Communities of Practice

Originally, the term ‘Community of Practice’ was not specifically referring to identified communities but to the evolving relationship between learning and socialisation within localised groups. Hence it can be applied to all forms of social networks and teams (Newell et al., 2009).

According to Lave and Wenger (1991, p.98) a community can be understood 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”.

Brown and Duguid (1991) add that Communities of Practice surface amongst individuals who have a shared engagement in a joint practice around which they share a common knowledge. Problem identification, learning and knowledge creation can take place within Communities of Practice (Brown and Duguid, 2001) due to the low spatial and contextual distance between individuals (Doz and Santos, 1997). Useful and practical knowledge is often developed by people who directly benefit from a solution to a problem and not from assumed experts who develop a solution for a problem they are completely detached from. Those people who are directly affected by a problem together can come up with a practical solution (von Hippel, 1998).

According to Lesser and Storck (2001) and Wenger and Snyder (2000) Communities of Practice are now widely regarded as essential to sustain the organisation’s competitive advantage by providing potential benefits such as efficient knowledge sharing, professional skill development, retaining of talents, the ability to quickly react upon client needs and demands, the reduction of time spent on ‘reinventing the wheel’ or best practice promotion and, most importantly, the sharing of new ideas which could lead to innovations. All of these potential benefits are crucial in organisations such as management consultancies where knowledge is the primary asset (Alvesson, 2004).

The notion of the Community of Practice has been founded on the

acknowledgement that individuals in their workplace do not solely learn from formal training and learning activities but through activities carried out and experiences made in their everyday lives (Retna and Ng, 2011). This view is regarded as a critical alternative to a cognitive-possession perspective on knowledge and learning which views “learning as knowledge acquisition in instruction and as separate from the context of everyday work” (Kakavelakis, 2010, p.168). In relation to this the concept of practice plays a vital role in Communities of Practice. According to Cook and Brown (1999, p.386) “practice implies doing”. Breu and Hemingway (2002) understand practice as ‘coordinated activities’ of individuals as well as groups when doing their work, informed by an organisational or group context. In accordance to this understanding, and in line with the social-process approach to organisational learning and knowledge, knowing and doing cannot be separated from each other.

Existing knowledge is not only applied in practice, but also produced and therefore dependent on the context in which people practice. Consequently, members of a community create and share knowledge cooperatively because they share a common practice (Breu and Hemingway, 2002; Hutchins, 1991). Communities of Practice theory focusses on a social view on learning which views learning as taking place within a framework of social participation in relation to context (Blackmore, 2010; Elkjaer, 1999; Lave and Wenger, 1991) and therefore conforms to the social-constructionist perspective on knowledge and learning. Learning can only take place through access to the community and the chance to participate actively in the

practices of the community (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Gherardi et al., 1998; Brown and Duguid, 1991). Learning results from actually engaging in the process of performance and is called ‘situated learning’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) which takes place in the same context in which it is applied. It is not only organisations that can benefit from Communities of Practice; individuals are offered an identity and a social context in which they can enlarge and share their skills and experiences through active membership in a community (Hislop, 2009).

Community membership is largely voluntary and objectives constantly change due to the development of the topic of interest as well as the knowledge of community members. Control of external management is mostly limited or completely absent since the community is self-organised by its members, has emergent structures, is characterised by multiple and diverse relationships and has fluid boundaries (Wenger, 2010; Wenger and Snyder, 2000). However, it has to be taken into account that the degree of autonomy and flexibility of communities is closely linked to whether they have been formally created ‘top-down’ or informally emerged

‘bottom-up’ (Brown and Duguid, 1991). Table 2.5 illustrates the characteristics of formal ‘top down’ and informal ‘bottom-up’ Communities of Practice.

