Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

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A Proposed Framework for Designing Sustainable Communities for Knowledge Management Systems
We elaborate on the process and method for arriving
at our design recommendations, and discuss
each recommendation in detail. We next provide
a discussion, and conclude with our suggestions
for future research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The primary goal of this research is to contribute
to literature in KM success. We provide a brief
review of literature in knowledge management and
knowledge management success to summarize the
state of current research. We then focus on the
literature in communities of practice, which we
use to augment research on KM success.
Knowledge Management and
Knowledge Management Systems
Managing knowledge is a focal task for organizations
today. Appreciating the importance of
knowledge as a core capability or resource (Alavi
& Leidner, 2001; Grant, 1996) has underscored
the need for managing it strategically. Though
the effort to manage what a company ‘knows’
is not a recent phenomenon, new technology
and greater awareness fueled by a competitive
business landscape has resulted in substantive
attention paid to KM (Prusak, 2001).
Knowledge can be conceptualized in different
ways. It can be seen as embedded in practices
(Orlikowski, 2002) or processes (Epple & Argote,
1996), or as a separate entity or object (Schultze
& Stabell, 2004). Another view of knowledge is
that which is embedded in people’s heads and is
a “fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual
information and expert insight that provide
a framework for evaluation and incorporating
new experiences and information” (Davenport
& Prusak, 1997, p. 5). This type of knowledge
is referred to as tacit. While explicit knowledge
is easily codified, stored, and transferred, by the
use of technology (such as knowledge repositories,
document control systems, or databases)
tacit knowledge is ‘stickier’ (Hippel, 1994). Tacit
knowledge, as conceptualized by Polanyi (1958)
refers to knowing-how or embodied knowledge 1 ,
and is the characteristic of an ‘expert’ 2 who can
perform a task without deliberation of the principles
or rules involved (Ryle, 1949/1984). This
goes beyond a mere technical or physical knowhow
(Dretske, 1991) as it is highly contextual.
Employees of a certain culture may have tacit
knowledge about practices that employees of
other cultures do not. Being able to deliberately
leverage such tacit knowledge is hypothesized
to generate value and be a key differentiator for
an organization ( Alavi & Leidner, 1999, 2001;
Grant, 1996). It is tacit knowledge that resides
in employees’ heads, which is vital for problem
solving and organizational learning (Davenport
& Prusak, 1997). Due to the uneven distribution
of expertise, the task of managing tacit knowledge
is especially essential in today’s dynamic
and global business landscape. In the context of
large, geographically distributed, multi-cultural
firms where employees do not have the opportunity
to interact face-to-face, communication
and transfer of knowledge becomes even more
challenging (Lapre & Van Wassenhove, 2003).
Therefore, designing systems that facilitate tacit
knowledge management is important. The focus
of many design articles is on information or
content management, which deals with explicit
knowledge. In this paper, we focus on managing
tacit knowledge.
We conceptualize knowledge management
systems (KMS) as systems designed specifically
with the intent to manage organizational
knowledge, in line with Jennex and Olfman’s
(2005b) infrastructure/generic approach to KM,
by connecting people. In this approach, KMS
are primarily designed to support communities
of practice. We elaborate on this further in the
subsequent sections.