostini, A., Albolino, S., De Paoli, F., Grasso, A., & Hinrichs, E. (2005). Supporting Communities by Providing Multiple Views. In Van den Besselaar et al. (Eds), Communities and Technologies 2005. Proc. of the Second C&T Conference, Milano. Dordrecht, NL: Springer. Bendel, O. (2006). Das 1x1 der Wikis und Weblogs. Wissensmanagement, 3, 22–25. Bernhard, W., & Bettoni, M. (2007). Wissensnetzwerke - Offene Zusammenarbeit im virtuellen Raum. In Bergamin, P. & Pfander, G. (Eds.), Medien im Bildungswesen: Kompetenzen, Organization, Mehrwert (pp. 99-121). Bern: h.e.p. Verlag.
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Bettoni, M. (2005). Communities of Practice as a Method for Knowledge-Oriented Cooperation. In Proc. of the TACONET Conf. on Self-regulated Learning in Technology Enhanced Learning Environments. Aachen: Shaker Verlag.
Collison, C. (2005). Knowledge Management: Creating a Sustainable Yellow Pages System. Retrieved October 15, 2008 from http://www. chriscollison.com/l2f/documents/KMyellowpages.doc
Bettoni, M., Andenmatten, S., & Mathieu, R. (2006) “Research Networking with CoRe Square”. In Proc. of MApEC 2006, Multimedia Applications in Education Conference, Graz, Sept. 4-6, 2006 (pp. 48-55).
Collison, C., & Parcell, G. (2004). Learning to Fly. Practical knowledge management from some of the world’s leading learning organizations. Chichester: Capstone.
Bettoni, M., Andenmatten, S., & Mathieu, R. (2007). Knowledge Cooperation in Online Communities: A Duality of Participation and Cultivation. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 5(1), 1–6. http://www.ejkm.com/. Bettoni, M., & Bernhard, W. (2007). CoRe - Linking Teaching and Research by a Community-Oriented Strategy. In G. Richards (Ed.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2007 (pp. 2354-2362). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Bettoni, M., Bernhard, W., Borter, F., & Dönnges, G. (2007). The Yellow Tool – Making Yellow Pages More Social and Visible. ECKM 2007, The 8th European Conference on Knowledge Management, 2007, Consorci Escola Industrial de Barcelona (CEIB), Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 6-7. Bettoni, M., & Borter, F. (2007). Wissenskooperation: Gemeinsam zum Erfolg. Wissensmanagement. Das Magazin für Führungskräfte, 3/07, 28–29. Bettoni, M., Braun, A., & Weber, W. (2003). What motivates cooperation and sharing in communities of practice? In F. McGrath & D. Remenyi (Eds.), Proc. of the 4th European Conference on Knowledge Management (pp. 67-72), Oriel College, Oxford University, UK, Sept. 2003.
Fromm, E. (1976). Haben oder Sein? Die seelischen Grundlagen einer neuen Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: DVA. Granovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360– 1380. doi:10.1086/225469 Granovetter, M. (1983). The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited. Sociological Theory, 1, 201–233. doi:10.2307/202051 Jonczyk, C. (2005). Writing learning stories: The case of Telcotech. In Gherardi, S. & Nicolini, D. (Eds.), The Passion for Learning and Knowing. Proc. of the 6th Intern. Conf. on Organizational Learning and Knowledge (2 vols.). Trento: Univ. of Trento e-books. Kavanaugh, A., Reese, D. D., Carroll, J. M., & Rosson, M. B. (2003). Weak Ties in Networked Communities. In Huysman, M., Wenger, E., & Wulf, V. (Eds.), Communities and Technologies (pp. 265–286). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, R. D. (2003). The Cultural Imperative: Global Trends in the 21st Century. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Nöllke, M. (2003). So managt die Natur. Freiburg: Haufe.
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O’Reilly, T. (2006). Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again. Retrieved October 15, 2008 from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web20-compact.html Schütt, P. (2005). Blogs und Wikis. Mehr Mitarbeit wagen. Wissensmanagement, 7, 14–16. Thompson, K. (2006a). Bioteams: an introduction. Retrieved October 15, 2008 from http://www. bioteams.com/2006/08/29/bioteams_an_introduction.html Thompson, K. (2006b). Teamwork: learning from dolphin pods. Retrieved October 15, 2008 from www.bioteams.com/2006/01/24/teamwork_learning_from.html Trillitzsch, U. C., & Klostermeier, F. (2002). Werkzeugmacher für die Wissensgesellschaft. In Pawlosky, P., & Reinhardt, R. (Eds.), Wissensmanagement für die Praxis. Neuwied: Luchterhand. von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning. London: Falmer Press. doi:10.4324/9780203454220 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Williams, B. (2005). MOODLE for Teachers, Trainers and Administrators. V.1.4.3. Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://download.moodle.org/
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITONS Bio Teaming: A concept about how we could incorporate natural principles, based on millions of years of evolutionary experience in order to make our teamwork more effective.
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Constructivism: A psychological theory of knowledge (epistemology) which argues that humans construct knowledge and meaning from their own experiences. Decentralized Structure: A structure characterized by geographical, chronological, decisional and other kinds of distribution of relevant elements or features. Knowledge Cooperation: Participative cultivation of knowledge in a voluntarily, informal social group (Bettoni 2005); deals in equal parts with intellectual and social capital. Legitimate Peripheral Participation: The process by which newcomers acquire mastery of knowledge and skills through participation in the sociocultural practices of a community Social Software: A term coined for software tools that allow extended online collaboration whereby users can interact and share data. Facebook, Flickr or Ning are examples of this. Weak Ties: A term coined by Marc Granovetter, describes the situation in a social system where the ties between the participants are characterized as being rather loose and therefore weak, but nevertheless very important for social networks that are distributed over space and time. Web 2.0: Internet applications harnessing collective intelligence by means of an “Architecture of participation” that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. Yellow Tool: A knowledge cooperation tool constituted by three components: (1) Yellow Pages, a collection of competence profiles in a wiki; (2) Yellow Map, a knowledge asset diagram visualizing competence profiles with a city map metaphor; (3) Yellow Talk, a moderated conversation event, for talking about the competence profiles and more informally by sharing personal details both asynchronously on a discussion board and synchronously by means of chat and phone conferences.
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Chapter 23
Communities of Practice in Public Administration:
The Case of Catalonia’s Government Mario Pérez-Montoro University of Barcelona, Spain Jesús Martínez Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain
ABSTRACT Currently, Knowledge Management (KM) is being received very positively by organisations. Nevertheless, there is a particular type of organisation in which there has been less of a general demand for KM: the public organisations. However, in the last three years, a Knowledge Management project, based in communities of practice (CoPs), has been put into practice in the area of the Justice Department in the Catalan government, the Generalitat of Catalunya. The aim of this work is to present a detailed analysis of this project. To achieve this aim, first of all, we are going to introduce the implementation methodology and the results obtained, as well as the success variables involved in this project. This will allow us to offer a guide for implementing CoPs in public administration. Lastly, by way of conclusion, we will provide a series of conclusions and lessons that can easily be applied to the majority of community of practice projects that are implemented in the Public Administration context.
1. INTRODUCTION A clear evolution has been occurring over the past years in the discipline of knowledge management. There is a growing tendency to make more intensive use of methodology tools that place the emphasis on people and on maximising and DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch023
increasing their knowledge base (collaborative work and training, and networking), collective intelligence and collaborative innovation. All of this with the back-up and support of new technology tools that have come about with what is called the New Internet or Web 2.0 (Genís & Fumero, 2007; Cobo & Pardo, 2007). The end result of the conjunction of these variables is what some authors (Roulleaux, 2007) have already come to
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define as information management for the new generation. And within this new organisational context communities of practice (CoPs) have reassumed an active role. CoPs were one of the methodological tools that generated the highest expectations. The organisational benefits they can offer have already been amply defined (Wenger, 1998 & 2002; Parcell & Collison, 2001) – among others those that concerning efficiency with knowledge based in the organisation with greater transparency. Now while we know about the potential benefits they can provide (Juan, 2004), the lack of applied case studies over time within organisations is a matter for concern. Both in the specialised literature as in practice, it is difficult to find this applied experience. And these difficulties become greater again when we switch to the public sector (Juan, 2004). Apart from the few exceptions like IADE (2002, 2005), who launched several projects – the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IEF) and the Spanish Inland Revenue Service (Agencia Tributaria or Hacienda) –no other applied case study experience has been described within the public sector. Against this backdrop, in 2005 the Centre of Legal Studies and Specialised Training (CEJFE) launched an initiative to structure various CoPs within the Catalan Justice Department. Following the Wenger (1998) early CoP development model consisting in identifying emerging groups among the organisations and subsequent support, over the 2005-2008 period up to 15 CoPs have been set up bringing together more than 2000 professionals. Within these CoPs, evolution has been diverse, as some – two, in fact – have not survived while the remaining thirteen are achieving some excellent results in reaching their objectives. Although in other previous work, we have indicated some key points to explain how to implement CoPs (Pérez-Montoro and Martínez, 2007) as well as some of the variables implied in their maintenance and survival (Pérez-Montoro & Martínez, 2008), here we will be presenting
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both the implementation methodology and the results obtained (sections 2 and 3), as well as the success variables involved (section 4). Outstanding factors among these are factors linked to the organisational context, people and the actual role of knowledge among the different professional groups. This will allow us to extract the differential variables implied in success of the CoPs and thus offer a guide for implementing CoPs in public administration (section 5). Lastly, by way of conclusion we will provide a series of interesting conclusions and a number of lessons that can easily be applied to the majority of community of practice projects that are implemented in the Public Administration context.
2. CASE STUDY TO IMPLEMENT COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE WITHIN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: THE COMPARTIM PROGRAM As previously indicated, the experiment of establishing CoPs was based in a Public Administration department: the Justice Department of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the autonomous government of Catalonia.
2.1. Organisational Context Regrettably, as with other similar public organisations, Justice Department of the Generalitat of Catalonia usually exhibits some of the main problems related with individual and organisational knowledge. Such problems are mainly owed to the clear identifying characteristics that knowledge typically displays in this kind of context. Along these lines, there are two groups of factors that act as a barrier, making their implementation and consolidation much more difficult. On the one hand there are the factors linked to the role itself of the awareness within the public context, clearly
Communities of Practice in Public Administration
undervalued in comparison with other contexts in which it is considered as an intangible key for the survival and viability of the organisation. On the other hand, the second group of factors mentioned –and which act, in our judgement, with even worse consequences, are related to cultural and organisational factors which are inherent in the public sphere and, so, also referred to any process of innovation. Below we have explained the first of them, the referred to role of awareness in the public contexts. On the one hand, it is typical that there exists no clear context that facilitates the creation of new knowledge. On the other hand, the bulk of that knowledge can exclusively be found stored in the heads of the professionals who have developed it from their day-to-day practice, and so typically not in any of the usual types of documentary support (mainly paper or electronic files). This lack of record brings about a situation where this knowledge is scattered geographically, having no real structure, and resistant to any kind of documentary treatment. Nor do training plans reach all members of the collective included in that context in the same way. And lastly, derived from all of the above, this knowledge is to be found encapsulated in an almost exclusive way in the persons who possess it, being instantly accessible only in a fragmentary, hardly exhaustive way. Now going into the second group of factors referred to, in advance we can identify the following as the most relevant: the elevated hierarchy and compartmentalization of the public organisations that make it difficult and block the transversal nature and flexibility required by informal groups of people, such as the CoPs. If we add the administrative routines and the procedures inherent in the public sector to the above factor, we find ourselves facing up to a situation that does not encourage these types of initiatives at all, and for their survival a greater margin of time is needed that has not been laid down and which must be used to provide new unplanned solutions and to be able to share them with colleagues. Also, and
in conclusion, the increased weight of the formal structure (organisation chart) must be mentioned as a paradigm that often perceives any initiative that emerges from the means and channels not provisioned for by the regulations as being antiestablishment. Taking all these factors described into account, in 2005 a Knowledge Management project was launched in the sphere of the Justice administration of the Generalitat of Catalonia. The main objective being pursued with this project is twofold: by maximizing a network of communities of practice, on the one hand, to generate a context that allows for the creation of knowledge, and, on the other hand, to establish the circuits and mechanisms necessary for the collectively exploiting that knowledge. In implementing this Knowledge Management system, we began with a pilot program. Its purpose was to implant the system on a small scale and so be able to foresee the potential benefits and consequences, both positive and negative, as well as the adjustments necessary in order to complete the secondary phase of implanting a community of practice more complete and extensive. For this reason it was decided to activate a specific community of practice that would include a series of parameters that were easy to supervise: the social worker’s community. Four months after this community got up and running and initial results were drawn off and analysed, it was then decided to launch the rest of the community of practice network: 15 CoPs (Table 1). This network of communities developed around a key organisation figure: the e-moderator. The e-moderators are a small group of key people within the organisational fabric who are mainly responsible for developing and bringing about a collaborative working context that would facilitate the creation, exchange and spread of knowledge among their own colleagues. Two strategies were implemented in order for these e-moderators to meet these objectives which were different and at the same time comple-
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Table 1. Communities of practice, professionals and direct participants (Source: Personally compiled based on information provided by different e-moderators.) CoPs Psychologists
Number of professionals
Direct participants
106
25
Criminal lawyers
80
18
Teachers
125
12
Art Instructors
40
11
Social educators in detention centres
140
25
Juvenile justice Open System professionals
45
12
Juvenile justice mediators
35
8
Juvenile justice social educators
150
12
Juvenile justice legal advisors
35
6
Legal librarians
25
12
Legal archivists
45
12
Linguistic facilitators
35
8
Family mediators
175
15
Legal advisors for adults
30
Social workers
95
30 25
mented one another. On the one hand there was the possibility of using a collaborative online environment. This IT environment – named eCatalunya – made it possible to develop a significant part of the principal strategies involved in knowledge management. So, as a further prop, a policy of incentives was designed in such a way that those e-moderators could obtain in a reasonably clear and direct way something of a return on the investment of time and effort in participating in the project. The incentives policy was mainly financial and awarded the implementing tasks that would ensure the smooth working of the community for which they were responsible.
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This policy also included a series of tasks that would mean that the rest of the community, potential users, and knowledge suppliers would get actively implicated in the smooth running of the project. By means of these tasks, it was possible to systematically gather knowledge generated within the project and at the same time it was also possible to obtain the raw material to create a best practices repository. Table 2 describes the different work products developed by the communities of practice in 2007 and 2008.
2.2. Key Aspects of the Public Environment Relevant to the Application of the Experience In the preceding paragraph the implementation, workings and main results achieved by the CoPs is described. This stage was extended throughout 2007 and 2008. But in the previous year, 2006, a preliminary task of study, exploration and design took place that, we believe, allowed us to safeguard against the hurdles that are usually described as blockers in the Public Administration (mentioned in the previous point). The most relevant aspects of the experience and the actions that were undertaken in order to neutralise them are described below: The driving force unit of the experience, the upward organisation implementation, the key organisational roles (e-moderators and co-ordinators), the financial and technological resources demanded and the flexible and made to measure implementation for each organisational sphere. We started tackling the driving force unit of the experience. The Compartim programme was driven from the training unit and aimed at different professionals in the Justice Department, who were not linked in a hierarchical manner to it. It came as an offer that was seen as more linked to training and to professional qualification not of improvement, at least initially, in the organisation. What also reinforced this perception was the fact that it was handled as an incentive by certifying the
Communities of Practice in Public Administration
Table 2. Communities of practice and work products developed in 2007 and 2008. (Source: Personally compiled based on information provided by different e-moderators) CoPs
2007 Products
2008 Products
Psychologists
Clinical interview Protocol
Work techniques database Change Indicators
Criminal Lawyers
Best Practices
Strategic guide
Teachers
Self-training CV
(CoP not active in 2008)
Art Instructors
Training resources Art teaching
Art Therapy Crafts
Social educators in detention centres
Best Practices
Guidebook
Juvenile justice Open System professionals
Working with minors Intervention Neo-nazi violence Domestic violence
Guidelines for Open System professionals
Juvenile justice mediators
Mediation
Mediation participants study Practical orientation
Juvenile justice social educators
Best Practices
Manual
Juvenile justice legal advisors
Best Practices
Manual
Legal librarians
Marketing
Promotion Protocols List of services
Legal archivists
Protocols
Protocols Database
Linguistic facilitators
Service catalogue Terminology
(CoP not active in 2008)
Family mediators
Mediation
Mediation
Legal advisors for adults
Best Practices
Alternative criminal measures Family and environment Foreign citizens
Social workers
Report models Foreign citizens Alternative measures
Alternative measures
hours of participation in CoPs, as training hours, with the same value for the purposes of competition for promotion and professional career. We believe that this differential factor described, in the case of the Public Administration generated a much greater attractiveness than if the offer of participation had been generated from another more hierarchical sphere (for example from the human resource or general management departments). Now we are going to describe the upward organisational implementation. In a logic similar to that described in the previous section it was es-
tablished that the implementation was progressive and optimistic in line with the advance seen by the different CoPs. For this purpose a closed and overall planning was not used that is offered to the organisation in a total manner and sequenced by stages. The communication of the offer to independent organisational units started from the point in which the permission was obtained from the highest corridors of power (Director General) so as to later go on to work with the front line professionals. Only if there were initial success and acceptance by the professional group did we
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go on to create other CoPs. It must be said, that until a long time later, there was no awareness of forming a part of a network of communities. In the slang that we used in those times, we spoke of the growth metaphor similar to that of an oil slick. Next let’s focus on the key organisational roles: e- moderators and co-ordinator: In the implementation process the introduction of two organisational figures was taken into account that we believe, when all is said and done, were keys to the success of the CoPs. In a different way to the other experiences described, it was necessary to reinforce the organisation and implementation of the project with key figures in order for the experience to be successful. On the other hand the figure of e-moderator was resorted to (we shall explain this in the next point), who were chosen in line with their leadership, who became the perfect unifying force of the professional group. And on the other hand a figure was also resorted to that formed a bridge between the hierarchical line of the group and the e-moderator and the CoP. There were to be two types of tasks: On one hand of stewardship in the face of the management and on the other the transmitter of the strategic aims of the organisation to the professionals involved in the CoPs. The smooth workings of these two figures, we believe is one of the determining factors for the success of the CoPs. We shall continue with the financial and technological resources required. Also in line with the two previous points, the budget and the human resources assigned were being increased as the different communities were being consolidated. Unlike the usual way of working in the administration by fixed consignments and budgets per programme with the obligation of expenses in time periods there was also a flexible approach that addressed resources in line with the success obtained. In this way bringing about a progressive dynamic of budget consolidation in line with objectives achieved.
