COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE AS A WAY
TO A MORE
HUMAN-ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT[1]
Marco Bettoni, Christoph Clases & Theo Wehner
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Institute of Work Psychology, Nelkenstrasse 11, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Email: marco.bettoni@weknow.ch,
clases@ifap.bepr.ethz.ch, wehner@ifap.bepr.ethz.ch
Abstract: After a short
historical review of the development of the concept of “Communities of
Practice” (CoP) we present examples of organisational Knowledge Management (KM)
in which Etienne Wenger's CoP model has been applied. In the main part we focus
on the business orientated KM framework that Wenger, Snyder and McDermott
proposed in 2002 by extending the original CoP approach of 1998. Finally we
conclude with a critical reflection over the necessity - within KM frameworks -
to explicitly emphasize participation in stewarding knowledge as
a constitutive element of Knowledge Management.
Keywords: Communities of Practice, Participation,
Human-oriented Knowledge Management, Knowledge-oriented Cooperation
1. Introduction
How can the employee
pawn his knowledge to the enterprise without doing harm to himself? This
difficulty shows us that a vital gap exists between knowledge and knowledge
management (KM) similarly as between freedom and politics (Rousseau 1762).
Communities of Practice (CoP), as an instrument of KM, can help to bridge this
gap especially because by them the requirement that people must be placed in
the centre of KM could be realized.
In the last 15 years the
“knowledge environment” of most enterprises became increasingly more dynamic,
products and processes more knowledge-intensive (Probst, Raub & Romhardt
1997, 30) and it became clear „that
the person, the subject, the individual employee deserves again a more
important role in the production process” (Dick & Wehner 2002, 12).
In this context, dealing with tacit knowledge became an important challenge and this contributed to originate the discipline of knowledge management. Since then, the claim that the human being must be placed in the center of KM has been raised again and again, in the management literature however, „up to now no means or even tools have been elaborated, for meeting this requirement” (Clases & Wehner 2002, 46). Why? An important reason might lie in the reduction of the “human factor” at its individual dimension. Such a „one dimensional” person matches indeed the insight, that strictly speaking only individuals are able to produce knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995 59, 239), leads, however, by overlooking the social dimension, to a contradiction with the conception of knowledge as socially mediated knowledge (Clases, 2003): this contradiction prevents then the fulfilment of the mentioned claim. The great importance for KM of the concept of Communities of Practice lies in the opportunity of overcoming this contradiction because together with technological and organisational aspects now also human aspects - for example human factors (Bettoni & Schneider 2002), socialisation (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995) and social capital (Lesser & Prusak 1999) - can be taken into account, both in their individual and social dimension.
2. Historical retrospect
Communities of practice
(CoP) were recognized relative early from individual researchers and
organization developers as a suitable unit of analysis for research in work
organization (Jordan 1994) as well as excellent “platforms for knowledge work” and
therefore for successful knowledge management (Schmitz & Zucker 1996, 156
ff). The CoP concept kept on, however, being unmentioned for the time being in
the mainstream KM literature: for example two KM bestseller (Probst et al.
1997; North 1998) did not even outline the CoP approach.
Lave and Wenger had
initially specified the CoP notion only intuitively as “an intrinsic
condition for the existence of knowledge” (Lave & Wenger 1991, 98).
Wenger further developed later the intuitive CoP term in a systematic,
comprehensive manner (within the framework of his social theory of learning
focused on participation, Wenger 1998b, 7) as a special kind of community in which
practice served as source of inner cohesion and justified as follows the choice
of the term (Wenger 1998b, 72): „… collective learning results in practices
that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social
relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created
over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense,
therefore, to call these kinds of communities 'communities of practice'."
(Wenger 1998b, 45).
In the second half of
the 90ies communities and networks were more and more recognized and
used as valuable concepts for implementing new forms of knowledge sharing
(North, Romhardt & Probst 2000; Schmidt 2000; Henschel 2001; Lesser &
Storck 2001) and many organizations began to design their KM solutions as
communities or as networks (Le Moult 2001; Kok, Jongedijk & Troost 2003;
Saint-Onge & Wallace 2003). They had intuitively recognized, that a big gap
separates knowledge and KM as well as individuals and enterprises - because
every person is inseparably bound to his or her tacit knowledge - and that
communities and networks allow to bridge it.
3. CoP Examples
Communities of practice
which tried to implement Wenger's CoP model as an instrument of KM were built
in many industrial and commercial organizations. Volkswagen is building so called “Job
Families” which are company-wide competence communities (Schultz et al. 2003).
