The nature of changes to practice

For the purpose of this thesis, and as explained above, practice is defined as a set of observable activities that are related to a particular organisational function, in which

‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ are inseparable. Therefore, changes to practice will involve changes in both ‘doing’ and ‘knowing’. Orlikowski (2002) in her study of new product development practice observed work activities and inferred what ‘knowing’ was necessary to perform these activities. Orlikowski looks at ‘practice’, not at ‘change in practice’. However, I argue that a similar approach can be taken to understand changes in practice. Changes in ‘doing’ are observable, and changes in ‘knowing’ (ability to

perform an activity) can be inferred from the changes in ‘doing’. By examining changes in the commercialisation activities of KTOs I can draw conclusions about how their abilities change.

The seminal work of Wenger (1998) does not deal with changes in practice in a very explicit manner, but does provide some valuable insights. Wenger (1998) argues that learning in COP transforms practices when the members of the COP learn something that falls outside of the community’s regime of competence. As already explained, the regime of competence is socially negotiated and defines what activities a competent member of a given COP should be able to perform and how he or she should do them.

In other words, the regime of competence defines what abilities COP members should display. When a COP member has a new experience and alters the community’s regime of competence to include this new experience, the new knowledge is embedded in work practice and practice is transformed. It goes without saying that altering the community’s regime of competence may not be an easy process (Fox, 2000). Wenger (1998: 138-139) explains how individuals ensure that their new experience is embedded in practice:

As a way of asserting their membership, they may very well attempt to change the community’s regime [of competence] so that it includes their experience. Towards this end, they have to negotiate its meaning with their community of practice. They invite others to participate in their experience;

they attempt to reify it for them. They many need to engage with people in new ways and transform relations among people in order to be taken seriously; they may need to redefine the enterprise in order to make the effort worthwhile; they may need to add new elements to the repertoire of their practice.

The inference is that a change in the COP’s regime of competence is associated with changes in practice. First, there may be changes in how the activities that constitute practice are performed – for example, how individuals engage with one another and what elements of the repertoire of practice they make use of. Second, when the shared enterprise is redefined there may be changes to what activities are performed within the practice. A study by Gherardi and Perrotta (2011) makes a distinction between these two aspects of practice. In a study of the effect of the national institutional context on local medical practice, Gherardi and Perrotta (2011: 5) proposed “to study practice as an order-producing device, integrating the what it [sic] is done (the activities performed within the practice), with the how it is done (the subjective and situated meaning of the

practice for its practitioners)” (emphases in the original). Neither Wenger (1998) nor Gherardi and Perrotta (2011) shed light on how the changes to the what and the how relate to changes in the regime of competence.

In fact, most studies that examined the effect of situated learning on practice (Anand et al., 2007; Brown and Duguid, 1991; Meeuwesen, 2007; Orr, 1990; Wenger, 1998;

Mørk et al., 2008; Wenger and Snyder, 2000) pay little attention to changes in the regime of competence. A notable exception is Nooteboom (2008), who argues that because of COP’s narrow cognitive focus (similarity in knowledge bases and values) situated learning in COPs generally will lead to refinements in the existing competences through incremental changes in practice, whereas learning across COPs may lead to the development of new competences through more radical changes to practice.

The insights from these studies suggest that changes in practice can be considered on two dimensions: (1) the scale of the change – radical or incremental; and (2) the scope of the change – change in how activities are performed or what activities are performed.

Juxtaposing these dimensions identifies radical changes in ‘the how’, radical changes in

‘the what’, incremental changes in ‘the how’ and incremental changes in ‘the what’. If one accepts Nooteboom’s (2008) argument that incremental changes relate to refining existing abilities,⁷ then there are two ways in which abilities are refined: incremental changes to the how and incremental changes to the what. Similarly, assuming that radical changes in practice relate to development of new abilities (Nooteboom, 2008), new abilities can be developed in two ways – radical changes in the what and radical changes in the how.

To understand these four types of changes, it is helpful to take a closer look at the structure of activities that constitute practice. To this end, the work of Leontiev (1979), by which situated learning has been inspired, is very helpful. Leontiev (1979) argued each activity is directed to an object and comprises of actions (or tasks) which can be performed differently depending on the conditions in which action takes place. Given that practice comprises activities, the practice change may involve

 Change to what activities are performed within the practice – For example, an addition of a new activity to existing practice would require the members of

7 I use the term ‘ability’ rather than the term ‘competence’ used by Nooteboom. The term competence is commonly associated with the capacity to do something successfully whereas the term ability typically indicates the capacity to do something. The COP regime of competence refers to the abilities to do something in a way that COP members perceive as competent, but does not mean that these abilities lead to successful outcomes. Therefore, the term ‘ability’ is preferred here to the term ‘competence’.

COP to develop an ability to perform this activity (e.g. using a computer for book writing, introducing intracytoplasmic sperm injection method to a

reproduction clinic ). If at the same time another activity was to be discontinued (e.g. using a typewriter for writing books), the ability to perform this activity would become obsolete. I will refer to this kind of change as a ‘radical change in the what’.

 Changes to the object of an activity within the practice – The change of the object of an activity would entail changes in the way the activity is performed (e.g. serving food fast rather than providing quality experience in a restaurant).

