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The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the types of activity that nurses undertake on an online community of practice (APN‐l) as well as the types of knowledge that nurses share with one another; and to examine the factors that sustain knowledge sharing among the nurses from their local perspectives.

An in‐depth case study with mixed methods was adopted to obtain rich and naturalistic data including online observations of the messages posted in APN‐l, interviews with 27 members of APN‐l, and content analysis of online messages.

The most common type of activity performed by members of APN‐l was “Knowledge sharing,” followed by “Solicitation.” Regarding the types of knowledge shared, the most common were “Institutional practice” and “Personal opinion.” The factors that have helped sustain knowledge sharing within the online community of practice include: a self‐selection; validation of one's practice with others who share a similar working situation; a need to gain better understanding of current knowledge and best practices in the field; a non‐competitive environment; the asynchronous nature of the online communication medium; and the role of the listserv moderator.

This study contributes to the growing knowledge base of communities of practice that span organizational boundary. Administrators can use the coding schema developed in this study to gauge current activities of existing online communities of practice. Additionally, they can use the six factors to sustain knowledge sharing community for fostering new/existing online communities of practice.

In order to explore how informal pedagogical moments are being renegotiated by the technology woven into people's lives, this paper aims to focus on online communities as sites of learning; more specifically, the informal work‐related learning practices of self‐employed workers in these cyberspaces.

This paper draws on the notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) from situated learning theory in order to examine the development of work‐learning practices online. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with own‐account self‐employed workers (contractors and consultants who do not have staff) about their engagement in online communities for work learning.

Findings indicate that these self‐employed workers were learning work practices, the viability of doing particular work, how to participate in online communities for work learning, and how to participate in fluid knowledges. The significance of developing a work‐learning practice is emphasized, as is the impact of multiple and peripheral positionings across on‐ and offline spaces.

Web technologies and shifting configurations of online collectives shake up notions of expertise, beliefs about who is able to produce, and consume information, and where one locates themselves, in order to build work‐learning practices. Multiple positioning across several online communities, and ways of participating that are peripheral, partial and part‐time warrant further examination.

The value of this paper is its exploration of how self‐employed workers develop an online work‐learning practice and the tensions that these practices bring. The paper also attempts to discuss the utility of LPP for contemporary learning practices.

In the context of online travel communities (OTCs), this paper aims to identify the relationships between value-creating practices, trusting beliefs, solution acceptance and stickiness and the moderating effects of risk aversion on the relationship between trusting beliefs and solution acceptance and on that between trusting beliefs and stickiness.

A total of 408 survey responses obtained from Amazon website panels were used to test the proposed hypotheses through a structural equation modeling analysis.

The results show that three dimensions of value-creating practices, namely, social networking, community engagement and brand use, had positive effects on trusting beliefs; trusting beliefs had positive effects on solution acceptance and stickiness; and solution acceptance had a positive effect on stickiness. Risk aversion moderated the trusting beliefs-stickiness relationship.

A key limitation of this study is related to the sample collected from Amazon website panels, which may limit the generalizability of results to other OTC members. The results have important theoretical and practical implications in OTC settings. For example, OTCs should be used by members as key platforms for acquiring trust information prior to their behaviors.

This study extends the OTC literature by integrating different research realms into the proposed research model for a better understanding of the relationships between value-creating practices, trusting beliefs and OTC behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate to which extent the concept of communities of practice (CoPs) can be applied to online communities and to explore how organizations can better utilize online social structures for their knowledge management practice.

A case study was used to examine an online community with the practice‐and‐identity framework that characterizes conventional CoPs. Qualitative data analysis was conducted primarily on 7,853 messages downloaded from the online community during a six week period.

The results showed how an online community could manifest the practice and identity characteristics of conventional CoPs as community members actively engaged in their shared practice and identity development while pursuing a joint enterprise. Research limitations/implications – The study was conducted in a single Chinese online community on traveling, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

This study suggested how organizations can nurture online CoPs. In addition, a hierarchical model was proposed to help organizations identify the appropriate online social structure for their knowledge management purposes. Originality/value – This study empirically verified that CoPs can emerge from online communities and demonstrated that the concept of CoPs can be used to guide knowledge sharing and knowledge creation in online environments.

There are many success stories during Covid-19 of academics providing expertly delivered online learning experiences for tertiary students locally and around the world. This paper aims to consider how success was achieved by academics who are not specifically educated with the knowledge and skills to convert a traditional delivery model into an online format and who conventionally spend years working on single projects before they come to fruition.

This study provides, as a possible explanation for success, the willingness of academics to embrace a tertiary sector rather than discipline-specific collaborative learning approach to their own informal education in online learning practices through communities of practice. Using learning theory, both analytical and reflective methodologies are adopted through an examination of an example of a successful academic community of practice.

Engaging with a multidisciplinary community of practice can be highly beneficial for academics not specifically educated with the knowledge and skills to convert a traditional delivery model into an online format. Communities of practice provide more than online educational skills; they foster a sense of togetherness and a safe environment to share concerns and challenges on both a professional and personal level.