Daimler Chrysler supports since 1997 so called “Tech Clubs” which are networks
of engineers in car development (Wenger et al. 2002). At Airbus, British
Petroleum, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Clarica, Eli Lilly, Ford, Hewlett
Packard, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes-Benz, Schlumberger, Shell Oil and the World
Bank Wenger and his colleagues were involved in implementing different kinds of
CoPs like helping communities, best practice communities or innovation
communities (Wenger et al. 2002; Wenger & Benninger 2002). The Australian
National Training Authority (ANTA) financed 16 CoPs within its national program
for vocational education (Mitchell 2002). Siemens has a company-wide CoP for
knowledge sharing among people working in implementing knowledge management
initiatives (Enkel et al. 2000). Achmea (one of the 3 greatest insurance groups
in Holland) has employee-networks for exploiting synergies between a great
number of independent business units (Dignum & van Eeden 2003).
Wenger's CoP model was used also as an analytical instrument, however, only as a very coarse frame of reference so that essential parts (as for example “participation”) remained mainly unconsidered. Arnold and Smith (2003) analyzed an Online Learning Community with regard to the interplay between context and technology; Ruuska and Vartiainen (2003) have identified social structures and used them as reference for analysing knowledge sharing; Osterlund & Carlile (2003) examine the knowledge sharing practice in complex organizations from a relational perspective on social realities; Stuckey et al. (2002) have investigated how to support teachers and doctors in the utilization of innovative ICT technologies; Smith & Coenders (2002) implemented and tested a feedback-instrument for an Online workshop; finally Manca & Sarti (2002) deal with means for supporting virtual learning communities: they have analyzed their needs and derived functions of ICT systems which can satisfy those needs.
4. The extended CoP model as a KM approach
Wenger, in his social
theory of learning published 1998 under the title "Communities of
Practice" - up today the most comprehensive theoretical inquiry into the
CoP topic - had focused on learning as social participation. ‘Social
participation’ meant for him “not just participation to local events of
engagement in certain activities with certain people” but “a more
encompassing process” including (Wenger 1998b, 4):
·
the active
participation to the practices of social communities
·
the
construction of identities in relation to these communities
·
the way in
which life and the world are experienced as meaningful.
In the course of the
application of this theory to the development of communities of practice for
international companies and organizations it became however clear that
cultivating a CoP was a very challenging task in face of which most managers
seemed rather helpless. Wenger and his
colleagues recognized that: „…it is not particularly easy to build and
sustain communities of practice or to integrate them with the rest of an
organization“ (Wenger & Snyder 2000,
140) and that managers were unable to deal with the social theory of
learning and had to be supported with other means than theory for accomplishing
the task of cultivating them: “The first step for managers now is to
understand what these communities are and how they work. The second step is to
realize that they are the hidden fountainhead of knowledge development and
therefore the key to the challenge of the knowledge economy. The third step is
to appreciate the paradox that these informal structures require specific
managerial efforts to develop them and to integrate them into the organization
so that their full power can be leveraged. (Wenger & Snyder 2000, 145).
This led to the development of a practical guide for the implementation of CoPs
in organizations (Wenger et al. 2002); in this work the original, theoretical
CoP concept of 1998 was extended with explicit references to Knowledge Management
and became so a truly structured, application oriented KM approach.
The substantial theoretical innovations in relation to the theory from
1998 are (Bettoni, Clases & Wehner, in press):
·
the concept
of knowledge as an organisational challenge and the seven design principles
·
the
organisational learning loop within the knowledge system of the enterprise
·
the structural
CoP model
·
a
clarification of the CoP definition
·
the five
stages of development
All these innovations
extend the original CoP concept to a complete model of a new organizational
form and can thus be used as a method both for designing and sustaining a CoP as
well as for the analysis of its structural aspects and development
characteristics. They represent the main points, to which one should pay
attention, when designing, developing and supporting communities of practice.
4.1 The concept of
knowledge and seven design principles
Understanding the
concept of knowledge represents one of the main problem areas for the
functioning of real knowledge communities (North et al. 2000, 56). Furthermore
it determines the first 2 of 7 „deadly sins” of KM (Schneider 2001).
Cooperation on knowledge in communities of practice requires first of all the
insight that knowledge is not a „thing“ that can be managed like other assets.
In line with recent developments in knowledge theory (von Glasersfeld, 1995)
the reasons for this view can be summarized in four key points about the
essence of knowledge (Wenger et al. 2002, 8ff):
·
Knowledge
lives in the human act of knowing
·
Knowledge is
tacit as well as explicit
·
Knowledge is
social as well as individual
·
Knowledge is
dynamic
It is exactly this
„interactive” nature of knowledge which makes organisational and
transorganisational knowledge management a challenge. Knowledge cannot be
considered as material of enterprise
processing (for example in order procedures or other business processes) but
should be seen as a tacit resource intimately bound to the human being - as a „subjective
model of reality” (Dick & Wehner 2003,
14) - and to his social interactions.
