Community of practice

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A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". [1] The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. [2] Wenger significantly expanded on this concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice. [3]

Contents

A CoP can form around members' shared interests or goals. Through being part of a CoP, the members learn from each other and develop their identities. [2]

CoPs can engage in community practices in physical settings (for example, in a lunchroom at work, an office, a factory floor), but CoP members are not necessarily co-located. [3] They can form a "virtual community of practice" (VCoP) [4] when the CoP is primarily located in online spaces such as discussion boards, newsgroups, or social media. Similar to a VCoP, a "mobile community of practice" (MCoP) [5] forms when members primarily engage in community practices via mobile phones.

Communities of practice have existed for as long as people have been learning and sharing their experiences through storytelling. The idea is rooted in American pragmatism, especially C. S. Peirce's concept of the "community of inquiry", [6] as well as John Dewey's principle of learning through occupation. [7]

Overview

For Etienne Wenger, learning in a CoP is central to identity because learning is conceptualized as social participation – the individual actively participates in the practices of social communities, thus developing their role and identity within the community. [8] In this context, a community of practice is a group of individuals with shared interests or goals who develop both their individual and shared identities through community participation.

The structural characteristics of a community of practice are redefined to a domain of knowledge, a notion of community and a practice:

In many organizations, communities of practice are integral to the organization structure. [9] These communities take on knowledge stewarding tasks that were previously covered by more formal organizational structures. Both formal and informal communities of practice may be established in an organization. There is a great deal of interest within organizations to encourage, support, and sponsor communities of practice to benefit from shared knowledge that may lead to higher productivity.[ citation needed ] Communities of practice are viewed by many within business settings as a means to explicate tacit knowledge, or the "know-how" that is difficult to articulate.

An important aspect and function of communities of practice is increasing organization performance. Lesser and Storck identify four areas of organizational performance that can be affected by communities of practice: [10]

Types

Compared to functional or project teams

Collaboration constellations differ in various ways. Some are under organizational control (e.g., teams), whereas others, like CoPs, are self-organized or under the control of individuals. Researchers have studied how collaboration types vary in their temporal or boundary focus, and the basis of their members' relationships. [5]

A project team differs from a community of practice in several ways.[ citation needed ]

By contrast,

Versus communities of interest

In some cases, it may be useful to differentiate CoP from a community of interest (CoI).

Community of interest
Community of practice

Benefits

Social capital

Social capital is a multi-dimensional concept with public and private facets. [11] That is, social capital may provide value to both the individual and the group as a whole. As participants build informal connections in their community of practice, they also share their expertise, learn from others, participate in the group, and demonstrate their expertise - all of which can be viewed as acquiring social capital.

Knowledge management

Wasko and Faraj describe three kinds of knowledge: knowledge as object, knowledge embedded within individuals, and knowledge embedded in a community. [12] CoPs are associated with finding, sharing, transferring, and archiving knowledge, as well as making explicit "expertise", or articulating tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is considered to be valuable context-based experiences that cannot easily be captured, codified and stored. [13] [14]

Because knowledge management is seen "primarily as a problem of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information, evoking notions of databases, documents, query languages, and data mining", [15] the community of practice is viewed as a potential rich source for helpful information in the form of actual experiences; in other words, best practices. Thus, for knowledge management, if community practices within a CoP can be codified and archived, they provide rich content and contexts that can be accessed for future use.

Factors

Individuals

Members of CoPs are thought to be more efficient and effective conduits of information and experiences. While organizations tend to provide manuals to meet employee training needs, CoPs help foster the process of storytelling among colleagues, which helps them strengthen their skills. [16]

Studies have shown that workers spend a third of their time looking for information and are five times more likely to turn to a co-worker than an explicit source of information (book, manual, or database). [13] Conferring with CoP members saves time because community members have tacit knowledge, which can be difficult to store and retrieve for people unfamiliar with the CoP. For example, someone might share one of their best ways of responding to a situation based on their experiences, which may enable another person to avoid mistakes, thus shortening the learning curve. In a CoP, members can openly discuss and brainstorm about a project, which can lead to new capabilities. The type of information that is shared and learned in a CoP is boundless. [17] Paul Duguid distinguishes tacit knowledge (knowing how) from explicit knowledge (knowing what). [18] Performing optimally in a job requires the application of theory into practice. CoPs help individuals bridge the gap between knowing what and knowing how. [18]