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And finally, we undertook the flexible implementation and for each one of the organisation spheres. The offering of a single standard and closed community to all of the participating organisation units was avoided. Freedom was given, hence, to orientate and adapt the communities to the needs that were raised in each case. So, from the beginning there were different itineraries. On one hand communities orientated more to the qualification of their members could be found, whilst there were others more orientated to the production of specific knowledge applicable to improvements in the organisation.
2.3. Relevant Variables in How the Communities of Practice Function As we have indicated in the previous section, up to 15 CoPs have been installed steadily. Table 1 shows the main characteristics as regards the number of professionals “linked” and the number of people who have directly joined the CoPs (called “enthusiasts”, to use Wenger’s terminology). As we will be detailing in the points below, the basis for the functioning of the collaborative work groups has stemmed from the combination of six key elements: the figure of the e-moderator, a specific working methodology of the communities based on the contributions made by both Wenger (1998 and 2002) and Collison and Parcell (2001), the knowledge promotion policy created through the Best Practice Seminar, the development of an innovative policy of incentives, the support and association with a centre of resources and documentation (the CEJFE library). All of this has been backed up technological platform of work in collaboration (e-Catalunya) and an active policy – innovating in the context of the Public Administration – for use and promotion of new Web tools: broadcasting and storage space likes YouTube, Flikr, Slideshare, etc; text editors like Google Docs, social networks like Linkedin or Facebook, and so on.
Communities of Practice in Public Administration
2.3.1. The E-Moderator Figure It has been demonstrated that the e-moderator is a key figure within the information management process. The selection procedure began by crafting a professional profile with a series of characteristics, of which the following stand out: a person who represents the community and has leadership capacity, someone who is participating in and institutional project, is respected and holds influence in the community. Besides, he or she must had some ability to communicate and be familiar with the work in technological environments, which means being a professional who is committed to advancing knowledge in their professional area. From this point on, a consultation process was started among the official organisation leaders until ideal candidates were found. Hence a selection process was started that subsequently finished up with the selection of 13 e-moderators were selected for a renewable yearly period. The layout for the training they were given was based on the learn-by-doing principles. Immediately, they took upon themselves leadership functions and began stimulate – whether face-to-face or virtually – within their respective communities. As a help to their work a course was designed for them with back-up content for facilitating and leadership in virtual environments, given through the same technological platform that they were using for their communities. Through the ensuing discussion in the forum and the invigoration provided by an external leader, various strategies for success were being modeled in terms of driving and handling this type of community. To this end, during the implementation period, as many as five discussions developed about what kind of learning they required. The ultimate purpose of training was intended to enable them to assume two kinds of role: on the one hand, to become motivators and catalysts within their community in order to gain acceptance and to be able to get across and promote the knowledge produced.
2.3.2. How the Communities of Practice Worked The working methodology followed was based on the works developed by Wenger (1998 and 2002) and adapted by Vásquez (2007) and, in a second growth stage, the IADE consultancy (private consultancy in 2007 and 2008), for our particular context. Quite succinctly, we took the following steps: we began by identifying the ideal collective, then went on to narrow down the recurring problems, before deciding on the person who would act as the coordinator; after this we organized the first meeting, face-to-face, of the collective in question and concluded the process with conversations among the community of practice in the virtual sphere. As for establishing what would make for the ideal collective, the general idea was that it should be a group of people who were already motivated, or they joined up enthusiastically as soon as the idea was explained to them for the first time. In other words, people ‘who were up to the task’. The ideal scenario moreover would be to have a collective in which at least one group of people had already started meeting up to exchange knowledge on the work they were carrying out. Recurring problems were also identified: either problems facing the group or else the most immediate problems. The community of practice members were asked directly about what subjects they talked about in a spontaneous way, that is, which work-related topics did they speak about when they were not working. Then the person who would serve as the community of practice coordinator (e-moderator) was identified. At the first meeting, which took place face-to-face, the subjects under discussion were those that the e-moderator singled out, by talking with some people in the collective as being the hot topics. The community of practice discussions continued in the virtual sphere, through the e-Catalunya technological platform, under the coordination of the community’s e-moderator. At the present
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time, just as we mentioned at the beginning of this section, the average active participation for each community of practice hovered around 15% of the each professional collective. These figures are well above the normal average figures for participation in similar projects.
2.3.3. Best Practices Workshops The Best Practices workshop plays a decisive role in the final stage of the process, once the newly created knowledge becomes available. These workshops therefore have a mission to get across and promote the new knowledge available among the entire professional collective. They are programmed at the end of each stage in the knowledge management cycle and normally take place once a year. The organisational model is based around the following elements: promoting the newly acquired knowledge. This knowledge may be presented using text documents, presentations, and so on, together with a lecture given by an expert in the given field. He or she is especially invited for the occasion and is asked to comment on the contributions made by the community; and lastly suggestions are collected for new themes to be developed in the future with a discussion taking place in small groups on the proposals that are accepted.
2.3.4. Policy of Incentives and General Motivation Strategies On more than one occasion the relevance of the policy of incentive has been reiterated for insuring the creation and sharing of individual knowledge. A combination of different strategies were used in the project that we are describing here. For one, direct financial incentives were used: the e-moderators were assigned a modest sum of money, while for each one of the knowledge contributions (products) made the authors were directly compensated. Aside from these incentives, others considered to be of major importance
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included the following: publishing and promoting of highest quality works (on the Internet, intranet and specialist congresses) and official recognition of the hours spent on the communities of practice as training hours.
2.3.5. E-Catalunya: Platform for Collaborative Work The technological support that permitted the development of these communities is a collaborative environment and a social network called e-Catalunya (http://ecatalunya.gencat.cat). Strictly speaking, as the Generalitat of Catalonia indicated in 2007, e-Catalunya is a platform for creating and developing virtual communities with the backing of the Generalitat of Catalonia (the autonomous government of Catalonia), so that the public can communicate with one another, work in teams and manage knowledge using online participation tools. This platform is based on freeware that allows non-users without specific technical knowledge to create and maintain communities in a simple way. It offers an intelligent system of social networking and knowledge network built up using the relations between the members of a community and their activities. Among other things, this allows people to introduce themselves, broaden their network of personal and professional contacts and access content posted or consulted by people with similar interests (Generalitat of Catalonia, 2007). In a more technical sense, this environment enables the possibility of developing a significant part of the main strategies involved in knowledge management. In doing so, for example, it’s possible to develop a series of actions for managing a specific type of knowledge – through presentation and protocol systems. It also means that knowledge can be managed tacitly – using synchronous and asynchronous social networking strategies). So as to offer these possibilities, the platform incorporated a series of tools which the community decides whether to activate depending on
Communities of Practice in Public Administration
their interests: a photo album, a blog, a calendar, file storage facility, a forum, an e-mail listing, a system for managing participant processes and a wikipage.
2.3.6. Library and Documentation Support Centre The CEJFE, from the very beginning of the implementation of the experiment, made different face-to-face and online services available to the CoPs, as support for the communities. The ones that proved to be most valuable to the CoPs were the following: a system of notices for new editions of online magazines; the publication of a monthly newsletter including the latest bibliographic news available in the library and a personalized newly published notification service for the leaders of each community, together with the publication of a monthly newsletter including the principal new publications both nationally and internationally appearing in different applications and news media on the professional activity in each field; and the topical exhibitions geared towards the interest of each community. All of these services have helped to make available to the people who part of the CoPs, all new knowledge being generated in their professional areas, in a quick and exhaustive way, allowing them to progress more rapidly in making their own knowledge contributions.
2.3.7. Use of New Internet Networking Tools As we have already touched upon in an earlier point, from the beginning the CoPs have availed of a collaborative working platform (e-Catalunya). Nevertheless, step by step, new tools and functions have been incorporated to improve on the most important points both in terms of creating and promoting the knowledge created. Just as the CoPs have been producing knowledge a need became clear to seek out adequate
tools to rapidly make available the knowledge created, and so that it was made available to the participants themselves as well as the different professional collectives. Table 3 contains the main tools that will be used; the kind of environment in which they are based, definition, practical tools and purposes for which they are used. In Table 3 we can see the kind of corporate environment (column A) in which it is based, the definition, description, and what type of use the tools have (columns B, C and D) Figure 1 allows us to obtain a more graphic representation of how the different aspects of the program are related. Using the contributions made by the different players (community of practice, external expertise, library, knowledge portal...), a workflow is produced, which may be direct, as for example with the external expertise or indirect contributions, the employee contributes in a way that feeds the community of practice, and by synthesising the debates knowledge capsules are produced which feed the database.
3. RESULTS As we have already set out in the previous section, in spite of the importance given to the CoPs and the benefits they can obtain, regarding them within the context of the Public Administration (Maragall, 2002), the methodology of implementation has been its Achilles heel. For one thing, the evidence shows us that the life-cycle of the CoP is short and successful case scenarios are few; another thing is that we find plenty of literature to alert us to specific factors to bear in mind if we are to be successful and overcome the organisational barriers in their implementation and survival (APCQ, 2006; Merino, 2007). According to the latest case studies published (APQC, 2006), based on a study of eight model cases, the success of the CoPs goes through five stages of evolution. For the context we are deal-
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Table 3. Tools for promotion and interaction through the Compartim Program (Source: Personally compiled based on information provided by www.gencat.cat/justicia/) A) Environments e-Catalunya platform
B) What are they? Collaborative working platform • File storage space • Communication tools
C) Tools • Document repository • Distribution list €€• Blog €€• Forum €€• Wikipage €€• Calendar €€• Photo album
D) Uses • File and search documents • 1st stage of collaborative work / also for public administration procedures • Clarify tacit knowledge • Topic-based discussion • Drawing up of a particular document • Activity diary • Group photo repository
Ministry of Justice intranet
Internal knowledge sharing
HTML pages
Revised internal CoP content
Ministry of Justice website
External knowledge sharing
HTML pages
Revised public CoP content
Internet repositories
Internet release (beyond the corporate channels like the Internet, SAC...)
• Flickr • YouTube • Sclipo • SideShare • Google Calendar • Google Docs • Blogger
• Photos • Videos • Presentation slides • Public diary calendar • Online office/web tools • Blogs (e-moderators, CEJFE):
Figure 1. Figure of the different Compartim program elements (Source: Adapted from Vasquez Bronfman, 2007)
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ing with, Merino (2007) – and also based on the SICAD project case study (IADE, 2005) – talks about three levels of maturity in the CoP. In this regard, and working from the distinctive evolution of the 15 CoPs launched, we find the factors related with success (13 of the CoPs established have survived and continue to produce knowledge) or failure (two have disappeared). For this purpose one of the criteria for success was considered to be the existence of positive values in four kinds of evaluation indicator which were described and used in previous experiences (IADE, 2006, Merino, 2007): the first of these are the production indicators which cover the number of knowledge products developed (one or more) and the number of times the professional collective consulted the products generated; the second are the process indicators formed by the number of hours of face-to-face and online work in the CoPs and the percentage of members of each professional collective in CoPs; then we have the impact indicators: incorporation and application by institutions of the products developed; and lastly there the quality indicators: high product quality (according to the perceived evaluation of the professional collective in question) and high product usefulness (according to the perceived evaluation of the professional collective in question). From Table 4 we can see (1) the different communities; (2) the number of products developed; (3) the volume of online consultations; (4) the average working hours, whether face-to-face or online, by the members of the community of practice; (5) the percentage of participants, taking as the % of active persons within each community (people who participate both face-to-face r through online contributions), against the total number of the entire community; (6) the impact, quantifying which communities develop products, which products institutions have taken on board, in the work section, the last two columns (7 and 8) based on data taken from surveys conducted among the e-moderators themselves and community members, which show us using a scale from 1 “zero
or very low” and 4 “highest or high” the quality and usefulness both of the working dynamics and the functioning of the different communities, in general, as well as the different working products in particular.
4. THE FACTORS INVOLVED As we have seen from the earlier tables, some communities manage to achieve good results according to the indicators described while others on the other hand fail to survive or remain inactive. From the comparative study of all the variables implied we believe that there are a limited number of factors which can explain this uneven evolution. Next, we will present the major ones grouped under three large areas that we will elaborate below: the first of these deals with the relation that exists between the characteristics of the professional groups implied and the eventual success; the second sets out a logical life-cycle for successful CoPs; and in the third markers are identified for the life cycles of the CoPs.
4.1. Characteristics of Professional Groups Involved Table 5 gives a combined presentation of these categories related against the professional collectives in which communities of practice were implemented. As can be seen, the combinations take in all possibilities – from professional collectives that have all four of the ideal conditions (archivists) to collectives that have very few of these conditions (juvenile justice social educators). The most significant characteristics are as follows: the size and the specialization of the professional group, the degree of organisational hierarchy, and the level of information and communication technology (ICT) implication. The classification derived from the size and specialization of the professional collective is highly significant. Labour specialization within the
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Table 4. Results obtained using four types of indicator (Source: Personally compiled based on data taken from surveys of the CoP moderators.) 1.Indicator
2.Production
3.Production
4.Process
5. Process
6.Impact
7.Quality (1)
8.Quality
Number of products
Number of consultations (on-line)
Number of work hours per month
Percentage of participants
Institutional incorporation of product
Perceived quality
Perceived usefulness
Psychologists
3
335
10
7%
X
3.02
-
Criminal lawyers
3
1869
10
27%
X
3.38
-
Teachers
-
-
-
21%
-
-
-
Art Instructors
2
1566
12
24%
X
3.13
Social educators in detention centres
4
6259
14
3%
X
-
-
Juvenile justice Open System professionals
1
1922
10
15%
X
-
-
Juvenile justice mediators
1
843
8
17%
X
3.41
3.30
Juvenile justice social educators
1
1778
12
21%
X
3.26
1.74
Juvenile justice legal advisors
1
174
8
15%
X
2.75
2.8
Legal librarians
2
3313
12
50%
50%
3.5
3.33
Legal archivists
2
7058
10
20%
20%
3.15
3.26
Linguistic facilitators
1
-
-
-
-
3.91
3.55
Family mediators
2
22055
15
-
X
3.41
3.30
Legal advisors for adults
2
1146
12
35%
X
3.38
2.91
Social workers
5
-
12
-
X
3.48
3.44
Table 5. Characteristics of the professional collectives involved (Source: Personally compiled based on data taken from evaluations of the CoPs.) Constant need for innovation and knowledge
Non-hierarchical structure
Small-scale professional collective
Psychologists
x
x
x
Criminal lawyers
x
Direct ICT links for carrying out work
x
Teachers
x
Art Instructors
x
x
Juvenile justice Open System professionals
x
x
Juvenile justice mediators
x
x
Social educators in detention centres
Juvenile justice social educators Juvenile justice legal advisors
x
x
x
Legal librarians
x
x
x
x
Legal archivists
x
x
x
x
x
x
Linguistic facilitators Family mediators Legal advisors for adults
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Public Administration is high. This specialization usually affects the majority of the professional collectives. In the final analysis, the size of the professional group has to do with the degree of specialization and with the level of demand for their services. In our experience of implementing communities of practice we have distinguished between professional groups consisting of less than 100 professionals (small) and professional groups of more than 100 professionals (large), with the hypothesis that the smallest professional groups tend to be more productive and to establish communities of practice with greater facility. The classification derived from the degree of obsolescence in the professional knowledge is based on the need to rapidly update the knowledge that the professional group is handling by virtue of its high obsolescence. In our case, the psychologists or criminal lawyers, or technical legal advisors, examples of professional groups that require constant updating of their knowledge in order to carry out their work. At the opposite end are the professional groups that have no need for continual updating of the knowledge they need for daily practice. These include, for example, the art instructors and social workers. The classification derived from the degree of organisational hierarchy is based on the existing disjunction hierarchical organized structures and non-hierarchical (flat) structures with greater autonomy. One of the most characteristic variables of the Public Administration is the prevalence of very pronounced hierarchical structures with very little autonomy (such as prison guards and police, for example) as opposed to other collectives, like teachers or librarians, less subject to hierarchy and having greater autonomy in executing their professional tasks. Last of all, the classification derived from the level of information and communication technology (ICT) implication. One of the distinctive elements of the modern public administration lies in the level at which ICT is implicated in order to carry out their work. Beyond the office tools,
which are necessary for all professional collectives, there are working specialties that could not be performed without specific IT applications. This is the case, for instance, for librarians and legal archivists. But then there are other work collectives that can carry out their work without having need of them, such as educators and social workers.