Given this knowledge
challenge, how to design for sustainable knowledge interactions? The following
principles focus on the insight, that CoPs are living entities and require an
approach that acknowledges the importance of passion, relationships and
voluntary activities in organizations (Wenger et al. 2002, 51 ff):
·
design for
evolution
·
open a
dialogue between inside and outside perspectives
·
invite
different levels of participation
·
develop both
public and private community spaces
·
focus on
value
·
combine
familiarity and excitement
·
create a
rhythm for the interactions
4.2 The organisational
learning loop within the knowledge system of the enterprise
Every company, every
organization has a knowledge system which, however, is rarely consciously perceived
and systematically organized
(Wenger et al. 2002, 166 ff).
Many knowledge resources remain thus unused. A knowledge system consists of two
closely connected process groups:
a) Stewarding knowledge - This group encompasses processes like acquiring, developing, making transparent, sharing and preserving knowledge. They are used for handing down, reproducing and renewing knowledge and experience. What should be noticed here is that these processes are not considered at a cognitive but at a coordinative-cooperative level (see the cooperation model by Wehner et al.1998): knowledge stewarding does not intervene therefore directly in individual cognitive processes as too easily alleged by certain critics of KM (Malik 2001).
Figure 1 – Organisational Knowledge System
b) Applying knowledge
– This group collects what happens when knowledge resources are used in
business processes. An organisational learning loop is established, if
employees of the formal organization (teams, departments) informally
participate at the same time also in CoPs (Wenger et al. 2002, 18 ff).
Figure 2 – Experience and Knowledge Flow in the Organisational Learning
Loop
This multiple membership creates a learning
loop which has its focal point in the employee: he or she gain experiences in
their daily work within business processes and can incorporate them in the CoP,
where this knowledge is stewarded collectively and prepared for flowing back to
the business processes from where it originated.
4.3 The structural CoP
model
A CoP consists of three fundamental elements
or core design dimensions, that mutually influence each other and should be
kept in balance (Wenger et al. 2002, 27
ff): knowledge domain, community and practice:
- The knowledge domain
is a collection of topics, key issues, problems and open points that CoP
members commonly experience in their daily work and that are of great
importance to them. It
is an area of expertise that brings people together with passion, guides the
questions they ask and the way they organize their knowledge and creates a
sense of accountability to the development of a practice. CoP members can take responsibility to
provide the organization the best knowledge and skills in the domain to which
they are committed.
- The community
consists of the personal
and institutional relationships between the members and includes the members as
persons, their ties, their interactions (regularity,
frequency and rhythm), the atmosphere, the evolution of individual and
collective identities and, last but not least, spaces (physical or virtual) for
meeting together. This element is very
important because it allows taking into account the social aspects of
stewarding knowledge, applying it and learning together.
- The practice
covers frameworks, standards, ideas, instruments, stories, experiences, lessons
learned and documents that community members share. It denotes a specific, collectively elaborated know
how about ways of doing things in a specific domain.
These three elements
form together an ideal knowledge structure as a social structure which can take
over the responsibility for stewarding a specific domain of expertise in an
organization.
4.4 A clarification of
the CoP definition
The three elements of
the structural model facilitate a clarification of the definition of CoP
through a clearer differentiation from other social structures. They represent
also different aspects of participation and identity and can by that help
understanding the
motivation of the members. A CoP can be defined thus as a group or network of
persons (Wenger et al. 2002, S. 4 and 40 ff), that functions as an informal
organisational structure, whose members participate voluntarily, based on
collegial relationships not reporting relationships, share the interest and the
passion in a knowledge domain, develop as persons by mutual relationships which
are grounded in the collective stewarding of a knowledge domain and apply the
results in their daily job.
All the members come
together from different hierarchical and functional fields of the organization
attracted by “self identification” and form an „open and organically developing
group of persons“ (Lakoni, Schwaemmle &Thiel 2001, 81).
4.5 The five stages of development
Features for the
analysis and design of a CoP can be identified also from structuring its
evolution into distinguishable moments (phases or stages). The life-cycle of a
CoP can be subdivided into 5 stages (Wenger 1998a, 3; Wenger et al. 2002, 68 ff): potential, coalescing, maturing,
stewardship, transformation. In the course of this evolution the features to be
developed change hence also the related management challenges and activities
must be accordingly modified.
Potential: in the first stage the CoP does not exist at all or it
is only a weak network of persons that are facing similar problems and tasks
but meet only rarely; although the potential members already carry in themselves the potential for the
development of stronger relationships, a CoP would probably hardly arise
spontaneously. For this purpose you need explicit planning and launch
activities. Many authors restrict the CoP concept to spontaneously arisen,
informal networks: Wenger has however explicitly denied this restriction (Wolf
2003a): from his experience it does not matter how the community started
(spontaneously or at the instigation of management), in both cases they require
engagement on the part of people and some kind of sponsorship from the
management. In the potential stage the main task consists in planning the CoP:
determining the knowledge domain and its scope, finding persons that are
already connected in the chosen field, identifying common needs for knowledge and
skills.
