Communities of Practice: Going One Step Too Far?

Communities of Practice: Going One Step Too Far? Chris KIMBLE Department of Computer Science, University of York <chris.kimble@cs.york.ac.uk> Paul HILDRETH K-Now International Ltd, York <pmh@k-now-int.com>

Overview • Introduction and context • The key questions • CoPs: The First Step • CoPs and Situated Learning • CoPs: The Next Step • Linking CoPs and Work • Linking CoPs and KM • CoPs: One Step Too Far? • CoPs in the Business Environment • CoPs in the Virtual Environment • Conclusions Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

Context • In 1980’s KM was seen as the solution to problems of managing knowledge in business environment • Hard Knowledge: could be "captured" from an expert, codified in a series of rules and stored in a computer • In 1990’s the importance of softer types of knowledge, and how this was created, shared and sustained, was beginning to be recognised • Soft Knowledge: Is implicit and unstructured and can not be easily articulated Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

The Key Questions • Communities of Practice (CoPs) were seen as a new approach to KM that could deal with the softer types of knowledge • However the concept of KM grew in a formal, commercial organisational setting, CoPs did not • The key questions: • Do CoPs really offer a way to manage the softer aspects of knowledge? Can they be initiated and directed by an organisation? • Are CoPs applicable to today’s high tech and increasingly internationalised "virtual" world? Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs: The First Step • Lave and Wenger (1991) first introduced the term Community of Practice in 1991 in relation to informal situated learning: • "… a set of relations among persons, activity and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping CoPs" (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p98) • This was an “apprenticeship model” based on the notion of Legitimate Peripheral Participation where learning was seen as an integral part of a practice that gives meaning to the world: • "… generative social practice in the lived in world" (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p35). Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs: The First Step From Lave and Wenger (1991) • CoPs are concerned with Situated Learning • Learning is an informal process based on LPP • Learning is a social process and people will participate at different levels • The community, and participation in it, are inseparable from the practice. • But during the 1990’s a theory of learning developed from studies of non-drinking alcoholics, tailors in Goa and midwives in the Yucatan, began to be applied to the world of work and the problems of Knowledge Management and the world of commerce and work Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs and Work: The Next Step In 1998 Wenger studied a CoP in a large insurance company and identified two key processes in CoPs: participation and reification. • Participation • “... the social experience of living in the world in terms of membership in social communities and active involvement in social enterprises” (Wenger, 1998, p55 ) • Reification • “... the process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into thingness” (Wenger, 1998, p58) Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs and Work: The Next Step From now on, a CoP was defined in terms of: • What it is about • The activity/body of knowledge that the community has organized itself around - a joint enterprise. • How it functions • How people are linked through their involvement in common activities - mutual engagement • What it produces • The set of resources the members of a CoP build up over time - their shared repertoire Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs and KM: The Next Step • Early (circa 1985) KM systems focussed on Hard Knowledge (e.g. Expert systems) • Knowledge has an independent existence and can be “captured” and stored in a computer • Later (circa 1995) approaches to KM recognised the value of softer forms of knowledge • Knowledge is a property of people, relationships and situations and only has meaning in a particular context • Now (circa 2000) the view of knowledge as a duality is gaining acceptance • Knowledge is a duality that consists simultaneously of both “Hard” and “Soft” Knowledge Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs and KM: The Next Step • From a KM perspective Hildreth and Kimble (2002) argue: • “if we view knowledge as a duality, then all KM problems become … problems of managing both hard and soft knowledge … all KM projects must address both the hard and soft aspects of knowledge” • From a CoP perspective Wenger (1998) argues the two key processes, participation and reification, also form a duality. • CoPs have moved from being a forum for informal situated learning to a means of managing knowledge Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs: One Step Too Far? The key questions: • Do CoPs really offer a way to manage the softer aspects of knowledge? • In CoPs knowledge is not possessed by an individual but is an emergent property of the group. Legitimacy is not a function of hierarchy but of status Can CoPs ever be initiated and directed by an organisation? • Are CoPs applicable to a high tech and internationalised "virtual" world? • The learning that takes place in a CoP is situated learning. Is this the same as being co-located? Can technology replace face-to-face interaction? Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs in the Business Environment Creating a CoP • Most business organisations consist of project teams or task groups that can be brought together to meet the needs of the wider organisation. • CoPs are self-directed, self-motivated and driven by the interests of their members. Status and legitimacy are internal to the CoP and may not reflect the organisational hierarchy • Gongla and Rizzuto (2004) found examples of CoPs that disappeared in order to remove themselves from the organisational radar. Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs in the Business Environment Knowledge Sharing • Lave and Wenger's (1991) saw CoPs as: • “… a set of relations among persons, activity and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping CoPs” • Wenger (1998) saw an organization: • not as one CoP, but as a constellation of interrelated CoPs that overlapped and exchanged knowledge via social links. • Hislop (2004) found that: • In three case studies of CoPs in large European organisations only one was successful in sharing knowledge between communities Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs in the Virtual Environment • CoPs • "At the simplest level, they are a small group of people … who’ve worked together over a period of time. Not a team not a task force not necessarily an authorised or identified group … they are peers in the execution of "real work". What holds them together is a common sense of purpose and a real need to know what each other knows." (Brown and Gray, 1995) • Knowledge Networks • Electronic networking, means that it is possible for members of a CoP to link to others who do similar work. These might also be members of CoP; one CoP might link with a CoP until everybody who had an interest in the area is a member. Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

CoPs in the Virtual Environment • How might LPP translate to a virtual environment? (Lueg, 2000) • In CoPs, there is a social periphery; in a virtual group there is also a physical periphery. What effect might this have? • The learning that takes place in a CoP is situated learning. Is this necessarily the same as being co-located? • Electronic Networks of Practice (Brown and Duguid, 2000) • NoPs share some features with CoPs but social ties are weaker and there is less common ground between the members. • NoPs allow the diffusion of knowledge across a (virtual) network while CoPs are the (co-located) “hub”. Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

Conclusions • CoPs do appear to offer a means of managing the softer aspects of knowledge in a work related context, but there are problems with: • Managerial control • Cross boundary knowledge sharing • As human relationships are central to a CoP, technology does not really seem to have much to offer to the creation of “virtual” CoPs • However, looser networks such as ENoPs do seem to come closer to the ideal of “work based virtual CoPs” Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

Questions / Comments? • Chris Kimble - Department of Computer Science, University of York chris.kimble@cs.york.ac.uk • Paul Hildreth - K-Now International Ltd, York pmh@k-now-int.com • Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice, Paul Hildreth and Chris Kimble (eds), Idea Group Publishing, Feb 2004 • ISBN : 159140200X (Hardcover) • ISBN : 1591402700 (Paperback) • Copies of the paper and presentation are available at: http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/mis/news.htm Systèmes d'information: perspectives critiques

Communities of Practice: Going One Step Too Far?