4.2. Community of Practice Life-Cycle Communities of practice (CoPs) have become one of the methods implemented with the greatest success for developing Knowledge Management projects for organisations. Nevertheless, the CoP concept has come a long way since its birth in the 90s. E. Wenger (1998) was the most influential author, the one inspired the specific working methods that even today are to be found in the majority of applied case studies. Widespread use of this technology triggered the evolution of earlier setups by enabling new configuration formulas and broadening its spectrum, crossing boundaries that had held fast till now, such as time and space. Certainly, through maximizing the technological factor expectations have been vastly increased as regards the benefits to be got from such communities as a tool for production and learning. In any event, and even while expectations remain high, communities of practice do not invariably take hold in the same way within an organisation. Some have notable success while others unfortunately disappear over time without ever meeting most of the expectations they had originally prompted. If we focus on the first group of CoPs, the ones that have worked best, it’s possible to draw some conclusions about their behaviour and evolution in the public organisation area. In particular, from our experience and our analysis, we can derive a model that attempts to capture the standard lifecycle for communities of practice in the Public Administration context. What we are dealing with
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here is a rather pattern of evolution demonstrated by the CoPs in this particular kind of context. According to this model, the natural and standard evolution of a community of practice in the Public Administration environment passes through the following phases: it begins by identifying itself with a seedling community, then morphs into a developing community before entering a consolidation phase, and finally transforms into a mature community of practice. Strictly speaking, during the initial stage, that of the seedling community of practice, a group of people may well have some trouble in considering themselves a real community of practice. They are rather a proto-community of practice. This refers to a collection of enthusiasts concerned with the problems that arise in their day-to-day work, ones who are willing to find answers in the work practices of their own colleagues, yet which are never articulated, nor do they in any way act so as bring about this transfer of knowledge between one another. And while this is not how they go about it, they posses in their attitude what will later germinate to form a community of practice. This group of persons, with the back-up of a series of certain cultural and organisational factors, move into a subsequent stage by establishing themselves as a developing community of practice. At this point we now begin to find ourselves before a bonafide CoP. In this second stage, the group of people that make up this community starts to express itself as a group and being to share problems and solutions derived from their individual daily working practices. The leader figure, or the internal e-moderator, also begins to emerge during this stage as the one who articulates the discussions taking place between the members, if however the knowledge exchange meetings tend to happen face-to-face without following any preset agenda. Once this group of people starts to get and apply in their daily working practice some of the knowledge benefits which they get through participating in the group, at the same time as they
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receive the proper official support, they enter a third stage or phase which we can call a consolidated community of practice. In this third stage, the leader or e-moderator has been assigned a clear series of responsibilities, while each member has assumed the role he or she has to play in the discussions, they have a shared calendar of faceto-face meetings, and, also have the appropriate IT environment for maintaining discussions and the exchange of knowledge by means of virtual strategies. During this phase, obtaining quality results significantly reinforces the proper functioning of the community, and this in turn acts as a self-evident factor in the organisation’s cohesion. The final phase normally demonstrated by the CoPs in the Public Administration context is when it reaches maturity. Just as it happens with the seedling community of practice, strictly speaking a mature community of practice cannot be considered as genuine community of practice. In this final stage, the community itself, being now firmly consolidated, becomes invisible and devolves into the daily processes of public administration. We are no longer dealing with a separate reference group of people involved in discussion and the creation of knowledge products which then revert to the community in a certain way; in this phase it is the organisation itself that act as a greater community of practice that in the daily development of their processes naturally absorbs strategies spun from the communities of practice. To put t another way, the community of practice ceases to be an internal point of reference within the organisation: it dissolves and is absorbed as a significant part of the DNA of the organisation itself.
4.3. Indicators for Classifying Communities Like we have seen, there is a model that attempts to capture the standard life-cycle for successful communities of practice in the Public Administration context.
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Following the same line of argument, for each one of the integral phases in this community life cycle it’s possible to identify a series of characteristics and indicators that would permit us to visualise and identify what state a particular community of practice has evolved into within the four-phase model of development. These characteristics or indicators are focused on the following aspects: characteristics of the professional group, collaborative work process and knowledge production, institutional facilitators and external support elements. Let’s begin by describing the first phase of evolution: the seedling community of practice. On the one hand, the main defining characteristics of the professional are a high level of institutional commitment among its members, a concern for the problems that arise from day-to-day in their jobs and the prior existence of many proposals for innovation and improvement. On the other hand, as regards the collaborative work and knowledge production process, the emphasis should be place on giving a positive evaluation to this work, and the willingness to find answers in the daily working practice of the own colleagues. Also, however, on the lack of coordination for this knowledge transfer to happen between them and an absence of collective knowledge production. Broadly speaking, institutional facilitators are characterised by their lack of workplace or institutional conflict. And lastly, as for the elements of external support, there is a notable lack of a leader or e-moderator that might coordinate the entire process of creation and promotion of this collective knowledge. Let’s now move on to the second phase: the developing community of practice. On the one hand, the principal characteristics that define a professional group continue to have a high degree of commitment to the institution among its members, a concern for the problems that arise from day-today in their jobs and the prior existence of many proposals for innovation and improvement. Along with these characteristics we must add an adequate
level (higher than 15% of the total professional collective) of members directly implicated in the CoPs. This plus, with regard to the collaborative work and knowledge production process, and the willingness to find answers in the daily working practice of the own colleagues, coordination so that this knowledge transfer happens between them, and the beginnings of collective knowledge production and promotion. In their area, institutional facilitators are also characterised by their lack of workplace or institutional conflict, and also for having a formal and internal policy of incentives and for having encounters for the exchange of knowledge that are normally face-to-face and are not usually part of preset calendar. And lastly, as for the elements of external support, there is a notable leader or e-moderator to coordinate the entire process of creation and promotion of this collective knowledge. In the third phase or stage, the consolidated community of practice, some changes take place affecting certain indicators. On the one hand, the main characteristics that define the professional group are basically the same ones that define the community of practice while under construction. For one thing, as regards the process of collaborative work and knowledge production, the outstanding changes are the ones focused around the consolidation of production and promotion among the professional collective of the knowledge products developed and knowledge application in the organisation. In the area of institutional facilitators, the progress is mainly in the availability of a formal policy of incentives spread throughout the organisation, in face-toface meetings for exchanging knowledge, which take place according to a preset calendar, and also the availability of a virtual environment in order to facilitate the creation and promotion of collective knowledge. Lastly, with regard to the external support elements, there is a notable leader or e-moderator to coordinate the entire process of creation and promotion of collective knowledge, and there is also an external facilitator figure pres-
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ent within the CoP. The facilitator may act either as a methodology or coordination expert, or as a knowledge expert in the actual subject on which the community of practice is working. Lastly, in its mature stage, the community of practice displays some characteristics very similar to those we find in the consolidation phase. The main difference in this stage is that both the factors relating to the professional group, collaborative work and knowledge production processes, the institutional facilitators and the external support elements are fully integrated within the culture and working processes coordinated by the organisation itself.
5. GUIDE FOR IMPLEMENTING SUCCESSFULLY COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE For the purpose of the implementation guide we have taken into account both the factors involved and the proper timeframe for implementation. We have used as a basis the contributions made by Merino (2007) and Mcdemord (2007) and have adapted it for our own experience.
5.1 Factors Involved in Success and Timeframe Guideline for Implementation Contrary to how it may have seemed at the beginning, communities of practice do not normally improve in how they work, become a good strategy for creating and sharing knowledge when they develop on the periphery of any kind of organisational involvement in them. Our study allows us to conclude that, in a special kind of way, in the context of the Public Administration, it is necessary for the organisation to take a series of decisions and become involved in order to guarantee the correct functioning and survival of the communities of practice. This involvement and decision-making by the organi-
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sation are success factors in order to design and adequately implement a community network in a public organisation. In Table 6 we have gather the main implied variables for success and their implementation timeframe. Based on the adaptation of Table 6 (Merino, 2007) we see the different stages with specific involvement for the implementation of the CoPs. In the first, that of the identification (Steps 1 to 7) concerns the factors for the context and the objectives; the second stage (from 8 to 12) deals with the design, including both the knowledge management model that is to be implemented, as well as the people and/or the structures involved; we then enter the construction phase (steps 13 and 14) and implementation (from 15 to 19) adjustments are made while training and awareness processes take place; lastly, once we have overcome all these stages, we come to improvements (steps 20 to 24), for which an analysis is conducted on the results and some reflection is given to our objectives.
5.2. Success Factors The previous success factors can be gathered under two major categories: the reactive success factors (or “pull” success factors) and the proactive success factors (the “push” success factors). The reactive success factors (or “pull” success factors) are decisions and organisational involvement not implemented within the CoP, but which are intended to accompany and serve as support for the correct functioning of the CoPs. The proactive success factors (the “push” success factors) are, on the other hand, consist of organisational decisions and interventions implemented at the core of the CoP and which are designed to favour the correct development and functioning of the CoPs. Let’s begin by introducing the reactive success factors (or “pull” success factors) that we have managed to draw from our analysis. Between this special type of success factor, we should highlight the following: first of all, it is important to give
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Table 6. (Source: Table compiled by www.gencat.cat/justicia/) Identification 1
Think about the existence of a culture of information exchange within the organisation
2
Define the functional specifications for the technology in advance
3
Identify critical practices by their interest or impact (selection criteria)
4
Identify dynamic groups as a first collective (with a sharing culture)
5
Definition by consensus of the objectives to reach and the specific results expected
6
Insure the alignment of the CoP objectives with those of business
7
Institutional support to insist on compliance with the objectives.
Design 8
Put forward a simple model for key tasks, roles and classification (which can be structured by modules and on different scales)
9
Define the functional specifications ahead of the technology
10
Specify the responsibilities and of each CoP member as well as certain profiles
11
Search for representative (key players) and executive (support technicians) profiles
12
Link up wherever possible to structures that may bring information to the CoP
Construcción 13
Transfer functional specifications to the technological arena looking for applications
14
Align them with the maturity of the CoP, avoiding an exclusive overloading of the system
Implementation 15
Define the pilot actions in order to check their usefulness
16
Consolidate implementation before making new specific requirements
17
Make use of technical support to adjust the specifications according to new requirements
18
Promote the system and share knowledge about its functionality
19
Make use of call-centre technical support
Improvements 20
Analysis of the results from the indicators provided in the model
21
Community, Employee, Organisation and Business impact indicators
22
Feedback and decision-making
23
Considering new CoP goals
24
Determining the progress rate in terms of the CoP’s maturity
preference to the implementation of a CoP only in those contexts where there previously exists a collective of enthusiasts towards the community project, those at whose centre there is living and breathing culture of sharing and exchange, and above all those in which there exists no kind of present or future working conflict. This last condition is of the most important factors that will assist the proper development of the community. And, in second place, on the other hand, certain institutional
commitments must be made to support the correct evolution of the community itself. Among these, aside from making it available for use in the CoP, the internal information services (especially the library), from the perspective of the organisation management, there must be an implicit commitment to recognise the results of the community, through an annual analysis of those results, and internal and external sharing of the products and the analysis. An important part of that sharing lies in planning
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regular workshops. The mission behind these workshops is to spread and transmit among the entire professional collective the new knowledge that it has available. In addition they normally include an opening section led by an external expert and the opportunity is taken to discover proposals for new knowledge to develop in the future within the community. These are programmed at the end of each cycle in the knowledge management process and usually take place once a year. To conclude, we now move on to the proactive success factors (the “push” success factors) that we have drawn from our analysis. For this purpose, for example, so as t ensure that the CoPs develop properly it is necessary to guarantee that the goals that the community is pursuing are aligned with those of the actual organisation. On the other hand, it is imperative for there to be institutional support to ensure these goals are met. The second of the “push” success factors shows us that in order to ensure that a community of practice is successful, two important measures should be implemented, at least during the initial phase. For one thing, it is ital to have the participation of an external expert to introduce and consolidate a methodology for discussion to ensure that knowledge is created and captured. The other point is that it s important during this phase to plan out face-to-face meetings and not restrict oneself exclusively to working online. That initial face-to-face interaction ensures cohesion and provides the mechanisms that will enable the subsequent online work. The possibility to work in virtual space does not automatically generate new knowledge. Only in those communities in which there previously exists cohesion and shared interests will the online work bear interesting fruits. The third group of factors relate to training. Based on our experience we have discovered that it is critically necessary to train community members on two fronts: in information literacy and in communication techniques. Without this training, the e-moderator and the community members will not be able to take full advantage of the potential of the virtual platform. And lastly,
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the fourth group of success factors is centred in the human resources of the communities. On this point, for one, we have discovered the need to implement a policy of incentives. In particular, the Public Administration needs to introduce a public and transparent policy of incentives to assist in the proper running of the project. Another things is that it process extremely counter-productive to force and to demand that an individual participates in a community unless he or she demonstrates a certain enthusiasm towards it, likewise to allow people not entirely suitable to the project to take over as e-moderators. And finally, it is also imperative to define the responsibilities of each member of the organisation and to attempt to obtain a particular knowledge product that is useful and dynamic.
5.3. Summary of the Key Aspects to be Generalised to Other Public Administrations Table 7 presents the main factors involved in the success of the CoPs of the Compartim programme that would allow it to be generalised to other spheres of the Public Administration. The first column shows the chronological order of the stages of implementation, consolidation and acceleration (the stage where we have grouped together the factors that differentially explain greater and quicker success between the differing groups); and the second column shows the differing factors involved in each phase or stage.
6. CONCLUSION From the experience of this project, we have managed to draw a series of interesting conclusions, while we have also been able to learn a number of lessons that can easily be applied to the majority of community of practice projects that are implemented in the Public Administration context. These conclusions and lessons have been grouped into two large sections. On one side we
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Table 7. The main factors involved in the success of the CoPs of the Compartim programme 1st Phase of Implementation • Linking of the initiative to soft levels (training departments, etc.) • Upward organisational implementation. • Provision of organisational leadership figures of the professional group (e-moderator) and the stewardship of the CoP (coordinator). • Financial and technological demanded and in line with the real progress of the project. 2nd Phase of Consolidation • Policy of incentives adapted to the needs of the participants and the possibilities of the organisation. Growth and expansion of the CoPs in an independent manner in accordance with each organisational sphere (not single orientation). • Socialisation of the knowledge and of people by means of the institutionalisation of Good Practice Seminars. • Reinforcement of the CoPs with external knowledge (experts and/ documentation centres and library) 3rd Phase of Acceleration • Good working environment • The need for the professional group to update more frequently the knowledge they have in order to do their work. • Small and medium sized professional groups (less than 100 people) and not very hierarchical. • Linking of TICs in their daily work.
shall speak about those related to the difficulties of the implementation of this working methodology in public spheres and, on the other, those more specifically related to the evolution and consolidation of the CoPs. In the first of the sections, that referring to the difficulties of implementation of communities in the Public Administration, we can point out the following elements as key factors. In the first place, the project has a greater guarantee of success if it is linked to units that are not direct management. In our case, on being driven by a training centre, it contributes to being perceived as a friendly proposal and an improvement similar to proposals for qualification. In the second place, to adopt a strategy of promotion of CoPs from the bottom upwards contributed to generating more acceptance than if it had been a project driven from senior management. In the third place, to reinforce the influence and growth of the CoP by means of two key organisational figures: the e-moderators as leaders of professional groups and the coordinator of the sphere (godfather) as a bridge figure between the CoP and the Management. Finally, the flexibility of implementation and the adaptation of the project to each organisational sphere must be mentioned.
In so far as that which refers to the second group of conclusions, specifically referring to the internal factors, we have gathered these up into four conclusions that we shall explain below. The first of those conclusions is related with the life-cycle model of the CoPs, and in particular with its end phase, that is, the mature stage. The absence of this kind of community may be clearly explained: to combine the functioning of the communities of practice with the actual processes of the organisation requires some significant cultural and value changes. And, in a particular way, in the public organisations, the introduction of these changes is particularly slow. The second idea shows us that in order to ensure that a community of practice is successful, it must implemented in collectives free of work conflicts, or internal promotion processes pending an outcome. Our experience leads us to say that by failing to respect this condition leads the community to failure by necessity. Our third conclusion leads us to insist again that at least during the initial phase it is compulsory for a participating external expert to train community members in the methodological points necessary for it to function correctly. Along the same lines, we must state that within training in the area of information literacy and in communication
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techniques, the results that might otherwise be obtained from the community are clearly reduced. The fourth idea centres around the need for face-to-face meetings and the existence of an incentive policy. Because of its special nature, it is necessary in the Public Administration to establish face-to-face (not just virtual) meetings and to introduce a public and transparent policy of incentives to assist the project in functioning well. Lastly, we must also highlight an important fact that we may draw from our project. The implementation if the communities is provoking a double beneficial effect at the heart of the Public Administration. For one thing, it is streamlining the professional collectives that make them up. Gradually, based on the creation and spread of the new knowledge derived from the communities, the members of these collectives follow a more standardised and better quality daily working practice. On the other hand, due to the development of the communities of practice an increase is being seen in the institutional commitment of its members and a better perception of the internal logic of the organisation. In this context, when they come to share knowledge people acquire a better and greater comprehension of the majority of the processes and strategies that come about at the core of the organisation, which therefore entails a better perception of it and of its personal location within this organisational environment.
REFERENCES APQC. (2006). Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice. Retrieved June 15, 2008 from http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/ksn?paf_ gear_id=contentgearhome&paf_dm=full&page select=detail&docid=108356 Chesbrough, H. (2003). Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Collison, C., & Parcel, G. (2001). Learning to Fly. Oxford: Capstone. 440
Generalitat of Catalonia. (2007). QueEseCatalunya. Retrieved June 15, 2008 from http:// ecatalunya.gencat.net/portal/faces/public/quecat/, 15-06-2008. IADE. (2005). Documentos Intellectus. La Gestión de los Activos Intangibles en la Administración Pública, Núm. 8. Madrid: Centro de Investigacion sobre la Sociedad del Conocimiento. Juan i Serra, M. (2004). E-Government i gestió del coneixement. Barcelona: UOC. Maragall, E. (2002). Las comunidades de práctica como experiencia formativa para la mejora de las Administraciones Públicas. Lisboa. Paper presented at VII Congreso Internacional del CLAD sobre la reforma del Estado y de la Administración Pública. Merino, C. (2007). Factores de éxito en comunidades de práctica. Paper presented at the II Jornada de Gestió del Coneixement del Departament de Justícia de la Generalitat of Catalonia. Retrieved June 14, 2008 from http://www20. gencat.cat/docs/Justicia/Documents/ARXIUS/ cmerino_%20cop_factores_clave_de_exito.pdf Pérez-Montoro, M., & Martínez, J. (2007). Enabling Knowledge Creation in Judicial Environments: The Case of Catalonia‘s Public Administration. In Martin, B. & Remeny, D. (Eds.), ECKM 2007. 8th European Conference on Knowledge Management (Vol. 2, pp. 766-773). London: Academic Conferences Limited Reading. Pérez-Montoro, M., & Martínez, J. (2008). Success Factors of Communities of Practice in Public Administration: the Case of Catalonia’s Government. In K. O’Sullivan (Ed.), (2008). ICICKM 2008. 5th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning (Vol. 2, pp. 407-414). London: Academic Conferences Limited Reading. Peters, T. J. (2006). Re-Imagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age. New York: Dorling Kindersley Adult.