As members of CoPs, individuals report increased communication with people (professionals, interested parties, hobbyists), less dependence on geographic proximity, and the generation of new knowledge. [19] This assumes that interactions occur naturally when individuals come together. Social and interpersonal factors play a role in the interaction, and research shows that some individuals share or withhold knowledge and expertise from others because their knowledge relates to their professional identities, position, and interpersonal relationships. [20] [21]

Social presence

Communicating with others in a CoP involves creating social presence. Chih-Hsiung defines social presence as "the degree of salience of another person in an interaction and the consequent salience of an interpersonal relationship". [22] Social presence may affect the likelihood for an individual to participate in a CoP (especially in online environments and virtual communities of practice). [22] CoP management often encounter barriers that inhibit knowledge exchange between members. Reasons for these barriers may include egos and personal attacks, large overwhelming CoPs, and time constraints. [12]

Motivation

Motivation to share knowledge is critical to success in communities of practice. Studies show that members are motivated to become active participants in a CoP when they view knowledge as a public good, a moral obligation and/or a community interest. [19] CoP members can also be motivated to participate through tangible returns (promotion, raises or bonuses), intangible returns (reputation, self-esteem) and community interest (exchange of practice related knowledge, interaction).

Collaboration

Collaboration is essential to ensure that communities of practice thrive. In a study on knowledge exchange in a business network, Sveiby and Simons found that more seasoned colleagues tend to foster a more collaborative culture. [23] Additionally they noted that a higher educational level predicted a tendency to favor collaboration.

Successful cultivation

What makes a community of practice succeed depends on the purpose and objective of the community as well as the interests and resources of community members. Wenger identified seven actions to cultivate communities of practice:

  1. Design the community to evolve naturally – Because the nature of a community of practice is dynamic, in that the interests, goals, and members are subject to change, CoP forums should be designed to support shifts in focus.
  2. Create opportunities for open dialog within and with outside perspectives – While the members and their knowledge are the CoP's most valuable resource, it is also beneficial to look outside of the CoP to understand different possibilities for achieving their learning goals.
  3. Welcome and allow different levels of participation – Wenger identifies 3 main levels of participation. 1) The core group that participates intensely in the community through discussions and projects. This group typically takes on leadership roles in guiding the group. 2) The active group that attends and participates regularly, but not to the level of the core group. 3) The peripheral group who, while passive participants in the community, still learn from their level of involvement. Wenger notes that the third group typically represents the majority of the community.
  4. Develop both public and private community spaces – While CoPs typically operate in public spaces where all members share, discuss and explore ideas, they should also offer private exchanges. Different CoP members could coordinate relationships among members and resources in an individualized approach based on specific needs.
  5. Focus on the value of the community – CoPs should create opportunities for participants to explicitly discuss the value and productivity of their participation in the group.
  6. Combine familiarity and excitement – CoPs should offer the expected learning opportunities as part of their structure, and opportunities for members to shape their learning experience together by brainstorming and examining the conventional and radical wisdom related to their topic.
  7. Find and nurture a regular rhythm for the community – CoPs should coordinate a thriving cycle of activities and events that allow members to regularly meet, reflect, and evolve. The rhythm, or pace, should maintain an anticipated level of engagement to sustain the vibrancy of the community, yet not so fast-paced that it becomes unwieldy and overwhelming. [8]

History

Since the publication of "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation", [2] communities of practice have been the focus of attention, first as a theory of learning and later as part of the field of knowledge management. [24] Andrew Cox offers a more critical view of the different ways in which the term communities of practice can be interpreted. [25]

Early years

To understand how learning occurs outside the classroom, Lave and Wenger studied how newcomers or novices become established community members within an apprenticeship. [2] Lave and Wenger first used the term communities of practice to describe learning through practice and participation, which they described as situated learning.

