Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intellectual ...

Annukka Jyrämä et al.
example health, social services and education, and <strong>the</strong> smaller ones, for example, park maintenance.
However, no direct departmental comparisons were made due to ethical reasons. Even though <strong>the</strong>
size <strong>of</strong> a department (community) was not found to be significant as an explaining variable for attitude
towards development work, it could be noted that in small departments <strong>the</strong> results were more diverse,
whereas in <strong>the</strong> big departments, <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> management and <strong>the</strong> closest superior emerge as key
issue.
Ano<strong>the</strong>r indirect way to conduct <strong>the</strong> analysis was to compare departments that have direct contacts
with citizens (customers) and <strong>the</strong> ones which do not. The results highlight that <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> gender is
important on all occasions, whereas <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> age and education as well as organizational status
created some differences. However, <strong>the</strong> differences in communities seem to be better captured from
<strong>the</strong> open answers that show more differences on <strong>the</strong> communities’ values and practices.
5. Discussion
In our study, <strong>the</strong> communities were experienced as creating learning environment, as enablers <strong>of</strong>
learning. The communities <strong>of</strong> practice seem to share a dominant logic as enabling learning and
knowledge sharing, as it provides similar values, language, and joint understanding within <strong>the</strong> local
community.( e.g. Lane and Lubatkin 1998). However, <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> dominant logic as a barrier becomes
more distinct when project work includes people from several bureaus, ie. communities. These can be
seen as distinct microcommunities <strong>of</strong> knowledge.
As our results clearly point out, clear barriers existed for learning and knowledge sharing. The local
enabling culture might not apply in development projects that are managed entities, <strong>the</strong>y may include
participants from various departments, communities <strong>of</strong> practice, and, hence, <strong>the</strong> development project
participants might not share <strong>the</strong> same values, languages and dominant logic. Thus, it <strong>of</strong>ten becomes
problematic to create a shared language and understanding, a common context for learning (see
Lane and Lubatkin 1998). Moreover, even if <strong>the</strong> project team itself is learning and creating new
knowledge, it might not share <strong>the</strong> same practices and values, language and understandings with <strong>the</strong>
local community within which it ought to implement <strong>the</strong> new knowledge (see e.g. Jyrämä and Äyväri
2008, Bäcklund 2007).
Interestingly, managers’ and employees’ views and experiences on development work differed. This
finding might refer to <strong>the</strong> facts that managers are <strong>of</strong>ten more experienced and legitimate members <strong>of</strong>
communities, acting as “gate openers”, opening up <strong>the</strong> local communities for new ideas and learning
ra<strong>the</strong>r than acting as gatekeepers (see e.g. Wenger 1998, Cox 2004). On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, our results
might also imply that managers create sub-communities <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir own, somewhat separated from <strong>the</strong>
local community and, hence, do not see <strong>the</strong> difficulties in applying <strong>the</strong> created new knowledge in
practice. Moreover, our results also pointed out that co-workers listened to new ideas more than <strong>the</strong>ir
superiors, hence indicating a role <strong>of</strong> managers as barriers to learning and knowledge creation.
The diversity in perceptions towards development work seems to be linked not to <strong>the</strong> individual but to
<strong>the</strong> community level, even though <strong>the</strong> comparisons showed only small differences between different
departments. However, <strong>the</strong> answers to open questions indicate that <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> various communities
and <strong>the</strong>ir diversity would benefit from a deeper analysis by qualitative methods, which is proposed as
an avenue for fur<strong>the</strong>r research. Moreover, <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> mangers as legitimate members in <strong>the</strong> core <strong>of</strong>
<strong>the</strong>ir community raises ano<strong>the</strong>r interesting question for fur<strong>the</strong>r research. Is <strong>the</strong> legitimate knowledge
also <strong>the</strong> critical knowledge needed in innovations and development work, or should ra<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>
peripheral, more questioning knowledge and views be more valued? Our results also emphasize <strong>the</strong>
need to include employee perceptions on knowledge management studies thus enlarging our
understandings <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> practicalities on knowledge sharing and contributing to knowledge management
literature. This highlights <strong>the</strong> need to reflect on <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> communities and <strong>the</strong>ir dominant logic both
as enabler and barrier to knowledge sharing and learning.
The role <strong>of</strong> dominant logic as impeding learning and knowledge creation within microcommunties <strong>of</strong>
knowledge, especially in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> microcommunties consisting <strong>of</strong> people from various
communities <strong>of</strong> practice, has previously been acknowledge, but as out study point out it is vital to
address <strong>the</strong> issue more thoroughly both <strong>the</strong>oretically and managerially. Thus we argue that our study
contributes both to discussion on communities <strong>of</strong> practice and microcommunties <strong>of</strong> knowledge by
making <strong>the</strong> distinctions on two types <strong>of</strong> communities and <strong>the</strong> role dominant logic plays in <strong>the</strong>m.
However, <strong>the</strong>se results are drawn from a study on single quite specific organization, large capital city,
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