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Roulleaux Duage, M. (2008). Organisation 2.0. Le Konewledge managament nouvelle génération. Paris: Eyrolles. Surowiecki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business. New York: Doubleday. Vasquez Bronfman, S. (2007). The Launching of a Knowledge Management Project in a Public Administration. Vienna, paper presented at the 8th EDINEB Conference. Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of Practice: the Organisational Frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139–145.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS E-Moderator: A person who, within each community of practice and their virtual collaboration environment, is responsible for motivating and supervising interventions made by its members, as well as organising knowledge resulting from these discussions. The professional profile of the e-moderator has to comply with a series of characteristics, among which the following are the most important: an individual that represents the community and has leadership qualities, participates in the institutional project, is respected and has influence in the community, possesses good communication abilities, is familiar with work in technical environments, and who is committed to advancing knowledge in his professional area. Best Practices Seminar: Face-to-face meetings held among all community members for the
purpose of sharing and transmitting to the entire professional collective whatever available new knowledge has been developed by the community itself. These are normally programmed at the end of each cycle in the Knowledge Management process and normally take place once a year. They are normally completed by including the intervention of an expert in the area that this new knowledge deals with. The expert is asked to comment on the contributions made by the community. And to round off this seminar, suggestions are normally collected for new subjects for future development by that community. Platform for Creating and Developing Virtual Communities: Technological platform enabling the community development within a virtual collaboration environment. Normally variable and versatile platform systems that enable communities or work groups to chose what tools to use according to their needs. In a more technical way, this type of computer environment allow the possibility of developing an important part of the main strategies involved in Knowledge Management. So, for example, while they permit us to develop a series of actions for managing explicit knowledge (using systems of presentation and protocol). On the other hand, they also offer the possibility to manage tacit knowledge (suing synchronous and asynchronous socialisation strategies). To offer this range of possibilities, this kind of platform normally incorporates a series of tools that can be activated or not according to the interest of the community: a photo album, blog, calendar, a file container, forum, mailing list, participation process management system, and a wikipedia page. Life Cycle of Communities Of Practice in the Public Administration: Standard life cycle, more or less generalised, typically shown by communities of practice in public body environments. Usually, according to this cycle, the natural standard evolution of a community of practice in this type of environment goes through the following stages: it begins as a seed community, turning
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into a developing community, before entering a stage of consolidation, and then finally becomes a mature community of practice. Seed Community of Practice: First stage of the life cycle of a community in the Public Administration context. Strictly speaking, during the initial stage, that of the seedling community of practice, a group of people may well have some trouble in considering themselves a real community of practice. They are rather a protocommunity of practice. This refers to a collection of enthusiasts concerned with the problems that arise in their day-to-day work, ones who are willing to find answers in the working practices of their own colleagues, yet which are never articulated, nor do they in any way act so as bring about this transfer of knowledge between one another. And while this is not how they go about it, they posses in their attitude what will later germinate to form a community of practice. Developing Community of Practice: The second stage in the life cycle of a community in the Public Administration context. This is a genuine community of practice. The people who form this community as a group begin to articulate themselves as a group and start to share problems and solutions derived from their own daily working practice. During this stage a leader figure or internal e-moderator will emerge to coordinate the discussions that open among members, while the knowledge exchange meetings are normally face-to-face and do not correspond with a previously set calendar. Consolidated Community of Practice: Third stage or phase of the community life cycle in the Public Administration context. In this third stage, the leader or e-moderator has been assigned a clear series of responsibilities, while each member has assumed the role he or she has to play in the discussions, they have a shared calendar of faceto-face meetings and also have the appropriate IT environment for maintaining discussions and the exchange of knowledge by means of virtual strategies. During this phase, obtaining quality
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results significantly reinforces the proper functioning of the community, and this in turn acts as an self-evident factor in the organisation’s cohesion. Mature Community of Practice: Fourth and final stage in the life cycle of a community in the Public Administration context. Just as it happens with the seedling community of practice, strictly speaking a mature community of practice cannot be considered as genuine community of practice. In this final stage, the community itself, being now firmly consolidated, becomes invisible and devolves into the daily processes of administration. We are no longer dealing with a separate reference group of people involved in discussion and the creation of knowledge products which then revert to the community in a certain way, in this phase it is the organisation itself that act as a greater community of practice that in the daily development of their processes naturally absorbs strategies spun from the communities of practice. To put t another way, the community of practice ceases to be an internal point of reference within the organisation: it dissolves and is absorbed as a significant part of the DNA of the organisation itself. Knowledge Problems in the Public Administration: Knowledge presents us with a number of problems in this kind of context. On the one hand, it is typical that there exists no clear context that facilitates the creation of new knowledge. On the other hand, the bulk of that knowledge is to exclusively found in the head of the professionals who have developed it from their day-to-day practice, and so typically not to be found in any of the usual types of documentary support (mainly paper or electronic file). This lack of record brings about a situation where this knowledge is scattered geographically, having no real structure, and resistant to any kind of documentary treatment. Nor do training plans reach all members of the collective included in that context in the same way. And lastly, derived from all of the above, this knowledge is to be found encapsulated in an almost exclusive way in the persons who possess it, being instantly accessible only in a fragmentary, hardly exhaustive way.
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Chapter 24
Growing the eLIDA CAMEL Community of Practice Case Study Jill Jameson The University of Greenwich, UK
ABSTRACT This chapter outlines key design features that may be necessary to ‘grow’ a successful intentionally designed community of practice (CoP) in education. Prior research on communities of practice (CoPs) has emphasised their benefits for knowledge management and the relative difficulties involved in ‘managing’ CoPs, given that such communities are frequently conceptualised as self-organizing entities. The chapter reports on reflections from the JISC-funded (2006-08) eLIDA CAMEL project, which created a community of practice in education based on the CAMEL CoP model imported from a Uruguayan selfhelp farming group and adapted by JISC infoNet and ALT (2005-06). The chapter provides a case study of a successful inter-institutional CoP and recommends that certain indispensable design features may be necessary to ‘grow’ CoPs, including sufficiency of duration of the community, limitations in shared focus, collaborative planning, expert leadership/ facilitation, an emphasis on building trust, explicating tacit knowledge and social networking in a framework fostering practitioner expertise.
INTRODUCTION The explosive proliferation of activity within social networking sites on the internet during the first decade of the twenty-first century has, arguably, simultaneously been stimulated by and has given DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch024
further impetus to the concept of ‘social learning’ in education. Accelerating global interest in social networking was recorded in recent statistics on the predicted active memberships of around 230 million people participating worldwide in social network sites by the close of 2007, although such growth was expected to flatten out by 2012 (Datamonitor, 2007). A growing educational em-
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phasis on informal learning from and with peer group members both on-line and face-to-face has emerged during the past few decades, in addition to the continuing traditional foci of scholarly interest in individualised academic study and teacher-led classroom instruction. An unprecedented growth in electronic social interaction has occurred with the recent advent of social networking environments such as Facebook, Twitter, Del.icio.us, LinkdIn, MySpace, and around 200 others. Increasing attention during this period has also been given to the way in which people interactively participate in situated learning experiences, working with others in informal communities in the workplace. Albert Bandura’s influential social cognitive theory of human behaviour, and the related concepts of agency and self-efficacy (1973, 1986, 2001) have provided an authoritative psychological background of evidence to inform emerging trends towards increased recognition of the power of learning in informal social networks. Bandura transcended the environmental imperatives characteristic of behavioural learning theory to place greater emphasis on the way in which humans possess proactive agency to change their lives, learning from each other through observation, imitation and the modelling of behaviours in social situations. The concept of ‘social learning’ is also linked with the ideas of Vygotsky regarding learning through social development (1962, 1978) and the situated learning theories of Lave and Wenger (1991). The ‘turn’ towards social learning theories which had commenced in the earlier twentieth century accelerated rapidly towards the end of the century with the advent of new ideas regarding the importance of the community in which learners find themselves. Lave and Wenger developed the idea of a community of practice (CoP) in their pioneering book on situated learning (1991). They defined a CoP as a group of practitioners who, sharing a passion for a common interest, are committed to improve knowledge and skill and to solve problems by
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collaborating together to share understandings in this field (1991). Researchers Lave and Wenger outlined, in effect, a new relational concept of learning. They emphasised a socio-cultural interpretation of the way in which humans learn by engaging in shared, situated knowledge about improvements in practice through collaborative participation in like-minded communities, many of which always emerge naturally as informal, self-organizing entities in which spontaneous social learning in a particular practices takes place (1991). Communities of practice exist everywhere, therefore, and have multiple different kinds of interests that provide the focus within the community for the ‘practice’ that their members share, which can be anything from a desire to learn about breeding aardvarks to a passion for playing the zurna. The ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ of newcomers at the edge of such communities is gradually enfolded towards the centre, as the learning of ‘newbies’ slowly develops through continuing socio-cultural relationships with ‘oldtimer’ experts who pass on their accumulated expertise. The concept of the CoP, with its three key aspects of domain, community and practice (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002) has increasingly gained prominence in the field of knowledge management (KM) and organisational learning (OL) theory: a worldwide growth in research on knowledge management, CoPs, organisational learning, organisational storytelling and related fields has subsequently occurred (Wilson, 2002). CoPs are distinguished from ‘communities of interest’ or ‘information’, in that they are dedicated to the development of improvements in practice within the domain of shared knowledge. The community builds a ‘shared repertoire’ (Wenger, 1998) of knowledge that includes collaborative understandings about informal knowledge and resources developed within the community outside of the formal hierarchies of organisations. A CoP is therefore more than a community that simply
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happens to share some social links or ideas, and it is also different from a management-organised professional network, as a CoP extends itself in democratic socio-professional and/or sociocultural ways, beyond, through and around any formally set up organisational groups. It is, therefore, not usually appropriate to ‘manage’ CoPs in ‘top-down’ ways, but normally the community naturally acquires for itself one or more leaders of the community who emerge from within the domain of practice. Building on the above prior research on CoPs and, further, on research and practice on e-learning in face-to-face and online communities, JISC infoNet and the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) designed a project in 2005-06 to pilot a new model for a community of practice in the domain of e-learning in UK higher and further education. The project was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England Leadership, Governance and Management Fund (HEFCE LGMF) and was called CAMEL (Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning). This unusual name highlighted aspects of the project that coincided effectively with popular understandings of the beneficial role of camels in desert communities: for example, the suitability of these animals for a nomadic existence travelling between community oases, due to their legendary abilities to withstand temperature changes and go without water for long periods. The symbolic CAMEL or ‘ship of the desert’ metaphor for the CoP being designed also serendipitously drew on ideas that related to the herd-like behaviour, relative friendliness, rugged durability, reliability, sustainability and low cost upkeep of these animals. The CAMEL CoP model was designed and successfully trialled, achieving all outputs successfully (JISC infoNet, 2006). The CAMEL CoP model was then further refined in a newly designed JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) funded eLIDA (e-Learning Independent Design Activities) CAMEL project led by the
University of Greenwich, in which the role of a ‘critical friend’ was added to further stimulate and foster socio-professional e-learning practice through shared critique (Jameson, 2008a, 2008b). The eLIDA CAMEL (e-Learning Independent Design Activities for Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning) project collected individual and collaborative case studies over a period of around 18 months. These indicated that shared understandings about learning technology innovations could be fostered in beneficial ways to improve knowledge management and practitioner effectiveness in individual institutions that participated collectively in an intentional community of practice. This chapter provides a case study example of this successful inter-institutional CoP, reflecting on the reasons why the eLIDA CAMEL project group came together as a community effectively over a period of two years to create practitioner design for learning (D4L) sequences in LAMS (Learner Activity Management Systems) and Moodle course management system. The extent to which intentional e-learning communities of practice can be designed and nurtured in education is considered within this analysis. The chapter recommends that some key features are also ‘critical success factors’ (CSFs) necessary for CoPs to be successful, including sufficiency of duration, limitations in the size and focus of the community, collaborative forward planning and expert facilitation and design. Indispensable elements in the CAMEL model were found to be a strong emphasis on the building of trust in the community, on processes to facilitate the articulation of tacit knowledge and on fostering effective social networking. The organizational, social and technological insights that emerged from both the eLIDA CAMEL and the CAMEL CoP project are outlined within the chapter, as are the key factors and limitations involved in the effective planning, design and implementation of an intentional or ‘designed’ CoP.
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BACKGROUND The CAMEL project was set up in 2005-06, funded by HEFCE’s Leadership, Governance and Management Programme. The project was led by JISC infoNet and supported by ALT, JISC and the Higher Education Academy (Ferrell & Kelly, 2006; JISC infoNet 2006; Kelly & Riachi 2006). The innovative CAMEL model for an elearning community of practice has, since then, increasingly gained prominence across the UK in numerous e-learning contexts. The model has been outstandingly successful, spawning more than 20 different new applications of CAMEL since it began to report results in 2006.
Origins of the JISC infoNet CAMEL The CAMEL project originated from the work of Seb Schmoller, Chief Executive of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT; Schmoller, 2008). CAMEL was built from an exemplar provided by a Uruguayan farming self-help group. This group comprised eight farmers who met monthly, visiting each other’s farms to share and develop improvements and solve problems in agricultural practice. The ‘know how’ of the farmers was shared collaboratively with the help of an expert facilitator, notes were taken of the meetings held and follow-up events were organised in partnership. A commitment to collaborative learning and honest critique about improvements in practice was gradually established as trust developed within the group. During each visit, partners toured the farm, met as a work group, shared meals and informal social events involving their wives and families, and, in the course of each visit, shared proactive critique in a truthful way, to help improve agricultural practice. The CAMEL CoP project founded on this approach set up: (1) a collaborative PID (Project Initiation Document) that established the community ground rules and ethics; (2) detailed minutes of visits to record outcomes; (3) regular, organised facilita-
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tion by an expert; (4) formal evaluation; (5) an emphasis on tacit knowledge and mechanisms to share understandings of ‘know-how’ within the group (JISC infoNet, 2006).
Following up the CoP Model in the JISC eLIDA CAMEL The above CAMEL model was imported into the JISC-funded eLIDA CAMEL project during 200607. The eLIDA CAMEL, led by the University of Greenwich, merged key aspects of CAMEL with the JISC-funded eLISA (e-Learning Independent Study Award project, 2005-06) led by Greenwich (Jameson, Ferrell, Kelly, Walker and Ryan, 2006). Supported by ALT and JISC infoNet, the eLIDA CAMEL team, or ‘community’ of this CoP, brought together all original CAMEL institutional partners (Loughborough College, Leeds College of Technology, the Universities of Greenwich and Staffordshire) to build jointly on the existing CoP structure and relationships that had already formed in CAMEL. To these original partners within the community were added partners from three institutions that had worked previously with Greenwich on the eLISA project: Barnet College, Dartford Grammar School and Greenwich Community College. The ‘community’ therefore comprised 16 people from the eight organisations (five institutions for data collection, plus three supportive organisations) that formed the core project team, plus 12 individuals within a wider community of those mentored by project team members, and around 100 students who participated in various project activities. The eLIDA CAMEL was designed to test the CAMEL CoP model for a second time, aiming to investigate whether the model would continue to be productive when applied to the work of design for learning practitioners. The project was successful, completing its work in December 2007 and collecting 21 case studies (including 13 narrative case studies by eleven teachers and eight collaborative case studies), 101 student responses
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and a D4L data collection comprising learning activity sequences, surveys and reports. Activity sequences that had been tested by practitioners in different institutional settings were brought together into the CAMEL CoP, supported by a critical friend, Professor Mark Stiles of Staffordshire University, to help practitioners reflect on, synthesise and disseminate D4L developments. The ‘practice’ element of the project was therefore active pedagogic engagement in the trialling and sharing of effective practices in design for learning by this community of higher and further education practitioners in London, the South East, Leeds and Loughborough using LAMS V1.1, V2 and Moodle, with a brief consideration of RELOAD.
The Domain and Practice of the Community To reflect its origins, the eLIDA CAMEL project was structured into two main components which provided the focus of the general ‘domain’ of design for learning of this community: (1) Pedagogic domain: the eLIDA aspect focused on design for learning pedagogic evaluation, including the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of D4L activities by individual practitioners; and (2) Social domain: the CAMEL aspect focused on the collaborative social face-to-face and on-line e-learning community activities. Collaborative processes undertaken included reporting on practitioner’s use of D4L in shared activities using the CAMEL model. These two aspects of the domain of the eLIDA CAMEL community of practice were interwoven within all activities comprising the practice of the community. The practice of the community was recorded in a series of case studies. The eLIDA CAMEL practitioner case studies were designed to capture data in such a way that the context in which the teachers were working was made transparent, through the collection of teachers’ detailed experiences of learning design activities and their impact on learning and teaching practice
in the classroom. The aspects of learning design as practice covered by these ‘rich’ case studies comprised: firstly, the context of the case being reported. This included the subject areas and topics being taught by teachers, the age and level of their students; whether their lessons were new or redesigned from existing plans; the settings in which teachers were operating, including the use of classroom delivery, on-line learning, distance learning, or a blend of different modes; and the individual differences among students, for example, their abilities, learning styles, and linguistic skills. Secondly, the case studies considered the initial expectations of teachers regarding their students’ achievements and/or the benefits teachers anticipated were likely to accrue through the use of the chosen learning design tool: for example, teachers’ aims to motivate students, structure learning, achieve specific teaching goals or support flexible delivery. Thirdly, the studies covered the design processes and tools used by teachers, including the starting-point of the design for learning, the learning outcomes, assessment criteria, content and specific activities and the tools used; the differences envisaged from their usual approach; what was gained or lost by using LAMS or Moodle and the guidance that teachers had received from their mentors. Fourthly, the studies collected and analysed the learning outcomes intended by teachers, including both outcomes and assessment criteria. Fifthly, they collected the kind of learning activities that were involved in teachers’ designs for learning, including their rationale for the activities chosen and the overall format of the lesson. Sixthly, the cases included practical information about the running of the learning design sequence: the number of students, additional staff present, the extent to which planned learning outcomes were achieved; any differences in performance from teachers’ previous modes of delivery; any unexpected outcomes; the impact of LAMS or Moodle on their lesson delivery and on students’
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experiences of learning as perceived by the teachers. Finally, the case studies analysed the teacher practitioners’ reflections: what worked well and what was problematic; what benefits and problems had been envisaged at the outset and whether these had been realised; the teachers’ levels of enjoyment in implementing design for learning; the impact of the overall experience on teachers’ approaches to design and their use of technology. Overall, the project also considered participation by teaching practitioners and other institutional members within the community of practice and the way in which this overall attempt to ‘design’ a CoP had developed.
