CoPs: one size fits all?

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The Learning Organization

ISSN: 0969-6474

Article publication date: 16 January 2007

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Citation

Pemberton, J. and Mavin, S. (2007), "CoPs: one size fits all?", The Learning Organization, Vol. 14 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/tlo.2007.11914aaa.001

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


CoPs: one size fits all?

It is over 15 years since the publication of the seminal text, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation by Jean Lave and EtienneWenger, as well as Brown and Duguid’s 1991 influential paper in Organisational Science titled “Organisational learning and communities of practice”. In that time, interest in communities of practice (CoPs) have grown immensely, with many published articles and texts paying homage to the pioneering ideas espoused in these works. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that today, Wenger has now emerged as the acknowledged CoP “guru”, his expertise in demand from organisations and academics alike. His recent single and jointly authored works have formed the backdrop for much of the discussion and reporting of CoPs in the literature, and act as a benchmark against which developments in this arena are assessed.

There is evidence, however, that the conventional view of CoPs, defined usually in terms of their community, domain and practice, may no longer capture what passes for a CoP in today’s organisations. At the very least, an evolutionary change is occurring which may force us to re-examine and re-visit the ideas and notions of CoPs. At this juncture, therefore, it is perhaps timely and appropriate that this special issue seeks to generate further debate and present cutting edge ideas, examples and experiences of CoPs in the eyes of management practitioners and educators.

Six papers are presented here, drawing on a range of organisations across international boundaries and designed to showcase new ideas, the operation and practicalities of today’s work-based CoPs, and highlight issues of relevance in the emergence, development and processes associated with them.

Throughout the reviewing of papers for this special issue, it became clear that the notion of “One size fits all”, certainly in terms of our understanding of what constitutes a CoP, is somewhat of a misnomer. For many, CoPs are knowledge or learning communities, but for others, the term has been adopted to describe work-based groups and project teams existing as part of a formal organisational structure. Or perhaps, the acceptance and use of the term “community of practice”, irrespective of whether it conforms to a strict definition, is irrelevant? The bottom line is, however, in whatever capacity CoPs function, the reality is such that organisations are striving towards, and evolving new ways of managing different ways of developing shared understandings, better/best practice and improved performance.

CoPs have traditionally arisen as the voluntary participation of a group of like-minded individuals keen to share their ideas and practice with a view to self-development and perform more effectively in their roles. These CoPs have often been invisible, or at least only tacitly acknowledged by their host organisations. The literature does, however, highlight particular organisations, e.g. Daimler Chrysler that have embraced the notion of CoPs to a make a very real difference to practice and performance. Wenger et al. (2002) make reference to the degree of acceptance and institutionalisation of CoPs, but the debate now appears to be centring on whether organisation-designed and facilitated CoPs which are “mandatory” and “managed” really are fulfilling the roles, or are indeed reflect the perceived academic view of what constitutes a CoP.

Two of the papers in this issue by Florian Kohlbacher and Kazuo Mukai, and Katja Pastoors, respectively, give extraordinary insight into how two large organisations deal with CoPs in practice. In the former, the authors discuss community-based knowledge sharing in Hewlett Packard focussing on Japanese learning communities. They examine how knowledge transfer takes place and detail a number of approaches to CoPs, even in a single organisation. Katja Pastoors discusses another large IT organisation specialising in international consultancy and makes the distinction between “top-down” and underground CoPs. Using data provided by a number of consultants, she concludes that where tacit knowledge transfer is involved, the nature of consultants’ work suggests a greater affinity towards self-organising and informal CoPs rather than those officially sanctioned by the organisation’s management.

Thomas Garavan, Ronan Carbery and Eamonn Murphy’s paper continues the debate on the management of CoPs by looking at four visible top-down created CoPs designed to show how knowledge sourcing is managed across organisational boundaries in Ireland. The authors suggest that in these types of CoPs, certain managerial competences are critical to the success of managing and sourcing knowledge from external sources and, as in the first two papers, acknowledge that the characteristics of CoPs differ enormously dependent on organisational context and purpose.

In contrast, Rein Juriado and Niklas Gustafsson’s paper looks at a novel case study based on the Swedish Melodifestivalen, the mechanism by which the Swedish entry is selected for the Eurovision Song Contest. It demonstrates how complex organisations with collaborating private and public partners develop “emergent” CoPs, arguably not even seen or recognised by the participants as CoPs, but operating in a way that facilities knowledge transfer through a combination of trust, competence identification and social cohesion.

In the penultimate paper, Jon Pemberton, Sharon Mavin and Brenda Stalker, while acknowledging the benefits of CoPs, detail the potentially negative consequences of CoPS both for individuals and organisations by drawing on their experiences of a research-based CoP in higher education. Management/stewardship, power-distance relationships, ill-perceived importance of CoP and the perpetuation of narrow and constraining attitudes are some of the issues identified, corroborating and extending themes discussed in other papers in this special issue.

Finally, Elayne Coakes and Peter Smith build on the notion of CoPs to present a conceptual paper focussing on innovation and creativity with Communities of Innovation (CoInv) providing a safe haven and outlet for entrepreneurial ideas to flourish as organisations continue to develop news ways of remaining distinctive and competitive. In essence, a CoInv is a specialised form of a CoP, and may be informal or formalised within organisations confirming, yet again, that CoPs are diverse in purpose, and varied in structure.

The six papers in this special issue, while exhibiting commonality in their overall theme, demonstrate that CoPs are alive and well, but more importantly, that they are used to harness expertise, disseminate knowledge, improve performance and bring individuals together in all manner of ways. Purists, adhering to rigid definitions of CoPs, may raise an eyebrow when reading about the CoPs detailed in this special issue, but judging by their applications in the real world, assembled here is a snap shot of developments taking place globally. On the evidence presented, one size does not fit all. It is therefore important to keep an open mind and remember that CoPs are not theoretical constructs – like many valuable management techniques and tools - they exist, they evolve and they work!

On a housekeeping note, The Learning Organization: The International Journal of Knowledge and Organizational Learning Management will be publishing a number of special issues each year, showcasing particular topics of relevance to both practitioners and academics. Please contact Peter Smith, Special Issues Editor, for further information or to discuss potential special issues themes.

Jon Pemberton, Sharon Mavin

Editor’s note

I have decided that special issues are means for presenting a set of focused research from a particular community within the learning organisation research and practice community. The idea of a special issue is to examine multiple facets of a specific topic to inform both fellow researchers and practitioners within the area as well as others who may just be interested in learning more about the topic. To that end, I have decided to revive the TLO custom of publishing special issues more than once per year. However, general issues that are not focused on a specific topic are also of merit to address the broad concerns of the international learning organisation community and as such also need to be kept in the publication. To that end, a minimum of three general issues with openly submitted papers will be published per volume, which leaves up to threeadditional issues per volume available as potential special issues. I am inviting academic and professional researchers to consider editing a special issue for TLO. Special issue topics, call for papers, and editor and reviewer lists should be submitted to Peter Smith as indicated previously by Sharon and Jon. The call for special issue topics is available from TLO’s web site. I personally wanted to welcome our first special issue in the new extended focus towards special issues. Congratulations, Sharon and Jon!

Dr Steven Walczak

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