The process by which a community member becomes part of a community occurs through legitimate peripheral participation. Legitimation and participation define ways of belonging to a community, whereas peripherality and participation are concerned with location and identity in the social world. [2]

Lave and Wenger's research examined how a community and its members learn within apprenticeships. When newcomers join an established community, they initially observe and perform simple tasks in basic roles while they learn community norms and practices. For example, an apprentice electrician might watch and learn through observation before doing any electrical work, but would eventually take on more complicated electrical tasks. Lave and Wenger described this socialization process as legitimate peripheral participation. Lave and Wenger referred to a "community of practice" as a group that shares a common interest and desire to learn from and contribute to the community. [2]

Later years

In his later work, Wenger shifted his focus from legitimate peripheral participation toward tensions that emerge from dualities. [3] He identifies four dualities that exist in communities of practice: participation-reification, designed-emergent, identification-negotiability and local-global. The participation-reification duality has been a particular focus in the field of knowledge management.

Wenger describes three dimensions of practice that support community cohesion: mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise and shared repertoire. [3]

Society and culture

Examples

The communities Lave and Wenger studied were naturally forming as practitioners of craft and skill-based activities met to share experiences and insights. [2]

Lave and Wenger observed situated learning within a community of practice among Yucatán midwives, Liberian tailors, navy quartermasters and meat cutters, [2] and insurance claims processors. [3] Other fields have used the concept of CoPs in education, [26] sociolinguistics, material anthropology, medical education, second language acquisition, [27] Parliamentary Budget Offices, [28] health care and business sectors, [29] and child mental health practice (AMBIT).

A famous example of a community of practice within an organization is the Xerox customer service representatives who repaired machines. [30] The Xerox reps began exchanging repair tips and tricks in informal meetings over breakfast or lunch. Eventually, Xerox saw the value of these interactions and created the Eureka project, which allowed these interactions to be shared across its global network of representatives. The Eureka database is estimated to have saved the corporation $100 million.

Examples of large virtual CoPs include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge management</span> Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization

Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

Organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. An organization improves over time as it gains experience. From this experience, it is able to create knowledge. This knowledge is broad, covering any topic that could better an organization. Examples may include ways to increase production efficiency or to develop beneficial investor relations. Knowledge is created at four different units: individual, group, organizational, and inter organizational.

Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to conceptualized, formalized, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract; therefore it is more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include motor skills, personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition.

Situated learning is a theory that explains an individual's acquisition of professional skills and includes research on apprenticeship into how legitimate peripheral participation leads to membership in a community of practice. Situated learning "takes as its focus the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs".

Situated cognition is a theory that posits that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts.

An online community of practice (OCoP), also known as a virtual community of practice (VCoP), is a community of practice (CoP) that is developed and maintained on the Internet. OCoPs include active members who are practitioners, or "experts," in the specific domain of interest. Members participate in a process of collective learning within their domain. Community social structures are created to assist in knowledge creation and sharing, which is negotiated within an appropriate context. Community members learn through both instruction-based learning and group discourse. Finally, multiple dimensions facilitate the long-term management of support and the ability for synchronous interactions.

Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining connections with people and information, and communicating in such a way so as to support one another's learning. The central term in this definition is connections. It adopts a relational stance in which learning takes place both in relation to others and in relation to learning resources. In design and practice, networked learning is intended to facilitate evolving sets of connections between learners and their interpersonal communities, knowledge contexts, and digital technologies.

Network of practice is a concept originated by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. This concept, related to the work on communities of practice by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, refers to the overall set of various types of informal, emergent social networks that facilitate information exchange between individuals with practice-related goals. In other words, networks of practice range from communities of practice, where learning occurs, to electronic networks of practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Étienne Wenger</span> Swiss information scientist

Étienne Charles Wenger is an educational theorist and practitioner, best known for his formulation of the theory of situated cognition and his more recent work in the field of communities of practice.

Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) describes how newcomers become experienced members and eventually old timers of a community of practice or collaborative project. LPP identifies learning as a contextual social phenomenon, achieved through participation in a community practice. According to LPP, newcomers become members of a community initially by participating in simple and low-risk tasks that are nonetheless productive and necessary and further the goals of the community. Through peripheral activities, novices become acquainted with the tasks, vocabulary, and organizing principles of the community's practitioners.

A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes and meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher education. This may be based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Lave</span> American anthropologist

Jean Lave is a social anthropologist who theorizes learning as changing participation in on-going changing practice. Her lifework challenges conventional theories of learning and education.

Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN) is a web-based collaborative environment developed by Triune Group for the U.S. Air Force (USAF). From 1999 to 2012, AFKN grew to more than 19,000 Communities of Practice (CoPs) and 400,000 members. In 2004, Air Force CIO John M. Gilligan designated AFKN the Air Force Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management, making it the USAF's only certified and accredited enterprise-wide knowledge management program. By focusing on social, behavioral and cultural aspects of knowledge sharing, AFKN evolved beyond traditional knowledge management systems, which focused on capturing information through technology.

Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities, or within or between organizations. It bridges the individual and organizational knowledge, improving the absorptive and innovation capacity and thus leading to sustained competitive advantage of companies as well as individuals. Knowledge sharing is part of the knowledge management process.

Practice theory is a body of social theory within anthropology and sociology that explains society and culture as the result of structure and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the late 20th century and was first outlined in the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duality (CoPs)</span>

In a community of practice, duality refers to a tension between two forces which become a driving force for change and creativity. Wenger uses the concept of dualities to examine the forces that create and sustain a community of practice. He describes a duality as "a single conceptual unit that is formed by two inseparable and mutually constitutive elements whose inherent tensions and complementarity give the concept richness and dynamism".

The Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) in Palo Alto, California was co-founded by John Seely Brown, then chief research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center, and James Greeno, Professor of Education at Stanford University, with the support of David Kearns, CEO of Xerox Corporation in 1986 through a grant from the Xerox Foundation. It operated from 1986 to 2000 as an independent cross-disciplinary think tank with a mission to study learning in all its forms and sites.

Communities that support innovation have been referred to as communities of innovation (CoI), communities for innovation, innovation communities, open innovation communities, and communities of creation.

Alison Fuller is a British educational researcher and Professor of Vocational Education and Work at the Institute of Education of the University College London and, where she also serves as Pro-Director for Research and Development. She is a leading educational researcher in the UK, with her research centering on work transitions, apprenticeships, vocational education and training, and workplace learning.

A landscape of practice (LoP) is a social sciences concept introduced by Etienne Wenger-Trayner and Beverly Wenger-Trayner in a 2014 book.