The Features of Intentional or ‘Designed’ CoPs In an earlier paper (Jameson, Ferrell, Kelly, Walker & Ryan, 2006) the author had made a distinction between intentional project-based communities of practice (Pór, 2004; Dubé, Bourhis & Jacob 2004) and communities of practice that emerge naturally from the ‘bottom-up’ as self-organising systems (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Growing an effectively designed intentional community of practice requires explicit commitment to a shared focus of common interest, detailed shared objectives, democratic, collaborative leadership and agreed values and processes such as those outlined above, or, predictably, the experiment to create a community of practice may be likely to fail. The eLIDA CAMEL project confirmed the findings of the original CAMEL CoP project that stable relationships of trust, power-sharing and flexible approaches to collaboration are necessary for an effective CoP. The project also found that garnering and sharing ‘tacit knowledge’ (Polanyi, 1967) is important in helping people consciously to improve practice and to critique problem areas in non-problematic professional exchanges (McDermott, 2001; Mason and Lefrere, 2003; Jameson et al., 2006). CAMEL-tailored interpretations of the ‘critical success factors’ of CoPs, as described
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by McDermott (2001) and the CoP ‘structuring characteristics’ designed by Dubé, Bourhis and Jacob (2004) were therefore included, in suitably adapted ways, in the eLIDA CAMEL project. One of the important features of intentionally created communities of practice (as opposed to spontaneously self-generated informal CoPs within a company, for example) is that they are specifically designed to foster proactive professional dialogue in workplace settings. This is particularly useful in an era in which learning technologists increasingly feel that the autonomy of the professional status as well as the judgement of academics and other professional educational staff is increasingly being eroded through the implementation of a ‘new managerialist’ style of audit culture that measures accountability in education in instrumentalist ways (Deem and Brehony, 2005). It seems that CoPs may provide a network for professional practice to thrive, as eLIDA CAMEL participants reported when reflecting on the ways in which their practice was supported and developed during the project. However, for professionals to engage wholeheartedly in such communities to share expert knowledge, processes to build trust and assure practitioner confidence need to be developed through the establishment of appropriate levels of collaborative, democratically elected or emergent team leadership. If an egalitarian and trusting ethos is not guaranteed, professionals may distrust artificially designed CoPs and regard these as thinly-disguised intrusive tools of management designed to capture and control professionals’ knowledge and autonomy.
CASE STUDY OF THE eLIDA CAMEL: A SUCCESSFUL INTER-INSTITUTIONAL COP The eLIDA CAMEL project was in general successful in providing a professional CoP environment to support teachers from within and across five institutions in carrying out productive design
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Figure 1. Student responses to electronic survey on eLIDA CAMEL D4L Activities (n=77)
for learning activities with students. The key focus of the CoP was on achieving successful, enjoyable participation and productive learning amongst the student group involved in design for learning activities. In terms of student activities provided by the project, amongst 101 items of feedback reported by students, 77 electronic survey responses from student participants were collected during 2007. These collected feedback on a range of items relating to student e-learning studies in the project. Regarding enjoyment in participating in activities in design for learning using LAMs and Moodle, 92.1% of students in the London and South East adult education and sixth form classes involved in the project replied that they had either ‘enjoyed them very much’ (52.6% or 40 students) or ‘quite enjoyed them’ (39.5% or 30 students), while only 2.6% (2 students) said they ‘didn’t enjoy them very much’ and 0% ‘didn’t enjoy them at all’, as illustrated in Figure 1. Most students also reported that they enjoyed doing design for learning activities using LAMs and/or Moodle much more than they enjoyed learning ‘in the usual way’ (i.e. using more traditional classroom activities). A typical response to the open-ended questions about enjoyment in
learning was the following from an adult ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language student), replying to the question ‘What did you like best and why? in carrying out the D4L activities: … the whole package. this is an extremely effective way of revising for an exam. the visual aids made the whole interactive experience interesting and fun. it was a pleasant way of remembering key points which wre needed whilst actually sitting the exam. i enjoyed having the freedom to access the site when i had the time, an effective way of working when you have a family and other commitments. Respondent No. 19 Thursday, 08/11/07, eLIDA CAMEL electronic survey to students Most students (74.7%) of 77 respondents in 2007 from across the institutions involved reported that they had learnt ‘a lot more than in the usual way’ (24% or 18 students) or ‘a bit more than in the usual way’ (50.7% or 38 students) from the CoP teachers’ use of design for learning (as opposed to traditional teaching methods used) in the project, providing specific feedback that assisted
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teachers in adjusting materials and activities provided. This success contributed to the generally reported perception that meetings of the project team involved in the community of practice tended to be relatively positive when discussing progress made and problems encountered. In response to the question, ‘Since the previous [CoP] visit, I have developed my interests/work re. design for learning/e-learning relating to the project in the following ways’, a typical CoP participant response was:
By the fourth meeting of the emerging community of practice, participants began to feel that a ‘real’ community of practice was forming, and said that they valued continuing to ‘network with partners… sharing ideas and good practice.’ In response to the question, ‘My interest in the eLIDA CAMEL project is evolving in the following ways....’, the following response was amongst ten replies from project participants, which demonstrated that the shaping of the community of practice had gradually been taking place:
… CAMEL development: how it takes time to build a community. Learning design in general, Case study evaluation. How design for learning may purely be effective because it makes the teacher’s job easier and frees up their time to do more important things!
… Observing that the trust within the group has developed to a stage where sharing, being critical friends and evaluation are almost taken as read. I believe that it can now be called a CoP:-)
Respondent No. 6 Thursday, 11/07/07, eLIDA CAMEL electronic survey to CoP members Participants in the community systematically reported that they were primarily interested in ‘sharing practice in e-learning and learning from other practitioners’. They identified deriving a range of benefits from CoP project meetings, including, specifically, the opportunity to talk to colleagues from other institutions, to learn from ‘their experiences and development’, to engage in ‘professional networking and “storytelling” between partners in the project’, to learn from CoP feedback, and to modify their work in response to this. Community members began to realise the importance of social learning in collaboration with others in taking forward their own good practice, as one participant noted quite simply in response to the question, ‘From the previous visit, I learnt....’: …The importance of others in developing oneself. Respondent No. 13 Thursday, 30/11/06, eLIDA CAMEL electronic survey to CoP members
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Respondent No. 2 Monday, 21/05/07, eLIDA CAMEL electronic survey to CoP members CoP participants said that they valued the collegial nature of the community and the friendliness of collaboration between partners from different institutions that was facilitated during community events. In response to the question, ‘From the previous visit, I learnt...’, a representative response from one institutional project group leader was the following: Only attended day one but continued to the value the warmth and collaborative nature of the group and reflect on the hard but rewarding work that’s being done. [Female project participant] and her students’ presentation was impressive. It’s always fantastic to hear students taking about the positive difference an interaction has made to them. Also learned how to play [project game] - actually that’s a really great fun exercise which I’ll try and use elsewhere. Respondent No. 7 Monday, 21/05/07, eLIDA CAMEL electronic survey to CoP members
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eLIDA CAMEL participants confirmed the overall findings of the original CAMEL CoP project (JISC infoNet, 2006) regarding the ‘structuring characteristics’ that were ‘key success factors’ required for the CAMEL CoP model to work and also added to these the role of the critical friend. CoP partners agreed in general that, in order to establish an effective intentional community of practice linked to an inter-institutional project of this nature, the following practices are recommended: 1. Some form of collaborative PID (Project Initiation Document) is needed to establish community ground rules and build trust at the formation of the community: participants need explicitly to understand and sign up to these; 2. A shared limited focus of common interest in improving practice is needed; 3. Visits between CoP partners should be well planned in advance, involving some social elements and a democratic process of travelling to partner venues; 4. Follow-up work is required between visits but should not be too onerous: the CoP’s emphasis should be on the collaborative processes involved in visits, rather than on traditional outcomes in the form of products (though some agreed products – a ‘shared repertoire’ (Wenger, 1998) – may be necessary and, indeed, essential in the longer term for CoP work to progress effectively). 5. Detailed minutes of CoP visits should be taken to record outcomes; 6. Regular, organised facilitation of visits by an expert should be arranged, but the leadership and ‘management’ of the CoP should be collaborative, ‘light touch’ and democratic in its ethos; 7. Formal evaluation of an appropriate kind should be set up with an evaluator; 8. A ‘critical friend’ should be introduced after the formation of the community to facilitate
9. 10.
11.
12.
the sharing of positive critical feedback between CoP members; There should be an emphasis on building trust and truthful communication; The CoP should facilitate the explicit articulation of tacit knowledge and mechanisms to share in-depth understandings of ‘knowhow’ that are developed within the group; The social events organised for the community should be informal and encourage free-ranging networking between members; Confidentiality should be maintained for personal revelations, so that trust is not eroded and the community can build greater understanding through critical reflection about honestly shared issues and problems.
A shared understanding of the usefulness of the above approaches was developed during a range of participant discussions and written contributions over several years, including those from both the original CAMEL project and the eLIDA CAMEL. The importance of developing trust, of sharing honest, proactive, critical feedback about improving practice over a period of time, of focusing on processes rather than products, of collaborative social exchange rather than individual production and of ‘light touch’ leadership and management rather than bureaucratic managerial control was particularly highlighted. These aspects were tailored to ‘fit’ the informal ‘grassroots’ self-organising nature of a CoP rather than more standard project team approaches driven by a top-down project manager. As those who have critiqued the concept of ‘knowledge management’ have observed, it is difficult to ‘manage’ the tacit knowledge encompassed within the membership of a CoP, as the nature of professional ‘know-how’ is elusive, hard to capture, reify and articulate. As discussed above, professionals who are micro-controlled may naturally evade any coercive attempts to elicit and share their expertise. A ‘light touch’ approach to both leadership and management is
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appropriate to encourage CoP members to engage in democratic collaboration in which the knowledge, skills and contributions of all participants are valued equally: collegial or ‘great groups’ (Bennis & Biederman, 1996) models of leadership may be suitable here, in contrast to ‘command and control’ leadership practices. ‘Managing’ a community of practice may therefore be regarded almost as a contradiction in terms: even an intentionally designed CoP is a living, self-evolving entity that may not thrive if participation in its processes is artificially forced.
FUTURE TRENDS The model of a community of practice developed in the JISC infoNet CAMEL and JISC eLIDA CAMEL projects during 2005-07 has already been transported effectively to a range of new initiatives in the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Benchmarking Pathfinder and other JISCfunded projects during 2007-09, as well as in more localised examples of partnership teams engaged in e-learning developments in a variety of the participating institutions. Although the communities involved achieved a great deal through successful collaborative work in the development of an intentional CoP in a relatively short time, one of the defining features of both projects was that they were externally funded: project partners received financial contributions to subsidise their participation in the CAMEL nomadic visits of both projects. The end of the external CoP project funding did not immediately or directly signal the end of the community, however. Members continued to contact each other, share experiences, participate in disseminations and engage with each other in continuing feedback relating to their developments in practice for many months, indeed, years, in some cases. Yet, since formal project visits have ended, the community has gradually begun to fade away, with members dispersing and slowly reforming
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into other groups and other projects. Wenger’s perceptions that CoPs naturally have a ‘life’, in that they arise, grow, thrive and then die out, are relevant here (see Wenger’s ‘stages of development’, 1998: 3). The agricultural background to the CAMEL project was in effect based on the idea of a ‘living’ community engaged in nurturing growing organisms together. The fact that the community would almost inevitably diminish in its activity and naturally fade away at the end of funded project visits therefore fits the metaphor that both projects had a certain vitality nourished and bounded by favourable circumstances of funding, participants, time and place: when these boundaries changed, the end of the CoP was perhaps inevitable. The CoP model of CAMEL, the role of the critical friend and additions to the CAMEL model developed further by the eLIDA CAMEL as well as the outputs of both projects live on, however, in other newly-funded projects now proceeding and in formation.
CONCLUSION This chapter has provided a case study of sociocultural learning in a successful inter-institutional CoP in the JISC eLIDA CAMEL project, recommending that certain indispensable design features that are also ‘critical success factors’ may be necessary to ‘grow’ a successful intentionally designed community of practice. These include sufficiency of duration in the formation and existence of the community and an appropriate planning and startup in the form of a project initiation document (PID). Further important design considerations include appropriate limitation of the shared focus of practice, collaborative planning, expert collaborative leadership/ facilitation, ‘light touch’ management, an emphasis on process rather than products, measures to build ongoing trust, and the provision of honest, critical feedback facilitated by a ‘critical friend’, and the explicit articulation of tacit knowledge and social networking in
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a framework that fosters practitioner expertise. The CAMEL and eLIDA CAMEL CoP project developments were both successful and have now ended: a time-bound vitality of community participation has naturally diminished as funding was concluded, but the CoP models and outputs of both projects have continued to live on, providing exemplars to other, newer developments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Financial support for the eLIDA CAMEL project from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Design for Learning (D4L) Programme is acknowledged and appreciated. Thanks to Sarah Knight, JISC Programme Manager, Seb Schmoller, CEO, and Rhonda Riachi, Director of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), Jacquie Kelly, Senior Advisor at JISC infoNet, Professor Mark Stiles, eLIDA CAMEL Critical Friend, of Staffordshire University and Dr Liz Masterman of Oxford University Learning Technologies Group for their support. The author warmly acknowledges and thanks all JISC eLIDA CAMEL, eLISA and JISC infoNet CAMEL partners, institutions and agencies for contributing to the content of this chapter and to University of Greenwich School of Education and Training staff, notably Simon Walker, Malcolm Ryan, Shirley Leathers, Jan Panting and Dr Tricia Meers, Head of School, for their support of the eLIDA CAMEL project.
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Bandura, A. (2001). Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1 Bennis, W., & Biederman, P. W. (1996). Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Cambridge, MA: Perseus. Datamonitor (2001). The future of social networking: Understanding market strategic and technological developments. New York: Technology Report at Datamonitor by Ri Pierce-Grove. Deem, R., & Brehony, K. J. (2005). Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(2), 217–235. doi:10.1080/03054980500117827 Dubé, L., Bourhis, A., & Jacob, R. (2004). Structuring Spontaneity: The Impact of Management Practices on the Success of Intentionally Formed Virtual Communities of Practice, [online], Cahiers du GReSI no. 04-20. Retrieved October 27, 2008 from gresi.hec.ca/cahier.asp eLIDA CAMEL (2009). Case Studies, available online. Retrieved April 6, 2009 from http://dfl. cetis.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/ELIDA_CAMEL Ferrell, G., & Kelly, J. (2006) “Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning (CAMEL). European Universities Information Systems 12th International Conference Proceedings (pp. 333-337). Jameson, J. (2008a). The eLIDA CAMEL Model of Collaborative Partnership: a Community of Practice in Design for Learning. In Proceedings of ICEL 2008, the 3rd International Conference on e-Learning. University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. Jameson, J. (2008b). The eLIDA CAMEL Nomadic Model of Collaborative Partnership for a Community of Practice in Design for Learning. EJEL: Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 6(3), 197-206.
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Jameson, J. (2008c). Trust, resistance and valuesbased leadership in higher and further education, Paper. In Proceedings, Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE) 2008 Annual Conference, Liverpool 9-11 December. Jameson, J. (2008d). Leadership: Professional communities of leadership practice in post-compulsory education, invited paper. ESCalate: The Higher Education Academy Education Subject Centre Discussions in Education Series, ESCalate: University of Stirling. Jameson, J., Ferrell, G., Kelly, J., Walker, S., & Ryan, M. (2006). Building trust & shared knowledge in communities of e-learning practice: Collaborative leadership in the JISC eLISA and CAMEL lifelong learning projects. British Journal of Educational Technology, 37(6), 949–968. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2006.00669.x JISC infoNet (2006). The CAMEL Project: Collaborative Approaches to the Management of E-Learning. Retrieved October 27, 2008 from www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/camel Kelly, J., & Riachi, R. (2006). CAMEL train heads for oasis: ALT-N, Retrieved October 27, 2008 from newsletter.alt.ac.uk/e_article000615315. cfm?x=b11,0,w Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Masterman, E., Jameson, J., & Walker, S. (2009). Capturing teachers’ experience of learning design through case studies. Special Issue Journal of Distance Education on Researching Learning Design in Open, Distance and Flexible Learning, 30. McDermott, R. (2001) Knowing in Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice. Community Intelligence Labs. Retrieved October 27, 2008 from www.co-i-l. com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/knowing.shtml
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Community of Practice (CoP): Informal self-organising group of practitioners committed to a field of shared interest who meet together on a long-term basis to collaborate, exchange information and share expertise about practice in this domain. Design for Learning (D4L): A set of practices that are carried out by professional educators to design, plan and arrange the delivery of learning activities for students involving the use of technol-
Growing the eLIDA CAMEL Community of Practice Case Study
ogy, as part of a learning session or programme. Design for learning may also be referred to as: “D4L”, “DfL” and “Learning Design”, “IMS LD” and/or “Instructional Design”. Case Study: A in-depth ‘rich’ research report describing and analysing a ‘case’ or bounded set of real-life circumstances involving particular phenomena of interest to the researcher. Project Initiation Document (PID): A partnership agreement signed by all project partners at the commencement of a project, agreeing the ground rules and terms of reference by which the project will be run. Critical Friend: A trusted person who combines friendly, supportive advocacy with critical advice.
Trust: A complex relational psychological state in which the trustor has confidence and faith in the trustee’s integrity, benevolence and competence, despite risk, vulnerability and uncertainty. Tacit Knowledge: Informal knowledge of practice or ‘know-how’, involving deep levels of uncodified knowledge that it is difficult to verbalise comprehensively or otherwise communicate explicitly to others, except, for example, through gradual processes of demonstration. Critical Success Factors: Significant features that need to be achieved and are essential for the accomplishment of a particular goal. Collaborative: Working together jointly in partnership.
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Chapter 25
Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery Michael Fung-Kee-Fung The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Robin Morash The Ottawa Hospital, Canada Elena Goubanova The Ottawa Hospital, Canada
ABSTRACT This chapter describes a framework for developing and evaluating Communities of Practice initiated by local healthcare organizations and groups. The framework explores specific features of a CoP in the field of quality improvement and the managerial implications of utilizing traditional forms of medical socialization and cultural transmission. The authors describe their own experiences with a CoP in one of the health regions of Ontario, Canada, and compare them to other conceptual and theoretical approaches in the field. The chapter breaks down the implementation of CoP projects in medicine into manageable steps and presents an evaluation tool that could help develop an adequate evaluation process.
