Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

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Conditions and Key Success Factors for the Management of Communities of Practice
them to develop (Saint-Onge and Wallace, 2003).
However, there are different kinds of groups
which exhibit characteristics similar to CoPs
(Thompsom, 2005; Bogenreider and Nooteboom,
2004; Lindkvist, 2005, Klein et al., 2005; Klein,
2008) and, in this sense, the term “CoP” has been
recognized as somewhat problematic (Malone,
2002; Contu and Willmott, 2003; Thomson
2005; Handley, Sturdy Fincham and Clarke,
2006; Lindkvist, 2005; Roberts, 2006; Amin &
Roberts, 2008). Moreover, some authors claim
that in certain contexts, CoPs cannot be usefully
identified (Engerstrom, 2001) or are may not be
useful “per se” (Roberts, 2006).
In spite of the critiques, CoPs characteristics
such as spontaneity and freedom that overcome
organizational restrictions are precisely what allows
authors to establish a relationship between
communities of practice and the learning of
knowledge flows, or even between communities
of practice and innovation (Brown and Duguid,
2001; Orr, 1996) 2 . Wenger (1998) defines three
important characteristics for communities of
practice:
• Mutual engagement: Comes from the interaction
of their members, since members
are motivated to share their experiences as
a result of said interaction
• Negotiation of common initiatives: This
characteristic provides the community with
a sense of coherence and a raison d’être
• Shared repertoire: Is the group of resources
that members share: Stories, theories, etc.
This repertoire is what shapes understandable
information that is manageable for the
community’s components
The combination of these is what generates the
theoretical value of the communities of practice
to the organizational knowledge.
Since communities of practice are dynamic,
interactive, and fluid, their management cannot be
carried out with established control mechanisms.
In fact, Thompson (2005) demonstrated that when
CoP’s are heavily structured and controlled,
they loose most of their potential. Instead each
organization’s management must understand that
communities need an environment in which they
can prosper, including features such as having time
and resources at their disposal. The organization
must promote participation, reduce barriers, give
their members a voice in decision-making, and
develop internal processes in order to manage
the value created by communities (Wenger et
al., 2002) 3 .
Communities of practice contribute to promoting
an environment in which knowledge can
be created and shared in such a way that their
members can carry out their work with the help
of other people (Wagner, 2000) 4 and, even more
importantly, knowledge can be used to improve
efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation (Lesser
and Everest, 2001:41) 5. Brown and Duguid (1991)
argue that these communities are an important
space for local inventions, since they are constantly
improving and adapting their behavior in order to
face the formal limitations of organizations and canonical
practices. Results of experiments carried
out and important knowledge that organizations
should bear in mind in their innovation management
systems can emerge from communities of
practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991).
Communities of practice are normally created
in an informal manner to share experiences jointly.
Contributions from members flow freely, which
does not necessarily mean that this intangibility
represents a failure in knowledge management,
since this is the very reason why communities of
practice develop creative ways of solving organizational
problems, generating new business or
product lines, and even managing new strategies
(Wenger and Snyder, 2000). They do not tend
to have an explicit mission either, but are able to
make enormous achievements.
Communities of practice exist in many more
places than each individual thinks. According to
Wenger (1998), there are communities of practice