Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

Conditions and Key Success Factors for the Management of Communities of Practice
consists of actively participating in the practices
of social communities and of building identities
within them. As a result, the social learning
theory developed here must integrate the necessary
components in order to characterize social
participation as a learning and knowing process.
These components are listed below:
• Meaning, understood as a way of talking
about our ability, both individually and collectively;
of experiencing our lives and the
world as something meaningful.
• Practice, understood as a way of talking
about shared historical and social resources,
frameworks, and perspectives that can sustain
mutual engagement in action.
• Community, understood as a way of talking
about social configurations in which the
pursuit of enterprises is defined as valuable
and participating in them is recognized as
competence.
• Identity, understood as a way of talking
about the change that learning effects on
who we are and of how it creates personal
histories within the context of communities.
These elements are deeply interconnected
and define each other mutually, as shown in
Figure 1.
CoP in Organizational Contexts
According to Davenport and Prusak (1998), communities
of practice are a sign of the knowledge
market. They are self-organized groups that share
work practices, interests, or common objectives.
They constitute a common body of experience
and of joint problem solving. The community
of practice is also defined by Lave and Wenger
(1991) as an active system in which its participants
share knowledge based on their daily tasks. They
share the meaning of this knowledge in their life
within the community. Therefore, it can be said
that the participants of the community are united
in the community’s practice and in the meaning
of said practice, both at the community level and
at broader levels (Lave and Wenger, 1991:98).
One of the characteristics that define communities
of practice is the fact that they emerge
spontaneously among people who have similar
interests or work activities (Lesser and Everest
2001; Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger, 1998) 1 .
Organizations are embracing various heterogeneous
types of communities of practice that help
Figure 1. Inventory of social learning theory components (Adapted from Wenger, 1998)
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