INTRODUCTION Although collaborative improvement initiatives in health care have been garnering much attention in clinical and management literature, research into their organization and social facilitation is still underdeveloped. This gap is significant because although it is a promising innovation, the model is difficult to execute and is yet to be proven
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch025
effective. (Grimshaw &Eccles, 2004; Sheaff & Pilgrim, 2006; Mittman, 2004) The situation is further complicated by concerns raised about the complexity and variability of the collaborative projects in health care. Two best known examples of quality improvement collaboratives in the UK and US use very different implementation methods and learning processes. Both models are criticized for physician deprofessionalization and a “proletarization” with a focus on institutional restructuring at the costs of professional development; methodological weak-
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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nesses; and biases in reporting. (Bate & Robert, 2002; Kilo, 1998) Indeed, for organizations that struggle with implementation of quality improvements in healthcare, determining whether a Community of Practice is potentially a useful tool and is worthy of support can be a difficult task. (Cretin, 2004) In fact many small organizations at the local level lack methodological expertise, resources, and skills to undertake such assessments. (Mittman, 2004) One of the biggest benefits of CoPs is that they are tailored to specific cultures and traditions within different organizational units. However, this advantage presents the biggest challenge for standardised monitoring and evaluation. Such standardization is deemed desirable in the knowledge translation literature for reporting operational insights from CoP implementation. (Li et al, 2009) The only common denominator seen consistently though, is a social facilitation phenomenon that is observed in CoPs. To describe it, evaluators must measure and understand the community and organizational context in which the CoPs operate. (Cheadle et al, 1998) To accomplish this, we need to break down the social facilitation process in CoPs into measurable steps and develop adequate evaluation tools in order to best understand and enable the CoPs. Building on knowledge management concepts, we suggest documenting the common features of CoPs under the four categories: Innovation, Knowledge Transfer, Social Capital and Organizational Memory. Insights from our own experience with facilitating a CoP in cancer care have help us illustrate the importance of each of these four essential components in the implementation of CoP. Our COP Implementation Framework is derived from an integrated knowledge spiral based on the work of Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, and adapted to the COP in medicine process (FungKee-Fung 2008). The COP process being described as a sequence of knowledge conversion modes:
• • • •
Explicit to explicit: Innovation Explicit to tacit: Knowledge Transfer (KT) Tacit to tacit: Social Capital Tacit to explicit: Organizational Memory
The CoP Implementation Framework is described in details elsewhere. (Fung-Kee-Fung et al, 2008, 2009). For evaluation purposes the four main categories (Innovation, Knowledge Transfer, Social Capital and Organizational Memory) are briefly described in the section below.
ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF THE COP PROCESS These four essential components of the CoP Implementation Framework are universal across all settings and cultures and have the potential to be the basis for the development of a global evaluation framework.
Innovation Innovative ideas can be initiated and championed by any one of three key stakeholder groups (clinical practice, research and administration/policy) involved in our Cancer Surgery CoP. Each of these groups approaching the shared issues from different perspectives, For the clinicians, the approach is the passionate implemention of innovative patient treatment technologies (e.g. minimallyinvasive surgery, use of nuclear medicine, etc.) and improving the effectiveness of their care at the individual patient level. Administrators are tasked with initiating standardization and optimization(improving efficiency) of hospital processes. Health services researchers on the other hand are focused on proposing an experimental set-up for testing changes and improvements. These three groups have never truly developed a common identity previously and have historically struggled with their strong professional boundar-
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ies. Only the rights of unrestricted inclusion and equality built into a Communities of Practice platform allow these participants to form common concepts and goals. In this context the health care administrators/policymakers supply power, resources and sanctions. The clinicians supply their in-depth knowledge of care processes and greater sensitivity in detecting and closing gaps in quality care, while the researchers provide a resource for evidence analysis and solution validation. Together, they are able to grasp innovations at the system and provider level. The non- threatening CoP environments enabling the integration of multiple perspectives the linkage of individual innovative ideas with changes in organizational processes, practices, and policies.
Knowledge Translation (KT) The KT in CoPs is for the most part driven by clinician-researchers from academic centres with interest in education and outreach activities. This ‘explicit to tacit’ knowledge conversion mode involves traditional forms of medical socialization and cultural transmission (rounds, journal clubs, peer audit/feedback, etc.) For example a CoP activity under the KT category includes, visits by academic surgeons to community hospitals to give educational sessions and provide hands-on training in advanced surgical procedures. Other examples include the sharing and development of best practices in preoperative care. It is worthy to note that the features of these KT processes in CoPs tend to differ from other collaborative task forces and “managed” KT initiatives in a number of aspects. First, despite reliance on administrative support, CoP projects are driven from the ‘bottom-up’ by clinicians (as social actors at the periphery of management) defining these quality needs, rather than from ‘top down’ by centralized management structures. As a result, by forming a CoP, those ‘periphery’ actors preserve and enhance their specialty professional authority and expertise
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rather than lose it to automatic processes and the centralized management structures. By enabling peer pressure and acceptance, CoPs obviate the need for an organizationally-lead or “managed” approach to implementation of improvements. Second, the focus on learning and professional development is what makes CoPs different from other self-appointed ‘elite’ groups. This socialization of learning, facilitates the uptake of standards and norms, that have been jointly developed by the community and can become a focus for future group learning, fostering the potential for community growth and self-transformation.
Social Capital The trusted mentor-mentee relationship is considered a traditional basis of medical training. Medical sociology studies suggest that successful uptake of new surgical procedures depends on personal ties and trusted relationships. Surgical training implies not only following instructions but actively sharing, acquiring tacit knowledge, skills and a “feeling” for the new surgical methods. (Schlich, 2002, 2007) However, the barriers for collaborative work in health care are also well documented. They include: negotiating politics within different departments and clinical units, communication breaks between disciplines, and a lack of shared vision. (Fung-Kee-Fung, 2009) In our CoPs, in order to build cross-discipline collaboration and trusted non-threatening environments, CoP meetings are accredited as professional development activities. At these meetings, surgeon- leaders walk their multidisciplinary teams through the variations in regional hospitals performance and link it to the specific differences in internal hospital processes, technology, and skills (i.e. antibiotics usage, length of stay, number of surgeons trained in advanced surgical techniques, etc.). It is only after seeing their own performance data and identifying improvement targets and best practices together in an atmosphere
Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery
Table 1. Survey results: cross tabulation of responses to the following questions: Q.1: How many times did you participate in CoP activities in the last year? Q.2: Has your participation in CoP events led you to change your practice? Q.1: Participation in CoP events in the past year
Q.2: Has your participation in CoP events led you to change your practice? Yes
No
>5 times
19%
4.2%
3-5 times
29.7%
17%
once
8.5%
21.6%
of trust, that CoP members commit themselves to changes in practice. According to our annual survey results, participants are more likely to align their practice with regional mutually determined standards as they become more involved in the CoP. 57.2% of survey respondents reported change in practice as result of participation in the CoP activities. Three out of four positive responses came from those who participated more than three times per year. (See Table 1.) Additionally administrative reports confirm the key role of collaboration (inter-organizational and inter-professional) in supporting successful development of standards, implementation of improvements in practice and education. (TOH Report, 2008)
Institutionalization/Orga nizational Memory As the CoPs mature they transition through the process of self-legitimization by creating formal partnerships between regional hospitals, the development of norms and rituals, and multilevel leadership options, allowing for a wide range of engagement and participation opportunities. In support of these roles each participating hospital with CoP teams obtain part-time administrative support to execute improvements. Such assistance
is vital as the characteristics of some CoP projects may require change in internal hospital policies and procedures. For example, a few community hospitals made changes to their prophylactic antibiotic administration and pain management to implement CoP recommendations. The success of these projects has been achieved in part, by administrators who played a key role in implementing the changes. These innovations once implemented then became part of the wider COP organizational memory, building the platform for the next success.
OPERATIONAL INSIGHTS Our four categories for documenting operational insights from different CoP projects clearly simplify the ambiguous social facilitation phenomenon as well as the underlying knowledge transfer processes involved in COPs. However, these categories are measurable and could be used as proxies for actual community and organizational behaviour. They can also be used as a focus for areas of future development. Examples of outcome measures under each category collected in two regional disease-specific communities (CoP A and CoP B) are presented in Table 2. The following testimonials from participating community hospitals show how these four important components of the CoP process interconnect and reinforce each other. The testimonials are extracted from the regional CoP Newsletter: “Members of our hospital team have been committed to attending the regional Communities of Practice meetings and workshops. This offers everyone a unique opportunity to network and share information. It also provides us with a chance to offer input into the establishment of regional standards of care for our patients. These all have been critical steps in providing our patients with the comfort of knowing that they can and will receive that same quality care closer to home. “
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Table 2. Innovation
KT process
Social Capital
Organizational Memory
CoP A
-Evidence-based provincial guideline for the minim a l l y i n v a s i v e s u rg e r y (MIS) in colon cancer, - regional pathways for open bowel resection and MIS colon surgery
-3 surgical workshops, 2 workshops and 4 journal clubs facilitated by academic clinicians -Increase in number of colon cancer patients who received an MIS procedure
-Community consensus on agreed-upon regional perioperative practice parameters among practitioners in 8 regional hospitals - increase in participation in Multidisciplinary Cancer Conferences
-Administrative protocols to support implementation of MIS pathway in 8 regional hospitals, -fundamental institutional changes in the referral patterns - emergence of a new functional structure - a regional diagnostic assessment centre
CoP B
-Regional access to innovative sentinel lymph nodes biopsy (SLNB) procedure with improved patient care. -Regional pathway for the care of breast cancer inpatients
-Mentorship program, 3 journal clubs, 1 workshop facilitated by academic clinicians, -4 additional regional hospitals offer SLNB
- Community extended from 3 regional hospitals at the first workshop to 8 -increase in participation in weekly Multidisciplinary Cancer Conferences
-Administrative support for implementation of inpatient pathways in 8 regional hospitals -funding for nuclear medicine equipment to support SLNB process in community hospitals
“CoPs saved us a great amount of time in regards to the development of our pathways and patient information handout. We obtained copies currently being used in other hospitals and were able to gather a great deal of information from them. It was also helpful during monthly teleconference calls, hearing the progress and learning the hurdles the other hospitals were encountering and how they were dealing with them. “ “We are revising our internal hospital processes and implementing changes influenced by best practices from other hospitals. The patient teaching information has been adopted and standardized so our patients receive the same information as those seen at the academic centre.”
COP EVALUATION FRAMEWORK This chapter proposes a conceptual evaluation framework that could help in developing and evaluating CoP projects. The framework is developed based on our experience facilitating the Champlain Regional CoPs in cancer surgery, from our Health Care Improvement CoP workshop series, and from a systematic literature review of collaborative
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quality improvement projects in surgery. (FungKee-Fung, 2008, 2009) The model articulates the CoP process in health care as a continuing medical education activity with quality improvement elements using group performance data to facilitate individual professional development. Participation in CoPs teaches clinical staff and hospital administrators how to engage in a collaborative quality improvement process. Participants are assessing their performance, defining improvement targets, sharing best practices, implementing improvements, and evaluating the changes. Table 3 below describes the process for developing and sustaining clinical CoPs in a sequence of critical steps.
Step 1: Needs Assessment/ Target Audience The first step is for the organization to select the areas for improvement. An appointed facilitator conducts a series of interviews with key stakeholders to prepare a needs assessment report. The goal is to find commonalities between organizational strategic priorities and practitioners’ agendas in order to pinpoint areas that might benefit from the implementation of collaborative improvement initiatives.
Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery
Table 3. Step One:
Complete needs assessment: create a snapshot of current care processes and practices (qualitative and quantitative) in the regional hospitals to define gaps in quality care. Express these gaps, as gaps in 1) knowledge;2) process;3) technology and ;4) evidence
Step Two:
Establish formal learning objectives that are being identified by clinical staff and administration as part of common improvement targets
Step Three:
Collect baseline performance data to compare individual hospital data to that of other hospitals in the region and national benchmarks (e.g. wait times, compliance with clinical practice guidelines and quality indicators)
Step Four:
Introduce Quality Improvement Interventions (e.g. care algorithms, clinical practice guidelines, etc.)
Step Five:
Evaluate the change
Key stakeholders include clinical staff (physicans, nurses) and administrative staff from academic and community hospitals who will be affected by improvement plans. This is vital as studies show that multidisciplinary input is particularly important if the improvement impacts several provider groups. (Grol &Grimshaw, 1999)
Step 2: Learning Objectives Continuing Medical Education (CME) has traditionally focused on the diagnosis and management of disease, with little emphasis on the system issues in health care delivery, the measurement of outcomes, and the principles of implementing quality improvements. (Berwick, 2008). Physicians report a lack of critical appraisal and quality measurement skills. Many perceive improvement projects as separate from their role in medical care (Davis et al, 2006). Including improvement topics in the agenda of traditional forms of medical socialization and cultural transmission (rounds, journal clubs, peer audit) closes this gap and makes improvement projects an integral part of clinicians’ professional development plans. At the same time, raising the system level issues opens up the CoP membership for non-clinicians (administrators, data analysis, nurses, etc.) to be important partners in implementation plans. Thus, learning occurs at the organizational and the individual level. Regional hospitals learn
how to work collaboratively, sharing their scarce resources and replicating the best practices.
Case Study The Champlain Regional Breast Cancer CoP members collaboratively established one of the priorities for quality improvement in regional breast cancer surgery as the ability to provide regional access to the minimally invasive sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy procedure. This advance treatment procedure requires access to surgical and radiological expertise, and nuclear medicine facilities; both elements not found in the rural areas of the region. The process requires the identification of SLNs prior to breast cancer surgery through the injection of radioisotopes and imaging performed in a suitably skilled nuclear medicine department. Two regional community hospitals, in conjunction with the academic urban hospital, maximized access to the SLN process through the sharing of nuclear medicine resources. Community hospital patients come to the academic urban hospital the day before their surgery for breast cancer to receive their radioisotope injection. They then returned to their own community and the next day have their surgery performed in their own hospital. This has led to enhanced patient satisfaction as their surgery is conducted in a familiar environment, closer to home and family. The success of this innovation (practitioner driven and administrator facilitated) in two community hospitals emphasized the collabora-
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tive work of several parties: clinical staff in the community and academic hospitals (training and mentorship, site visits and peers audit/feedback), the community hospital administration (funding and change in hospital policies), and the nuclear medicine department of the academic hospital (support for procedure setting and utilization protocols). Overall, implementation of this quality improvement initiative required intensive learning on both organizational and individual practitioner levels.
Step 3: Performance Data Collection Once the priority targets are established, they are formulated in terms of measurable criteria or outcomes for monitoring progress of improvement. At CoP meetings, members link outcomes measures with specific recommendations of clinical practice guidelines. In the traditional CME process physicians review their own charts and collect quality data. Within the CoP framework, the data is collected through hospital mechanisms. All participating hospitals commit resources to collect a few key measures with demonstrated correlation to patient outcomes and the results are discussed through the CoPs. Thus, clinicians have a key role in deciding which performance indicators should be collected.
Case Study In 2007, the Champlain Colorectal Cancer Surgery CoP supported the development of a regional clinical pathway for the care of patients undergoing bowel surgery for cancer treatment. Clinical pathways are multidisciplinary pathways of care that describe routine interventions for a group of patients undergoing the specific procedure or having the same diagnosis. They are developed using evidence based best practices and incorporate specific actions to be taken with associated timelines and a defined length of hospital stay.
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While developing and gaining consensus on a regional pathway is a complex undertaking, the implementation of one pathway in all regional hospitals is a major accomplishment. The measurement of utilization of these pathways providing some of the indicators of quality care such as: progress with care (diet, activity, and wound care), education, discharge planning and length of stay. This data is reviewed by individual physicians and hospitals, as well as collectively at the CoP meetings. From this iterative feedback of quality data, clinicians and administrators can make the required changes in their practices based on the successful experience of their colleagues in regional hospitals. Ultimately, this leads to ongoing review and implementation of quality patient care and increased satisfaction for patients, clinicians and administrators.
Step 4: Quality Improvement Intervention After the initial assessment of quality at participating hospitals, a series of joint workshops for CoP teams from each hospital are organized to address principles of performance measurement, and improvement. A hospital team comprised of a physician leader, a nurse-facilitator and a data analyst prepares quarterly performance reports. Once individual hospital data is collected, summary reports for all regional hospitals are reviewed and measured against regional and provincial standards and benchmarks. Based on this analysis, hospitals may need to make changes to their internal processes, policies and procedures to close the identified gaps. This step involves a review and formal endorsement of the proposed changes by the hospital administration. For some community hospitals these changes can be challenging as they may lack the necessary resources to make such changes independently. The implementation of approved changes then, usually requires resource support from the regional academic institution. The CoP meetings therefore become an ideal venue
Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery
for hospital teams to strategize how to address the challenges encountered in applying the improvement interventions. In addition these meetings further provide a forum for identifying the groups learning agenda for the upcoming quarter.
•
Step 5: Evaluation
•
The CoP evaluation process is structured as inclusive and systematic. Iterative performance data feedback provides a mechanism to monitor changes in care processes and practices across regional hospitals. Other CoP evaluation measures do not assess the impact of intervention on patients’ outcomes but provide an assessment of the likelihood that the intervention will achieve its intended outcomes in four domains: innovations at the practitioner level, the KT methods, culture of collaboration, and the factors linked to endorsement of changes at the organizational level. The CoP Evaluation Tool provides a framework for assessing these important ‘soft’ measures of organizational context and cultural setting. The tool was developed using a modified Delphi approach and is constantly being updated to incorporate our evolving understanding of the processes involved in the CoPs.
COP EVALUATION TOOL The CoP evaluation tool consists of 16 key items organized in four domains. Each domain is intended to capture a separate dimension of implementation capacity and progress: •
•
Innovation (items 1-4) is concerned with the proper description of innovation: overall objectives, specific gaps in practice, and target users. KT (items 5-8) relates to the integration of quality improvement elements into traditional CME (e.g. process that is used to col-
lect performance data to measure impact of the innovation/quality improvement). Social Capital (items 9-12) focuses on the extent to which the implementation team is representative of all the stakeholders and the intensity of knowledge socialization. Organizational Memory (items 13-16) deals with the organizational implications of applying the improvement.