Coalescing: In the second stage the members should be supported
in building relationships by a suitable interaction model. The main task
consists here in ‚nurturing' the CoP: determining the value that sharing
knowledge in the chosen field has for the members and for the organization,
building trust and personal relationships between the members, for example by
promoting mutual understanding, discovering the kind of knowledge whose sharing
would be most useful and determining suitable ways of sharing. In this stage of
incubation the great challenge for the CoP consists in balancing two opposite
demands: „the need to let its members develop relationship and trust against
the early need to demonstrate the value of the community” (Wenger et al.
2002, 83).
Maturing: This stage
is characterized by an increase of the mutual engagement and a higher dynamics.
The CoP deals particularly with the clarification of its primary intentions, its role in the
organization as well as its boundaries. The members feel more and more the need
to organize the knowledge of the community, the core group identifies gaps in
the knowledge of the CoP and seeks opportunities to focus on that
systematically, for example through the development of a “knowledge repository”.
The number of members can rapidly increase in this stage and introduce new
impulses but also thwart the plans of the core group. The challenge consists in
resolving the tension between growth and internal focus: for this purpose the
CoP must both preserve the existing trust in spite of its growth as well as
further develop spontaneous mutual help in spite of systematization.
Stewardship: In this stage the CoP continues its work for the
systematic organization of the common body of knowledge: expertise and personal
relationships are extended and deepened, tools and instruments are further
developed. The CoP feels pride now for its own achievements, it sees itself as an owner of the knowledge domain it is in
charge of and is conscious of its own identity and voice in the organization.
In order to maintain the relevance of its knowledge field, however, the CoP
needs also openness for new ideas, approaches and relationships: „A
community needs to balance its sense of ownership with receptivity to new
people and ideas” (Wenger et al. 2002, S. 105). This openness must be,
however, more than only a willingness to accept new members: it requires the
active search for new ideas, new members and renewal in the leadership.
Transformation: The end of a CoP can have very different causes:
technological evolutions can make
become obsolete the knowledge domain, structural modifications can let
disappear the benefit for the organization or the interests of the members can progressively
diverge. As a result of such events the attractivity of the CoP and the influx at new topics can be reduced,
the community progressively loses members and reduces its activities more and more until nobody shows
up to the community events. A CoP can also merge with another, split into
several smaller CoPs or be institutionalized as a department. Whatever the
transformation will be, the heritage
of the CoP will live on in the experiences of its members and increase the
ability of the
organization to build up further communities of practice.
5. Participation and knowledge management
Although it seems to be obvious that „in a
knowledge organization participation is no more merely a normative postulate,
but necessary and natural” (Dick & Wehner, 2002, 18) and although
social participation plays a central role in the theory of Wenger (1998), in
the extended CoP approach Wenger et al. (2002)
have directly addressed participation in the social practice of the
community only at two places: in a short consideration of the structural
elements as aspects of participation and in the explanation of the third design
principle (Wenger et al. 2002, 44-45 & 55-58). Besides this the term „participation”
is not mentioned at all, so for example in connection with the discussion of
internal leadership tasks, what is especially amazing here if one considers,
that all members of the CoP should in principle contribute to the different
leading roles (coordination, facilitation, domain stewarding and so forth) or be
internally trained for
that. Wenger et al. (2002) defend also with respect to CoP-leadership a very
participatory approach, however without referring to it explicitly. Why this
discrepancy between the theory of 1998 and their later extension in the work of 2002 in the consideration
and exposition of participation? A reason is probably that participation is so
to speak “integrated” in the extended approach so that it would not have to be mentioned - in
the ideal case - explicitly. The problem in this case is, however, that an
important element remains hidden so that faulty interpretations - in which
participation remains unconsidered - become more probable.
However, without taking seriously social participation the crucial
questions of KM (Dick & Wehner 2002, 18) can hardly or only
unsatisfactorily be answered and a community of practice can hardly be
successful. Wenger presented the reasons for that in his main work from 1998. Shortly:
participation as „social experience
of living in the world in terms of membership in social communities” (Wenger
1998b, 55) forms a unit with reification
as “process of giving form to our experience by producing objects that
congeal this experience into ‘thingness’” (Wenger 1998b, 58). Unit means
that the two processes can not be considered isolatedly,isolatedly that one can not be understood without the
other one, that only in co-ordination they can generate meaning.
Hence the ‘conditio sine qua non’ for
having communities of practice become a reliable way to a human oriented
knowledge management lies in taking seriously legitimate participation in stewarding knowledge: this
is necessary for cultivating them successfully and succeeding in bridging the
gap that separates knowledge and knowledge management.
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