Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

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Conditions and Key Success Factors for the Management of Communities of Practice
and engaged, and this last element is where
the challenge resides.
• The technical challenge: Technology
must be at the service of the community
and strengthen its social part. It must help
people to communicate and to get along
with each other. Therefore, the community’s
technological development must be focused
on people, i.e., on the social usefulness of
the technology in question.
These four groups of challenges can be subdivided
into ten factors that are critical for the
success of communities of practice. Without them,
communities are deemed to fail. These ten factors,
which are grouped under the aforementioned
challenges, are shown in Figure 2.
ANALYZING
MANAGEMENT-PROMOTED CoP
In this section we will present an in depth analysis
of the results of CoPs promoted and cultivated
from the management team of the firm. We will
try to know if they have been able to overcome
the possible contradictions and if they have done
so accomplishing the key success factors identified
above.
Case Study Methodology
According to McDermott (1999b) in his three
dimensions cultivation model, and the concepts
of practice and community (Wenger, 1998), the
authors developed a model (see Figure 3) for the
analysis of CoP’s (Loyarte and Rivera 2007) that
has been used for an in depth case analysis of
management-promoted CoP’s.
The analysis of compared experiences is based
on this framework, through which the following
information is analyzed in each experience:
• Company, location, year of implementation
of communities of practice.
• Manner of creation of the communities of
practice: Promoted or organic.
Figure 3. Analysis of the creation of CoPs within organizations (Adapted from Loyarte and Rivera,
2007)