Response Scale Each item is rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 4 ‘Strongly Agree’ to 1 ‘Strongly Disagree’, with two mid points: 3 ‘Agree’ and 2 ‘Disagree’. The scale measures the extent to which a criterion has been fulfilled. Evaluation scores can be calculated by finding the mean of all the scores of the individual questions in each domain. For example: • • • •
Innovation: 3.4 KT: 4 Social Capital: 2.5 Organizational Memory: 1.7
These mean scores may be useful for comparing different CoPs and informing the evaluation framework on what should count as implementation success factors and barriers.
CONCLUSION This chapter described the CoP development and evaluation process in a health care setting in a step-by-step approach that will assist clinical and administrative decision makers. This framework breaks down the CoP process into four discrete and understandable components. The emphasis of the evaluation framework is focused on ensuring successful CoP projects are transparent and reproducible. A further advantage of the evaluation process is the sharing of a common understanding
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Table 4. Structure and content of the CoP evaluation tool Outcomes
Disagree
Agree
Innovation 1. The learning objectives of the innovation/quality improvement are specifically described
1□
2□
3□
4□
2. The gaps in practice that could be closed by the quality improvement are specifically described.
1□
2□
3□
4□
3. The patients to whom the quality improvement is meant to apply are specifically described.
1□
2□
3□
4□
4. The quality improvement innovation is supported with tools for application.
1□
2□
3□
4□
5. All CoP activities are accredited with CME/CPD providers
1□
2□
3□
4□
6. There is an explicit link between CoP projects (e.g. new processes of care, specific procedures) and supporting evidence (clinical practice guidelines, standards, local protocols)
1□
2□
3□
4□
7. All CoP activities (e.g. CME workshops, Journal Clubs, self-directed learning) are evaluated (after-event feedback from, annual survey, etc.)
1□
2□
3□
4□
8. Best practices sharing process is established and supported by organisational resources (Newsletter, interactive website, site visits)
1□
2□
3□
4□
KT
Social Capital 9. CoP team includes individuals from all the relevant disciplines or stakeholders groups
1□
2□
3□
4□
10. CoP team meets on a regular basis to share best practices
1□
2□
3□
4□
11. The participation is voluntary and open
1□
2□
3□
4□
12. The decisions and recommendations made by CoP members are communicated to the management and to the staff
1□
2□
3□
4□
1□
2□
3□
4□
Organizational Memory 13. Potential organisational barriers in implementing CoP projects have been identified 14. Potential costs implications of implementing CoP projects have been considered
1□
2□
3□
4□
15. The administrative action plan includes resource support for CoP CME activities
1□
2□
3□
4□
16. The administrative action plan includes resource support, CoP data collection and audit/feedback provisions
1□
2□
3□
4□
among clinicians and managers as to the state of the individual CoP. There are some limitations of CoPs in medicine; such as the need for executive sponsorship and administrative support, as well as the strong institutional and professional boundaries that prevent information sharing. Despite this, medical CoPs can draw on the unique medical traditions of mentorship and continuous learning, and the understanding of the importance of practical knowledge and experience. The existing traditional forms of medical socialization and cultural transmission (rounds, journal clubs, peer audit) could complement and enhance the administrative logic of efficiency and control.
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Should healthcare systems fail to develop effective approaches to health care improvement, erosion of public esteem for physicians and these systems will continue. (Mechanic, 1998) Health care organizations and physicians have to work together to deliver consistently high quality health care. CoP theory could provide a basis to include the social facilitation phenomenon in the battery of managerial tools to measure engagement of clinical staff. The results from our study appear supportive. Clinicians commit themselves to change in practice as they become more engaged in the organizational improvement plans. Hospital administrators achieve results in implementing
Evaluating CoPs in Cancer Surgery
improvements when they support innovations at the practitioner’s level. We hope that a medical CoP model described here could be potentially useful for organizations interested in steering and harvesting collaborative improvements. Although further research is needed to understand its opportunities and limits, we believe that our evaluation framework presents a starting point for defining measures that could help document a common implementation process and its success determinants in CoPs.
Fung-Kee-Fung, M., Goubanova, E., Abdulla, A., Sequeira, K., Crossley, C., & Langer, B. (2008). Development of Communities of Practice to Facilitate Quality Improvement Initiatives in Surgical Oncology. Health Care Quality Management Journal, 17(2), 174–185.
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Schlich, T. (2002). Surgery, Science and Industry: a Revolution in Fracture Care, 1950s-1990s. Houndsmills. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Schlich, T. (2007). Surgery, Science and Modernity: Operating Rooms and Laboratories as Spaces of Control. History of Science, xlv. Sheaff, R., & Pilgrim, D. (2006). Can Learning Organizations Survive in the Newer NHS? Implementation Science; IS, 1–27. The Ottawa Hospital (2008, December). Champlain Cancer Surgery Model Progress Report.
KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Communities of Practice in Health Care: Multidisciplinary teams of health care professionals meeting on a regular basis to implement the evidence-based clinical practice and highest standards of quality care.
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Quality Improvement Projects: A set of related activities designed to achieve measurable improvement in processes and outcomes of patient care. Implementation Framework: A set of methodology concepts, tools and measurement instruments that guide the execution of improvement projects. CoP Evaluation Methodology: CoP evaluation documents and analyzes the early development and actual implementation of the strategy or program, assessing whether key CoP components were implemented as planned and whether expected output was actually produced. CoP Evaluation Tool: A questionnaire for assessing important measures of organizational context and cultural setting that support knowledge generation, translation, sharing and institutionalisation. The tool is based on the Delphi approach and is built according to the current methodological standards of clinical guidelines appraisal for research and evaluation.
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Olga Rivera Hernáez is a Professor in Organization and Business Policy and Head of the team on Innovation and Knowledge Management at the University of Deusto (San Sebastian). Professor Rivera has worked on Clusters, Learning Organizations and Learning Networks, focusing in these last years on the interaction between Knowledge Sharing and Innovation Capability. Nowadays she has been nominated as Vice Minister of Health Innovation by the Basque Government, and she is devoted to the modernization, improvement and sustainability of the Basque Public Health System. She received her Business Bachelor Degree from the University of Deusto and her PhD from the University of Madrid. Professor Rivera has published many articles in the area of organizational learning and knowledge management. Eduardo Bueno-Campos Professor of Business Economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Head of the University Institute for Research (IADE) and Managing Director for Innovation of the Scientific Park of Madrid. Prof. Bueno is one of the most important Spanish authors within the field of Business Organization, especially in the field regarding Strategic Management and its approach based on knowledge, and has many research publications and projects with public and private organizations. *** Julio César Acosta Prado is a researcher of the Intellectus Group from IADE and PhD Student in Accounting and Business Organization at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He has been a Visitor Professor for the Department of Business Economics at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. He also developed an intense activity as a Business Consultant in the area of Human Resources. His research interests focus on Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital, Innovation and Technology. Jennifer Adelstein has a PhD in Management and Organization Studies. She has won a number of academic awards, published in international peer-reviewed journals, delivered papers at international conferences, and is an academic editor. Her research interests focus on areas of discourse analysis; CoPs; power; knowledge and its management; and business ethics. Demóstenes Akoumianakis is the founder and Director of the interactive Software and Systems Engineering Laboratory (iSTLab, http://www.istl.teiher.gr/). He has published widely in areas such as HCI, collaborative technologies, and virtual community practicing and serves as a member of the
About the Contributors
scientific committee for various established archival journals, international conferences and national / international standards bodies. Nekane Aramburu is a faculty member of ESTE School of Management (University of Deusto, Spain). She specializes in Business Organization and Change Management, and her research focus is currently on Organizational Learning, Knowledge Management, and Innovation. Willi Bernhard Dipl. El. Ing. HTL/FH. Since 1984, He has been engineer, lecturer and researcher in industrial and academic organisations in the domains of Telecommunication, e-Learning, Modelling & Simulation, Creativity & Innovationmanagement, Communities of Practice, Technology Enhanced Learning, Game & Simulation Based Learning. I am also founder and CEO of the Basle Institute of Technology and the Swiss Simulation Engineering GmbH. Marco Bettoni focuses his current research on Open Knowledge Cooperation. From 1977 to 2005 he has been researcher, engineer and lecturer (industrial and academic organisations) in the domains of machine design, engineering education, It development, knowledge engineering and knowledge management. Since 1981 Marco does research in Knowledge Theory from a Radical Constructivist point of view. David Calvey holds a BA (Hons) in History and Sociology, an M.Sc in Management Science and a PhD in Sociology, from the University of Manchester. He has interests in resistance/conflict at work, research philosophy, business creativity, covert ethnography, the security industry and the night-time economy. Ronan Carbery is a Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. He lectures in Human Resource Development, Employee Development and Human and Organisational Behaviour at Work.He is Associate Editor of the Journal of European Industrial Training and his research interests include careers, career development, workplace learning, and participation in training and development María del Puy Carretero studied Computer Science at the University of the Basque Country UPV (2004). She was an intern during the summer of 2002 at Telenor S.L. and carried out her final year project at Vicomtech (July 2003-february2004). Since October 2004 she has worked as a Scientific Collaborator at Vicomtech, within the area of 3D Animation, Interactive Virtual Environments and HCI. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies and has research interests in Interaction with Virtual Characters on mobile devices and the Internet. Cristina M Chisalita is consultant at Deloitte, The Netherlands. Until recently she worked as assistant professor of Organizational Psychology and HRD at Twente University. She has several publications on Communities of Practice, contextual aspects of technology use in organizations, cultural aspects in designing technology, re-thinking the concept of technology affordance from a social-cultural perspective. During her PhD study, she organized together with Dr Peter Jones a series of conference workshops on “Analyzing collaborative work”.
499
About the Contributors
Mei-Tai Chu is research interests lie in Knowledge Management, Technology Management, and Information Management System. Mei-Tai has extensive consulting and industry experience and has worked with major corporations, Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, NEC Corporation of Japan, and various public sectors. Several top level journals (such as IEEE-TEM, ESWA) and referred international conference papers have been Published. She has authored four books and monographs in the area of Communities of Practice, Hi-Tech Case Study, and Online Multi-Agent e-Sales Recruitment System. Michael Fung-Kee-Fung is a Clinical Lead with the Champlain Regional CoP. He also a Knowledge Translation Lead with Cancer Care Ontario, provincial government agency. His role is to facilitate liaison with administration of the regional hospitals to ensure that CoP recommendations are incorporated in the operational plans. He played an important role in creating CoP evaluation framework and tools. Thomas Garavan is a leading scholar in the area of human resource development, learning and development and VET practice. His main research interests are in the areas of: strategic human resource development, strategic partnering, training and development in call centres, collective learning processes and the roles of training and development specialists in organisations. He has also published a leading text in the area of health and safety at work. He has developed a strong reputation in the area of business consultancy, organisational change and strategic development. Elena Goubanova is a Resource Analyst with the Regional Cancer Program at The Ottawa Hospital. She holds an MA in Education from Russia and an MA in Public Administration from Canada. She is an active member of various national and international research groups on Communities of Practice in health care including membership in the CPsquare group. François Grima is associate professor as the University Paris East and at Reims Management School. He is teaching Human Resource Management. He hold a Phd from Evry University. He is conducting research in career management, toxic behaviour and boundary positions. He is finishing investigations on mentoring and conflict resolution. Athanasios Hadjimanolis received his first degree from the University of Athens and his MBA and PhD in Management from Brunel University (UK). He has published several papers in international journals, such as Research Policy and Technovation. He has worked for many years in industry and is currently Associate Professor of Management at the European University Cyprus and Chairperson of the Management and Marketing Department. Kate Hayes worked for over eighteen years in a range of professional and managerial roles for IBM in Sydney and New York. She is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Western Sydney. Her research interests relate to innovation, organisational culture and the use of process innovations in health services settings Jianzhong Hong is a Senior Lecturer in knowledge management at Lappeenranta University of Technology. His articles have appeared in several international journals, including those in the areas of
500
About the Contributors
Psychology, Education and Management. His prime teaching is related to organizational learning and competence development, and his current research focuses on inter-cultural collaboration and knowledge interaction. Jill Jameson, Director of Research & Enterprise, University of Greenwich; Co-Chair, ALT-C 2008; Director JISC eLIDA CAMEL; Convenir SRHE HE-FE Network; AACE Journal Editorial Board; ELEARN, BERA, BELMAS & ALT-C presenter; Biographee, Marquis Who’s Who in the World; Special Editor, BJET (2006) & Alt-J (2000). Emmanuel Josserand is Professor at HEC, University of Geneva. His research interests are organisation and strategy, more specifically, on the strategic impact of network organizations. He has published more than 40 papers in refereed journals and edited books. He taught strategic management in various universities and business schools in Europe, the US, Australia and Africa. He is currently the Editor in Chief of M@n@gement. Rajiv Khosla has a multi-disciplinary background in management, engineering and computer science.Rajiv’s research has been published and reported in top tier journals and magazines including IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management, IEEE Multimedia, Communications of the ACM, and IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. He has authored four books (research monographs) in the area of Emotionally Intelligent Systems, Human-Centred e-Business, Multimedia based Socio-technical Information systems, Intelligent Hybrid Multi-agent Systems. Tuija Lämsä is working as an acting Professor in Management and Organization at the University of Oulu. Her research interests lies in knowledge management and knowledge creation, in organizational learning and in organizational relationships and communities of practice. Mónica Longo is an adjunct professor of financial economy and accounting at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and researcher of IADE at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is studying for a PhD in Business Administration at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her current research interests include organizational identity, knowledge management and strategic management. Edurne Loyarte is the Financial and Quality Manager of VICOMTech, a technological centre of Computer Graphics located in San Sebastian. She received her Bachelor Degree in Business Management and Administration from the University of Deusto with a speciality master in strategy. She is PhD in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Deusto. She has published some articles in the field of Communities of Practice. Irma M.Mäkäräinen-Suni is currently studying for her Ph.D. in Economics and Business Administration/ Knowledge Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology. Her research focus is on innovation and learning environments. She holds a position as a Senior Lecturer at HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland. She holds courses and is involved in R&D in the following areas: entrepreneurship, new business ideas, innovation, knowledge management, and Living Labs.
501
About the Contributors
Jesús Martinez has a Degree in Psychology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Master in the Information Society and knowledge by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Since 1984 works in Public Administration in Catalonia. He has been playing various technical tasks associated with orders and directives in recent years: deputy director and director of prisons (1990 to 2000), chief of intervention and rehabilitation programs in the Department of Justice (2001 to 2004). Currently is responsible for New Training Programs and Projects of the Centre d’Estudis Jurídics i Formació especialitzada Department of Justice of the Generalitat of Catalonia, which runs the program knowledge management of the Department of Justice.It also combines his work with the provision of specialized training in various Masters. Carlos Merino Moreno is currently responsible for research projects in the University Institute for Research (IADE) and Coordinator of Innovation Services in the Scientific Park of Madrid. His specialization fields are centred on intangible-asset management, paying special attention to innovation, organizational intelligence, intellectual capital and knowledge governance, transferring research results into realities of technical assistance for different kinds of organizations and institutions. Robin Morash is an Advance Practice Nurse with the Regional Cancer Program at The Ottawa Hospital. She holds a Masters degree in Health Studies. Her role is to lead the development of surgical oncology quality initiatives aimed at improving access to quality, standardized cancer surgery across a large geographic region comprised of both urban and rural communities. Cecilia Murcia is Researcher of IADE at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Coordinator of Innovation and Knowledge Forum “Intellectus”. She is studying for a PhD in Business Administration at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her research focuses on Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital, Innovation and Technology. Satu Nätti is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Oulu. Her research interests lie in customerrelated capability development, in customer-related knowledge transfer and in knowledge mobility in innovation networks. Fergal O’Brien is a Lecturer in Finance at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. Dr. O’Brien has published in the areas of finance and graduate career progression in journals such as Derivatives Use, Trading and Regulation, Irish Accounting Review and Personnel Review. Dr. O’Brien is the Course Director for the MSc in Financial Services at the Kemmy Business School and member of the Course Board for the MSc in Computational Finance. Dr. O’Brien is undertaking research primarily in the area of derivative instruments and specifically investigating the profitability of option trading strategies, the returns to horse racing wagers and the ability of forward-looking systematic moments to explain asset returns. Amalia Ortiz studied Computer Engineering in the University of Deusto ESIDE (2000). In 2001 she studied a master in Virtual Reality in the University of Deusto ESIDE. She has been the head of the Edutainment and eInclusion department in Vicomtech until 2009. This department has been hardly involved in the Virtual World research field. She has published in several national and international con-
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About the Contributors
gresses related with computer graphic and finished her Phd thesis in the Computer Engineering Faculty of the Basque Country University. Nowadays, she is Head of R&D solutions in Enne (Navarra, Spain). David Oyarzun studied Computer Science in the University of the Basque Country (2002). From October 2002 to April 2003 he gave coaching about Artificial Intelligence. At present time he is working at Vicomtech as project manager in the 3D Animation, Interactive Virtual Environments and HCI department and he is a PhD candidate in the area of avatar animation and interaction in virtual environments in the University of the Basque Country. He has several publications in international conferences and journals, and coordinates a Spanish research working group on Virtual Worlds composed by about 40 members including companies, universities and research centres. Mario Pérez-Montoro holds a PhD in Philosophy and Educational Science from the Universitat de Barcelona (Spain). He has been a researcher in the Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science at the Universitat de Barcelona. He studied at the Istituto di Discipline della Comunicazione at the Università di Bologna (Italy) and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford University (California, USA). He has also taught and done research at various universities: the Department of Logic and the Philosophy of Science at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Department of Communication Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the Department of Information and Communication Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Information Science at the Universitat de Barcelona and IN3 researcher (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute). His work focuses on conceptual, semantic, epistemological and pragmatic aspects of Information Science and Knowledge Management. Reinaldo Plaz Landaeta is currently responsible for the area of technological development of the University Institute for Research (IADE). His speciality is focused on technological applications for knowledge creation, development and management and has developed numerous projects of technical assistance for the configuration of collaboration platforms and virtual-environments within the support initiatives for knowledge-governance strategies. Joanne Roberts is a senior lecturer in management and a member of the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise at Newcastle University, UK. Her current research is focused on two areas: the role of business services in the transfer of knowledge; and, critiques of knowledge in contemporary economy and organization. She has written or co-edited four books, the most recent of which is Community, Economic Creativity and Organization, co-edited with Ash Amin and published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Joanne is a member of the European Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe (DIME) Network of Excellence, and co-founder and co-editor of Critical Perspectives on International Business, published by Emerald since 2005. Josune Sáenz is a faculty member of ESTE School of Management (University of Deusto, Spain), and senior researcher at Orkestra, the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, which belongs to the network of Institutes associated with Harvard University’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. She specializes in Management Accounting and Strategic Management Control. Her research focus is currently on Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital and Innovation.