This kind of change arguably requires COP member to transform their ability to do X (ability to perform activity aiming at X) by an ability to do Y (ability to perform activity aiming at object Y). I will refer to this kind of change as a

‘radical change in the how’.

 Changes to what actions are performed to execute a particular activity – This could involve an addition (or discontinuation) of an action (e.g. addition of a new selling technique). In this case COP members already have the ability to perform a particular activity but may need to refine this ability to be able to perform a new action. I will refer to this kind of change as an ‘incremental change in the what’.

 Changes to how actions are performed to execute a particular activity – This could involve refining some tools or developing new one or introducing a procedure to standardise the way in which actions are performed. In this case COP members already have the ability to perform a particular activity but may need to refine this ability to be able to perform some actions, which constitute this activity, in a different way. I will refer to this kind of change as an

‘incremental change in the how’.

My conceptual model of outcomes of situated learning at the organisational level practice – that is, changes in practice – takes into account the four aforementioned types of change and is presented in Figure ‎3.1. This conceptual model allows investigation of what is learnt in organisations and addresses the first research question – What do KTOs learn?

Figure ‎3.1 Conceptual model of changes in practice

Source: Constructed by the author

In this section I have argued that the changes in practice resulting from situated learning have not been sufficiently problematised in the literature. I have proposed a model showing that practice changes vary in scope and scale. Can situated learning result in any of the above four types of change? COPs may be motivated to improve their existing abilities through incremental changes to practice. Do they also initiate radical changes that will require development of new abilities or make current abilities obsolete? Do COPs learn to make radical changes in practice if forced to do so? Is the new knowledge generated through interactions among the COP members? Also, COPs are informal groups that have no formal control over organisational resources. Given that changes to what is done (radical and incremental) are likely to require resources (e.g. time, money), it is plausible that situated learning will require some sort of support from management.

I have argued that our understanding how situated learning transforms practice could be enriched by examining the relationships between different ways of situated learning (in communities of practice, in NOPs and across communities of practice) and different types of practice changes. In Section 3.3, I discuss previous work that may shed some light on the relationship between ways of situated learning and incremental/radical changes to ‘the what’ and ‘the how’.

3.3 “How do KTOs learn?” – Learning and knowledge creation in COPs

The previous section explained that learning through interactions between individuals generates new knowledge that can transform work practices. The next three sub-sections provide a review of the literature on how learning and knowledge creation occur in COPs, NOPs, and across COPs. The section concludes with a conceptual model for how new knowledge is created by commercialisation staff in university KTOs. This model is used to address the second research question – How do KTOs learn?

3.3.1 Learning through interactions within a COP

Social interactions among the members of a COP can be a source of learning experiences in which an individual learns something that is new to the whole community. The early COP literature (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) discusses how knowledge is created within a community.

Wenger (1998) gives the example of hiring a new person providing opportunities for the COPs’ incumbent members to encounter new experiences. The interactions between a newcomer and the incumbent members of a COP awaken interest, the enterprise is redefined and the repertoire of practice is adapted. The COP’s regime of competence is redefined and practice evolves. Wenger (1998) does not explain whether the changes in practice are incremental or radical. Brown and Duguid’s (1991) study of copy machine technicians shows that practice evolves also through a negotiation of meaning among the incumbent members of a COP. A technician tried what he knew to fix a copy machine and failed. He discussed the problem with other technicians and together they came up with a new understanding of the problem with new solutions which were tried out with success. In other words, new knowledge was created in interactions among incumbent members of a community. The success story was discussed informally with other technicians and the knowledge created through experimentation entered the community’s repertoire of practice in the form of a story. The routine for diagnosing copy machine problems changed. This example suggests that interactions among community members can lead to incremental changes in practice. The solutions invented by COP members are likely to be similar to existing ways of doing things because over time community members develop a shared view of what to do and how to do it. The diversity in the skills, abilities and cognition is low in a COP and therefore their ability to innovate is also low (Justensen, 2004; Nooteboom, 2008). For this reason

the COPs may not be the ideal structures for the creation of new knowledge based on combining different points of view.

Amin and Roberts (2008c) suggest that situated learning within ‘craft-based COPs’

(e.g. flute makers, insurance processors) and ‘professional COPs’ (e.g. healthcare or education professionals) tends to generate incremental innovation, but that situated learning in ‘expert or high creativity COPs’ and ‘virtual COPs’ (Amin and Roberts, 2008c) can result in radical changes. Indeed, Anand et al. (2007) found that a COP of consultants played a key role in developing new areas of practice (i.e., radical changes in ‘the what’). In the context of KTOs, it is expected that COPs of knowledge transfer professionals will display the characteristics of a ‘professional COP’, such as, the importance of specialised expert knowledge acquired through education and training, the collocation of COP members, and the development of formal regulatory institutions (Amin and Roberts, 2008c). Hence, it is expected that learning by knowledge transfer professionals through interactions within the COPs in the KTO will result in incremental changes in practice. These might be interactions involving a newcomer (e.g.

new employee) and the incumbent members of a COP, or interactions among existing COP members.

In summary, on the basis of the findings from previous studies I propose that learning in COPs in university KTOs can result in incremental changes to practice.

Learning through interactions within COPs in the KTO is an important element in my theoretical framework. Section 3.3.2 discusses learning through interactions with other COPs.