References

  1. ↑ "Introduction to communities of practice – A brief overview of the concept and its uses". Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. October 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Lave, Jean; Wenger, Etienne (1991). "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation". Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521423748.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0521663636.
  4. ↑ Dubé, Line; Bourhis, Anne; Jacob, Réal (2005). "The impact of structuring characteristics on the launching of virtual communities of practice" (PDF). Journal of Organizational Change Management. 18 (2): 145–166. doi:10.1108/09534810510589570 . Retrieved 2024-10-09– via Emerald.
  5. 1 2 Kietzmann, Jan; Plangger, Kirk; Eaton, Ben; Heilgenberg, Kerstin; Pitt, Leyland; Berthon, Pierre (2013). "Mobility at work: A typology of mobile communities of practice and contextual ambidexterity" (PDF). The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. 22 (4): 282–297. doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2013.03.003 – via Elsevier.
  6. ↑ Shields, Patricia M. (2003). "The community of inquiry: Classical pragmatism and public administration". Administration & Society. 35 (5): 510–538. doi:10.1177/0095399703256160 . Retrieved 2024-10-09– via Sagepub.
  7. ↑ Wallace, Danny P. (2007). Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross-Disciplinary Themes. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN   9780313097041.
  8. 1 2 Wenger, Etienne; McDermott, Richard Arnold; Snyder, William (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Harvard Business Press. ISBN   9781578513307.
  9. ↑ McDermott, Richard; Archibald, Douglas (March 2010). "Harnessing Your Staff's Informal Networks". Harvard Business Review. 88 (3): 82–89. PMID   20402051 . Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  10. ↑ Lesser, Eric; Storck, John (2001). "Communities of practice and organizational performance" (PDF). IBM Systems Journal. 40 (4): 831–841. doi:10.1147/sj.404.0831.
  11. ↑ Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and Symbolic Power . Translated by Raymond, Gino; Adamson, Matthew. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN   9780674510401.
  12. 1 2 Wasko, M. McLure; Faraj, Samer (2000). ""It is what one does": why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice". The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. 9 (2–3): 155–173. doi:10.1016/S0963-8687(00)00045-7.
  13. 1 2 Davenport, Thomas H.; Prusak, Laurence (2000). Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press. ISBN   9781578513017.
  14. ↑ Hildreth, Paul M.; Kimble, Chris (2002). "The Duality of Knowledge" (PDF). Information Research. 8 (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-08-02.
  15. ↑ Thomas, John C.; Kellogg, Wendy A.; Erickson, Thomas (2001). "The Knowledge Management Puzzle: Human and Social Factors in Knowledge Management" (PDF). IBM Systems Journal. 40 (4): 863–884. doi:10.1147/sj.404.0863 . Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  16. ↑ Brown, John Seely; Duguid, Paul (1991). "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation" (PDF). Organization Science. 2 (1): 40–57. doi:10.1287/orsc.2.1.40. JSTOR   2634938 . Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  17. ↑ Dalkir, Kimiz (2005). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780080547367. ISBN   9780080547367.
  18. 1 2 Duguid, Paul (2005). ""The art of knowing": Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and the limits of the community of practice". The Information Society. 21 (2): 109–118. doi:10.1080/01972240590925311 – via Taylor & Francis.
  19. 1 2 Ardichvili, Alexander; Page, Vaughn; Wentling, Tim (2003). "Motivation and Barriers to Participation in Virtual Knowledge-Sharing Communities of Practice". Journal of Knowledge Management. 7 (1): 64–77. doi:10.1108/13673270310463626 – via Emerald.
  20. ↑ van Houten, Maarten M. (2022-12-15). "Interpersonal issues in knowledge sharing: the impact of professional discretion in knowledge sharing and learning communities". Teacher Development. 27: 116–132. doi: 10.1080/13664530.2022.2156590 . ISSN   1366-4530. S2CID   254769033.
  21. ↑ Jarvenpaa, S.; Staples, D. (2001). "Exploring Perceptions of Organizational Ownership of Information and Expertise". Journal of Management Information Systems. 18 (1): 151–183. doi:10.1080/07421222.2001.11045673. S2CID   27958211.
  22. 1 2 Tu, Chih-Hsiung (April–June 2002). "The Measurement of Social Presence in an Online Learning Environment" (PDF). International Journal on E-learning. 1 (2): 34–45. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  23. ↑ Sveiby, Karl-Erik; Simons, Roland (2002). "Collaborative Climate and Effectiveness of Knowledge Work - An Empirical Study" (PDF). Journal of Knowledge Management. 6 (5): 420–433. doi:10.1108/13673270210450388 . Retrieved 2024-10-09– via Emerald.
  24. ↑ Paul Hildreth; Chris Kimble (2004). Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice. Hershey: IGI Global. ISBN   978-1-59140-200-8. OCLC   54448243. OL   8854707M. Wikidata   Q104813481.
  25. ↑ Cox, Andrew (2005). "What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works" (PDF). Journal of Information Science. 31 (6): 527–540. doi:10.1177/0165551505057016 . Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  26. ↑ Grossman, Pamela; Wineburg, Samuel; Woolworth, Stephen (2001). "Toward a Theory of Teacher Community". Teachers College Record. 103 (6): 942–1012. doi:10.1111/0161-4681.001 (inactive 1 November 2024) – via Sage Journals.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  27. ↑ Kimble, Chris; Bourdon, Isabelle; Hildreth, Paul (2008). Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators (1st ed.). Information Age Publishing. ISBN   9781593118631.
  28. ↑ Chohan, Usman W. (2013). "Fostering a Community of Practice Among Parliamentary Budget Offices of the Commonwealth". Parliamentarian. 94 (3): 198–201. ISSN   0031-2282.
  29. ↑ Li, Linda C; Grimshaw, Jeremy M; Nielsen, Camilla; Judd, Maria; Coyte, Peter C; Graham, Ian D (17 May 2009). "Use of communities of practice in business and health care sectors: A systematic review". Implementation Science. 4 (1): 27. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-4-27 . PMC   2694761 . PMID   19445723.
  30. ↑ Brown, John Seely; Duguid, Paul (2000). "Balancing Act: How to Capture Knowledge Without Killing It" (PDF). Harvard Business Review. 78 (3): 73–80. PMID   11183980.

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