503
About the Contributors
M. Paz Salmador is Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and Senior Researcher in the Knowledge Society Research Centre in the Science Park of Madrid. Previously, she was Visiting Researcher at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Ishikawa, Japan), and at the National North-Western University (Resistencia, Argentina), and Senior Fulbright Scholar at Texas A&M University. Sandra Sanz has a degree in Spanish Philology from the Universitat de Barcelona (1995) and also in Information Science from the Universidad de Granada (1998). Master in Information and Knowledge Society (2003). She is a Lecturer in the Communication and Information Department at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She has written on communities of practice in national and international journals and has also imparted various workshops and seminars. At the moment, she is teaching knowledge management and communities of practice in three postgraduate courses, while developing her PhD Thesis also on these subjects. Gabriele Schiller. has been working as a consultant to the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences working closely with Marco Bettoni and Willi Bernhard in the domain of Communities of Practice since 2006, and for more than 10 years her focus is on social aspects of Communities of Practice and collaboration in the international field of human centred KM. Paul F Skilton is an assistant professor in the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness at Arizona State University. A former information systems manager, his research focuses on institutional and social factors that influence creative production, especially as it relates to the creation of sustainable competitive advantage. Marcel Veenswijk is full professor in Management of Cultural Change at VU University Amsterdam. He publishes on cultural change, CoP development, intervention strategies and organizational innovation, especially in the context of public sector organizations. Veenswijk recently published in Public Administration, Information Technology and People and International Journal of Project Management. He is editor in chief of Intervention Research (IOSPress). Karen Whelan is a graduate of the Bachelor of Business Studies programme and the MSc in Financial Services in the University of Limerick. Karen’s MSc Dissertation which researches Corporate Governance and Derivative Use in Ireland was presented at the IAM Conference 2009.Karen has spent the last 12 months working as Research Assistant to Professor Thomas Garavan in the University of Limerick and is currently living and working in Sydney, Australia. Celia Zárraga-Oberty is a Senior Lecturer of Business Management in the University of Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. She obtained a PhD in Economics and Business Sciences at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and has a degree in Industrial Engineering. She has taken part in national and international scientific congresses, where she has presented various works related to information and knowledge management. She has published in different international journals such as Organization Studies, International Journal of Human Resources Management or Journal of Knowledge.
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Index
A active empathy 40 active stage 125, 126 actual practice 72 adaptive stage 126 ad hoc groups 104, 105, 106, 108, 111, 112, 115, 269 agency concept 444 aggregators 286 agricultural era 308 american society of cinematographers 166, 180, 182 analytical knowledge bases 362 analytic hierarchy process (AHP) 202, 206, 209, 210, 219 appraisal matrix 206 apprentices 298, 299, 301, 305, 306 apprenticeship 33 asociación española dela industria electrica (UNESA) 26 association for computing machinery (ACM) 167 authoring 285, 286
B Ba concept 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 199, 159, 160, 161, 145 Bandura, Albert 444, 453 behavioural learning theory 444 best practices seminars 441 between CoP knowledge sharing 362
big five professional service firms (PSFs) 3 bio teaming concept 412, 420 blogs 284, 285, 286, 293 boundaries 262, 263 brokers 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306 Brown, John Seely 364, 366, 369, 376, 377, 379 building stage 126 business area management 95 business competitiveness 185, 186, 190, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197 business media 17 business schools 17
C cancer care 457 case studies 123, 124, 136, 137, 139, 141 Catalan Justice Department 421, 422, 424 Catalonia, Generalitat of 421, 422, 423, 428, 440 clemency in judgement 40 coalescing stage 125 collaboration 151, 445, 447, 453, 454, 455 collaborative approaches to the management of e-learning (CAMEL) CoP model 443, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454 collaborative innovation 245, 262 combination 148, 161 commercialisation 245, 247, 255, 256, 263, 264 commercial managers 245, 249, 251, 252, 253 communities of interest 99, 100 communities of practice (CoP), healthcare and 457, 466
Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Index
communities of research (CoRe) 396, 397, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419 community-based innovation 266, 267, 268 community development 81 Compartim program 422, 424, 430, 438, 439 competence 365, 366, 368, 370, 372, 373, 378, 379 competency pairing 260 competitive advantage 32, 33, 34, 36, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 337, 338, 339, 356, 361 competitive environment 162, 163, 164, 180 Complementary Assets 202, 209, 213, 214, 215, 217 complementary knowledge 36, 38 computer supported co-operative work (CSCW) 390 connection interactions 400, 402, 403 constellations of practices 298 constructivism 397, 398, 399, 403, 420 context factors 123, 134 contract research organizations (CROs) 53 cooperative research centres (CRCs) 245, 247, 248, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261 CoP, cancer surgery 457, 462 CoP, consolidated 442 CoP, developing 442 CoP evaluation methodology 466 CoP evaluation tools 463, 466 CoP, external 297, 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306 CoP features: innovation 457, 460, 463, 465, 466 CoP features: knowledge transfer 457 CoP features: organizational memory 457, 459, 460, 463, 464 CoP features: social capital 457, 458, 460, 463, 464 CoP, internal 297, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306 CoP literature 70 CoP, mature 442
506
CoP, seed 442 CoP theory 70, 71, 80 core 174, 181, 182 core competences 19 costumer relationship management (CRM) 270 courage 40 creative industries 383, 384, 385, 393 creativity 366, 373, 374, 376, 379, 382, 384, 385, 387, 389, 394, 395 critical friends 453, 455 critical success factors 454, 455 cultivation model 144 cultural transmission 456, 458, 461, 464 cybernetics 148, 155
D decentralized structures 420 Del.icio.us 444 design, build, finance, maintain (DBFM) 74, 77, 79 design for learning (D4L) 445, 447, 449, 453, 454, 455 dialoguing 48, 49 digital compositing 167 discourse 102, 119, 121 dispersion stage 125 distrust, culture of 74 Duguid, Paul 364, 366, 369, 376, 377, 379
E edge 182 eKoNES tourism project 271, 272, 273, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280 e-learning independent design activities (eLIDA) CAMEL project 443, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453 electronic squads 271, 282 e-moderators 423, 426, 427, 434, 435, 438, 439, 441, 442 empowerment 37, 43 engaged stage 126 Enhanced Working Efficiency 204, 205, 213, 215, 216, 217 epistemic context 134 ethnography 395
Index
ethnomethodology 382, 383, 390, 392, 394, 395 explicit knowledge 45, 69, 161 extensions 286 externalization 148, 161
F Facebook 444 fad 234, 244 filtering 130 formal task group 93, 100 France 297, 300 Future Internet 283, 284, 294 Fuzzy AHP 202
G Garfinkel, Harold 390, 394, 395 gatekeepers 297, 298, 300
H healthcare 456, 457, 458, 460, 461, 463, 464, 466 human capital 364, 380 human health care (HHC) 53 hybrid identity 313, 314, 315, 317
I IBM 125, 126, 127, 132, 137, 138, 139, 142 ICT 265 ICT-based knowledge sharing 200 ICT tools 265 identity 71, 80, 81, 82 identity formation 82 IMDb.com 166 implementation framework 457, 466 Incentive Mechanism 202, 208, 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 217 Increased Core Competency 204, 205, 213, 215, 218 individual interactions 400, 402, 404 Induced Innovative Learning 204, 205, 213, 218 industrial era 308 industrial light and magic (ILM) 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 178
industry network structure 162, 164 informal networks 83 information-based products and services 265 innovation 185, 186, 189, 190, 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 222, 223, 224, 230, 231, 232, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 261, 262, 263, 264, 457, 460, 463, 464, 465 Institute for Research and Learning 35 institute for research in knowledge management and business innovation (IADE) 145, 146, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159 institutional theory 313, 314, 315 instructional design 398 intangible 265 intangible assets 31 integrated knowledge spiral 457 integrity 115 intellectual assets (IA) 205 intellectual capital 19 intellectual knowledge capital 364 internalization 49 Internet 112, 113 internet movie database (IMDb) 166, 181 inter-occupational 259, 260 inter-organisational 245, 246, 247, 248, 260, 261 interorganizational collaboration 82 inter-organizational communities of practice (IOCoPs) 229 inter-organizational CoP 112 interviews, semi-directive 297 intra-organizational CoP 112 IT-based knowledge sharing 195, 196
J Japan 47, 50, 51, 61, 64, 66, 67 japan external trade organization (JETRO) 50 Joint Enterprise 203
K knowledge , 32, 34, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 222, 337, 338, 339, 341, 342, 347, 348, 350, 351, 352, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362
507
Index
knowledge assets 366, 379 knowledge-based view of the firm 366 knowledge codification 362 knowledge, collective 336 knowledge communities 266 knowledge conversion 366, 367, 368, 372 knowledge conversion: combination 367, 368, 369, 380 knowledge conversion: externalization 367 knowledge conversion: internalization 367, 368, 369 knowledge conversion: socialization 367, 368, 369 knowledge cooperation 398, 404, 408, 409, 410, 419, 420 knowledge-creating process 46, 48 knowledge creation 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 69, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 198, 199, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 372, 378 knowledge dissemination 1, 17, 363 knowledge era 308 knowledge, expert 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380 knowledge, explicit 308, 336, 338, 341, 346, 367, 371 knowledge flow networks (KFN) 203, 217, 221 knowledge governance 19, 27 knowledge-intensive firms 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 346, 355, 356, 361 knowledge intensive organizations 363, 365, 369, 372, 375, 380 knowledge management (KM) , 19, 26, 32, 41, 42, 43, 45, 84, 85, 96, 97, 99, 123, 132, 134, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205, 208, 225, 226, 229, 235, 236, 240, 241, 244, 338, 339, 358, 360, 365, 377, 378, 398, 399, 404, 412, 419, 421, 443, 444, 454, 457 knowledge, narrative 366 knowledge practitioner 121 knowledge sharing 46, 51, 52, 53, 56-61, 64, 67, 68, 69, 185, 187, 189, 190, 200, 245, 255, 256, 337, 338-363, 369, 380 knowledge sharing enablers 200
508
knowledge space 19 knowledge, synthetic 338, 362 knowledge, tacit 41, 45, 68, 69, 145, 161, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 343, 345, 346, 350, 356, 359, 361, 362, 366, 367, 368, 371, 372, 376, 377, 383, 387, 395, 443, 445, 446, 448, 451, 452, 455 knowledge transfer 201 knowledge transfer (KT) 299, 457, 458, 460, 463, 464 knowledge, value-added 338 knowledge worker 102, 112, 114
L La Caixa 94 Lave, Jean 364, 376, 378, 380, 399, 419 leadership interactions 400, 402, 403 Leadership Locus 202, 208, 209, 213, 214, 215, 217 learner activity management systems (LAMS) 445, 447 learning communities 99, 100 learning knowledge 222 learning managment systems (LMS) 295 learning, social theory of 387 learning trajectories 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306 legitimate peripheral participation 399, 400, 414, 419, 420 linear programming techniques for multidimensional of analysis preference (LINMAP) 206 LinkedIn 284, 294, 444 links 285 living curriculum 33
M Madrid Science Park 308, 310, 311, 318, 322, 323, 326, 330, 331 management 245, 246, 258, 261, 262, 263, 264 management academics 17 management consultants 9, 17 management gurus 17 management ideas and techniques 17 management knowledge 1, 8, 17, 18 management knowledge field 8, 18
Index
management performance 201 managers 4, 11, 13, 18 manufacturing companies 197, 198 master-apprentice relationships 298, 299, 301, 305, 306 masters 298, 299, 301, 305, 306 meaning 71 meat cutters 5 medical socialization 456, 458, 461, 464 Member Interaction 202, 208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217 memorable stage 125 methodology 72 ministry of international trade and industry (MITI) 50 Moodle LMS 400, 445, 447, 449 multidisciplinary team 93, 100 multimedia 382, 395 multimedia convergence 383, 384, 385, 393, 395 Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) 201, 205, 220 multiple identities 312, 314, 317, 318 mutual engagement 150, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 176, 178 mutual trust 40 MySpace 444
N narrative 151 narratives of change 81 naval quartermasters 5 negative-ideal solution (NIS) 202, 206, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216 networks 222, 225, 229, 230, 231, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 243 networks of practice 265, 266, 279 newcomers 298, 299, 301 new idea generation 185, 189, 193, 194, 195 new technology-based firms (NTBF) 308, 310, 311, 318, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 336 next generation infrastructure (NGI) 74 NGI research program 74 node 183 non-drinking alcoholics 5
nuclear power plants (NPP) 26, 28
O occupational communities 380 ocialization, externalization, combination and internalization (SECI) 145, 148, 160, 161 old-timer/newcomer relationships 301 old timers 302, 304 Ontario, Canada 456 open source innovation 238, 244 open source software 244 O’Reilly, Tim 285, 294 organisational learning (OL) theory 385, 395, 444 organizational design 190, 192, 194, 196 organizational identity 308, 312, 313, 314, 321, 322, 326, 327, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 336 organizational intelligence 25, 31 organizational knowledge 121, 309, 310, 321, 322, 326 organizational knowledge system (OKS) 226 organizational memory 457, 459, 460, 463, 464 organizational structures 83
P paradigms 308, 334, 336 partners in business (PIB) 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80 people-based knowledge sharing 200 people-focused knowledge 191, 193, 199, 200 performance ethnography 72 performance evaluation 201, 202, 203, 204, 209, 210, 217 peripherality 299 peripheral participation 299, 306 periphery 183 personal knowledge 34, 37 PLS model 192 podcasts 286 positive ideal solution (PIS) 202, 206, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216 potential stage 125, 126 power 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121
509
Index
power relations 121 practice-oriented toolkit 282 problem-solving team 93, 100 product diversity 385 project initiation documents (PID) 446, 451, 452, 455 project teams 83, 165, 171 Promoted Responsiveness 204, 205, 213, 218 protection 129 public administration CoP life cycle 441 public administration, knowledge problems in 442 public administrations 421, 422, 424, 425, 426, 429, 433, 434, 436, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442
Q quality improvement 456, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464 quality improvement projects 466
R radical innovation 231, 244 regional clustering 162, 164, 180 regional entities 172, 179, 183 Repsol YPF 94, 96, 97 researchers 245, 246, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 259, 261 resource allocation 201, 202, 205, 218 resources development 402 role 175, 180, 183 royal automobile club of catalonia (RACC) 98
S SABI data base 192 safety and environment (SyMA) 96 Samson and Delilah 102, 112, 114 search 285 search, links, authoring, tags, extensions, & signals (SLATES) 285, 295 SECI model 47, 48, 49, 69 SECI process 48, 51, 52 Second Life 76, 77 self-efficacy concept 444 self-managed work-team 36, 45
510
self-organizing entities 443, 444 serious games 283, 290, 295 shared beliefs 313, 314, 315 shared knowledge 444, 454 shared meaning 309, 310, 316, 321, 322, 323, 327, 328 shared repertoire 150 Shared Repository 203, 204 signals 286 simple average weight (SAW) 203, 208, 212, 215, 216, 217, 218, 221 situated learning 299 skills 366, 367, 374 Skills for the Missing Industry’s Leaders and Enterprises (SMILE) research project 383 small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) 253, 382, 383, 388, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395 social actors 314, 315, 318, 335 social capital 244, 457, 458, 460, 463, 464 social cognitive theory 340, 444 social constructivism 151 socialization 48, 49, 148, 161 socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) 225 social learning 443, 444, 450 social networking 443, 444, 445, 452, 453 social networking sites 443 social networks 244, 340 social relationships 33, 37 social software 420 Spain 185 standard performance model (SPM) 26 Star Trek: Wrath of Khan 167 Star Wars 167, 168, 172 strategic communities 46, 47, 52, 54, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68 studio era 166, 167 sustainability 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 114 Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences 396, 397 synthetic knowledge bases 362 system of iberian balance sheet analysis (SABI) 192 systems and defence engineering (SDE) 24, 25
Index
T tacit knowledge 201, 203, 204 tags 285 team philosophy 36 Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220 technologified 103 temporality 245 Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 167 The Poseidon Adventure 167 The Towering Inferno 167 time 245, 249, 253, 254, 262, 263, 264 toolkits of user innovation 267 training in working 19 triple helix innovation 264 trust 149, 454, 455 Twitter 444 2001: A Space Odyssey 167, 172
U unequal power 102, 115 Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) 145, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156
V
VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220 Vygotsky, Lev 444, 454
W weak ties 419, 420 Web 1.0 284, 285, 295 Web 2.0 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 290, 292, 293, 294, 295, 398, 420, 421 Web 3D 292, 295 Wenger, Etienne 363, 364, 365, 366, 369, 370, 372, 373, 375, 376, 378, 380, 399, 400, 408, 411, 414, 415, 418, 419, 420 Wikis 285, 286, 295 within CoP knowledge sharing 362 work-team 45
Y Yellow knowledge cooperation tool 397, 403, 406, 408, 409, 410, 411, 419, 420 Yellow Map 409, 410, 420 Yellow Pages 402, 408, 409, 419, 420 Yellow Talk 409, 410, 420 Yucatec midwives 5
vacation packages 265, 266, 269, 270, 271, 274, 280, 282 Vai and Gola tailors 5 value-creating networks 265, 266, 267 VirtaulaCaixa 95 virtual ba 189 virtual collaboration environments 441 virtual communities 237, 238, 244, 441 virtual communities development platform 441 virtual cross-organization community of practice 282 virtual simulation 82 virtual team 93, 100 virtual worlds 284, 289, 290 virtual worlds, 3D 283, 295
511
512