The benefits of communities of practice for academics during a period of profound operational disruption have yet to be documented in the literature. Specifically, this study highlights the supportive environment provided by a community of practice by examining the successful large-scale transition from face-to-face learning to an online environment during a pandemic.

This paper aims to investigate how online communities of practice facilitate the embedding of personal professional knowledge in a complex online environment.

This research consisted of exploratory, interpretivist case research, using qualitative methods. Forty‐one individuals from five online communities in a national professional development programme were interviewed. Additional data were drawn from diverse online records. Data were coded via text analysis. A wiki was used for participant feedback.

Embedding of new knowledge was facilitated by individuals' crossings between different engagement spaces – communication and sense‐making contexts. Community members repeatedly crossed between online and offline, visible and invisible, formal and informal, and reflective and active engagement spaces as they sought to meet diverse needs. As they did this, they had to continually recontextualise knowledge, adapting, varying and personalising it to fit the function, genre and conventions of each engagement space. This promoted the embedding of professional knowledge. The complex online environment in which they operated can be seen as providing a situation of enhanced polycontextuality, within which multiple boundary crossings facilitated strong personalisation. At the community level, knowledge convergence was fostered by the recurrence of dominant, powerful mnemonic themes.

An opportunity exists to investigate the applicability of these findings in other online professional contexts.

The paper extends the concept of boundary crossing to crossings in a polycontextual online environment. It updates literature on communities of practice by outlining the dynamics of a complex online community system. It provides an explanation for how personal knowledge evolves to fit emerging trends and considers how information systems can support deep knowledge transfer.

This paper aims to explore how the lived experience of online communities’ participants makes these communities evolve into online communities of practice (CoPs).

A quantitative research design was used among backpackers. Data on backpackers’ lived experience and interactions were collected.

The results suggest a process of how online communities can become genuine online CoPs, thanks to participants’ lived experience. Their activities (information search, perceived benefits and electronic word-of-mouth) result in knowledge sharing and creation. The findings also emphasize the roles of expertise and offline interactions as process moderators.

This study focuses on one specific practice to conduct the research (i.e. backpacking), which limits the generalizability of the results.

This study offers several implications for companies and stakeholders. First, it describes how the lived experience transforms online communities into CoPs and helps stakeholders obtain knowledge for customers to innovate. Second, it analyzes the processes of participation, interaction and promotion to share and create knowledge for customers to increase stakeholders’ competitiveness. Third, this study integrates members’ offline interactions by highlighting their potential effects on tacit knowledge loss in online CoPs.

The literature posits that online communities may evolve into online CoPs through a three-stage hierarchical path, but the underlying mechanisms and members’ contributions to the process have been largely neglected in the literature.

This paper discusses the lessons learned from applying a theoretical framework for the professional development of teachers. This framework draws three interrelated theoretical areas: constructivism, situated and distributed cognition, and communities of practice. We first present the theoretical ideas on which this framework is based and discuss two projects that were developed following the framework. We then discuss the lessons learned and present the implications for the design of online professional development. The values of commitment, innovation, assessment, evaluation, communication, and interaction that underpins successful online professional development projects are highlighted. It is argued that using technology by itself does not support professional development; however, using technology in ways that are consistent with constructivist learning, and recognizing that online professional communities of practice can contribute to professional growth is something worthwhile to explore.

Communities of practice have been identified as sites where knowledge is created in organisations. The author reviews studies of situated learning and situated action and suggests that these two activities may characterise the learning process in communities of practice where they are supported by a distinctive ‘social’ infrastructure. She analyses recent fieldwork in three online communities (a digital library reference service, a virtual enterprise and an online shopping group) to discover to what extent they may be described as communities of practice, and to establish how they support participants’ learning.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main individual and collective strategies online communities employ to appropriate fantasy worlds and the ways in which community members use imagination within this context.

A qualitative study drawing on an ethnography of online communities including individual in‐person interviews with community members of the world is considered.

The predominance and the vital importance of the production/consumption of stories within these communities has been shown. The multiple benefits of this practice have been illustrated, including the pleasure of creating and playing with one's imagination. These benefits engender the surprise and enchantment of community members, who lavish other members with encouragement, congratulations and thanks.

Because of opting for a non‐participatory ethnography, it was impossible to directly contact the members of the community to conduct interviews. Thus a convenience sample was chosen representative of the study subject and individuals outside of these communities were questioned.

The online community allows members to collectively and playfully participate in entertainment related to the fantasy world. It appears as an imaginary organization of the (entertainment) service provider. The members of this organization can take part in value coproduction and share the benefits of an extended entertainment service that sparks their imagination and allows them to enjoy the fruits of their creations. Given the fantasy world's power to fire the imagination of fantasy lovers, the paper demonstrates that it is important for leisure and entertainment service providers to consider adding a fantasy component to their service.