Table 2.5 Formal ‘top-down’ and informal ‘bottom-up’ Communities of Practice Developed from Brown and Duguid (1991), Saint-Onge and Wallace (2003), Lesser and Storck (2001), Jeon et al. (2011)

Characteristics Formal ‘top-down’ Informal ‘bottom-up’ Level of sponsorship High (often by executives) Low

Life cycle Relatively short (until

Formal ‘top-down’ communities on the one hand often have difficulties with being fully supported by their members since the passion for a specific topic can be

missing in these communities. It might even be viewed as yet another disturbance of daily work life by its members. Employees may experience their mandatory

membership as additional workload to their daily tasks and not as something they could be benefiting from (Fontaine, 2001; Saint-Onge and Wallace, 2003). Informal

‘bottom-up’ communities on the other hand often emerge when informal networks continually attract more people which makes a more structured approach necessary (Fontaine, 2001). In naturally developed or bottom-up communities members feel in control of the community and participate out of passion. Thus, this kind of

community is very often more genuine and successful in its outcomes, since its members care passionately for the community and feel responsible for success (Iaquinto et al., 2011). The community is something which exists because of their interest and keenness for a specific subject and passion about what they are doing and about doing it well (Gherardi, 2003).

Wenger et al. (2002) set up five degrees of acceptance of Communities of Practice by organisations, offering a valuable framework for this study. Firstly there are invisible Communities of Practice within an organisation, completely unrecognised.

Even individuals being part of these Communities of Practice are not aware that they belong to a Community of Practice. Communities of Practice can also be

‘bootlegged’; only visible to individuals part of or close to the Communities of Practice. It is likely that underground innovators (Oster, 2010) draw on these kinds of communities. The extent to which ‘visible’ Communities of Practice are accepted by the organisation’s management can vary; some may not be accepted or even be sanctioned, whereas others might be highly accepted and supported.

Institutionalised communities experience the maximum level of acceptance, often provided with an official status in the organisation (Wenger et al., 2002).

Most of the literature dealing with Communities of Practice is very optimistic about the impacts communities can have. Lave and Wenger (1991, p.58) stress the

“contradictory nature of collective social practice” which describes the dilemma, that on the one hand, community members work together towards a shared goal but, on the other hand, they compete with each other for visibility and promotion

opportunities. The sense of identity of members of a community is mostly viewed as positive. Yet, this identity can also imply a sense of exclusiveness and ignorance towards individuals outside of the community and their knowledge (Alvesson, 2000).

This can result in a community being solely ‘inward-looking’ (Hislop, 2009) and unable to absorb external ideas and knowledge which, in the long run, will severely damage the community’s ability to be innovative. Overall, Brown and Duguid (2001, p.203) summarise that “communities can be warm and cold, sometimes coercive rather than persuasive, and occasionally even explosive”. Still, they have the potential to mediate between the individual employee and large organisations.

The notion of Communities of Practice also includes social networks which have evolved over time (Newell et al., 2009). According to Davenport (2005) social or personal networks are critical for learning and knowing activities. Knowledge workers in particular tend to turn to their social networks, often consisting of former or actual colleagues, for solving issues they face as well as sharing creative ideas (Davenport, 2005). Participants of Davenport’s (2005) research stated that they use their personal networks, which they had built over time, to connect well with others and to look for mutual benefit in the long run.

Relationships to other members of their personal networks are based on personal contacts rather than business contacts. Often personal relationships come into existence due to sharing a similar educational background, joint work and project experiences, interests, attitudes and leisure activities. These personal connections

make the members of personal networks more willing to commit time and effort to help each other (Davenport, 2005). Due to the trust which is usually built over time in these networks, individuals are willing to take risks by sharing ill-formed ideas and by being more creative than with colleagues they do not feel connected to (Andrews and Delahaye, 2000). Participants in Davenport’s (2005, p.154) research said they regard their personal networks as “two-way streets” where members do not only demand feedback and input from others but naturally offer the same to others. In these personal networks new knowledge can be created which the individual member might contribute to his or her job.