Community of practice

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger significantly expanded on this concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.

A CoP can form around members' shared interests or goals. Through being part of a CoP, the members learn from each other and develop their identities.

CoPs can engage in community practices in physical settings (for example, in a lunchroom at work, an office, a factory floor), but CoP members are not necessarily co-located. They can form a "virtual community of practice" (VCoP) when the CoP is primarily located in online spaces such as discussion boards, newsgroups, or social media. Similar to a VCoP, a "mobile community of practice" (MCoP) forms when members primarily engage in community practices via mobile phones.

Communities of practice have existed for as long as people have been learning and sharing their experiences through storytelling. The idea is rooted in American pragmatism, especially C. S. Peirce's concept of the "community of inquiry", as well as John Dewey's principle of learning through occupation.

Overview

For Etienne Wenger, learning in a CoP is central to identity because learning is conceptualized as social participation – the individual actively participates in the practices of social communities, thus developing their role and identity within the community. In this context, a community of practice is a group of individuals with shared interests or goals who develop both their individual and shared identities through community participation.

The structural characteristics of a community of practice are redefined to a domain of knowledge, a notion of community and a practice:

• Domain: A domain of knowledge creates common ground, inspires participation, guides learning, and gives meaning to the actions of the individuals and community.
• Community: The notion of a community creates the social fabric for learning. A strong community fosters interactions and encourages people to collaborate and share ideas.
• Practice: While the domain provides a shared community interest or goal, the practice is the specific focus around which the community develops, shares and maintains its core of knowledge.

In many organizations, communities of practice are integral to the organization structure. These communities take on knowledge stewarding tasks that were previously covered by more formal organizational structures. Both formal and informal communities of practice may be established in an organization. There is a great deal of interest within organizations to encourage, support, and sponsor communities of practice to benefit from shared knowledge that may lead to higher productivity. Communities of practice are viewed by many within business settings as a means to explicate tacit knowledge, or the "know-how" that is difficult to articulate.

An important aspect and function of communities of practice is increasing organization performance. Lesser and Storck identify four areas of organizational performance that can be affected by communities of practice:

• Decreasing the learning curve for new employees
• Responding more rapidly to customer needs and inquiries
• Reducing rework and preventing "reinvention of the wheel"
• Generating new ideas for products and services

Types

See also: Virtual community of practice

Compared to functional or project teams

Collaboration constellations differ in various ways. Some are under organizational control (e.g., teams), whereas others, like CoPs, are self-organized or under the control of individuals. Researchers have studied how collaboration types vary in their temporal or boundary focus, and the basis of their members' relationships.

A project team differs from a community of practice in several ways.

• A project team is driven by deliverables with shared goals, milestones and results.
• Similar to a CoP, a project team meets to share and exchange information and experiences, but team membership is defined by the task.
• A project team typically has designated members who have consistent roles during the project.
• A project team is dissolved once its mission is accomplished.

By contrast,

• A community of practice is often organically created, with as many objectives as members of that community.
• Community membership is defined by the knowledge of its members.
• CoP membership tend to change more often, with members taking on new roles within the community as interests and needs arise.
• A community of practice can exist as long as the members believe they have something to contribute to or gain.

Versus communities of interest

In some cases, it may be useful to differentiate CoP from a community of interest (CoI).

Community of interest

• A group of people interested in sharing information and discussing a topic that interests them.
• Members are not necessarily experts or practitioners of the topic around which the CoI has formed.
• The purpose of the CoI is to provide a place for people with common interests to exchange information, ask questions, and express their opinions about the topic.
• CoI membership is not dependent on expertise – one only needs to be interested in the subject.

Community of practice

• In contrast, a CoP is a group of active practitioners.
• The purpose of a CoP is to provide a way for practitioners to share practices, ask questions, and support each other.
• Membership is dependent on expertise – members may have some experience performing in the role or subject area of the CoP.

Benefits

Social capital

Social capital is a multi-dimensional concept with public and private facets. That is, social capital may provide value to both the individual and the group as a whole. As participants build informal connections in their community of practice, they also share their expertise, learn from others, participate in the group, and demonstrate their expertise - all of which can be viewed as acquiring social capital.

Knowledge management

Wasko and Faraj describe three kinds of knowledge: knowledge as object, knowledge embedded within individuals, and knowledge embedded in a community. CoPs are associated with finding, sharing, transferring, and archiving knowledge, as well as making explicit "expertise", or articulating tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is considered to be valuable context-based experiences that cannot easily be captured, codified and stored.

Because knowledge management is seen "primarily as a problem of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information, evoking notions of databases, documents, query languages, and data mining", the community of practice is viewed as a potential rich source for helpful information in the form of actual experiences; in other words, best practices. Thus, for knowledge management, if community practices within a CoP can be codified and archived, they provide rich content and contexts that can be accessed for future use.

Factors

Individuals

Members of CoPs are thought to be more efficient and effective conduits of information and experiences. While organizations tend to provide manuals to meet employee training needs, CoPs help foster the process of storytelling among colleagues, which helps them strengthen their skills.

Studies have shown that workers spend a third of their time looking for information and are five times more likely to turn to a co-worker than an explicit source of information (book, manual, or database). Conferring with CoP members saves time because community members have tacit knowledge, which can be difficult to store and retrieve for people unfamiliar with the CoP. For example, someone might share one of their best ways of responding to a situation based on their experiences, which may enable another person to avoid mistakes, thus shortening the learning curve. In a CoP, members can openly discuss and brainstorm about a project, which can lead to new capabilities. The type of information that is shared and learned in a CoP is boundless. Paul Duguid distinguishes tacit knowledge (knowing how) from explicit knowledge (knowing what). Performing optimally in a job requires the application of theory into practice. CoPs help individuals bridge the gap between knowing what and knowing how.

As members of CoPs, individuals report increased communication with people (professionals, interested parties, hobbyists), less dependence on geographic proximity, and the generation of new knowledge. This assumes that interactions occur naturally when individuals come together. However, social and interpersonal factors play a role in the interaction, and research shows that some individuals share or withhold knowledge and expertise from others because their knowledge relates to their professional identities, position, and interpersonal relationships.

Social presence

Communicating with others in a CoP involves creating social presence. Chih-Hsiung defines social presence as "the degree of salience of another person in an interaction and the consequent salience of an interpersonal relationship". Social presence may affect the likelihood for an individual to participate in a CoP (especially in online environments and virtual communities of practice). CoP management often encounter barriers that inhibit knowledge exchange between members. Reasons for these barriers may include egos and personal attacks, large overwhelming CoPs, and time constraints.

Motivation

Motivation to share knowledge is critical to success in communities of practice. Studies show that members are motivated to become active participants in a CoP when they view knowledge as a public good, a moral obligation and/or a community interest. CoP members can also be motivated to participate through tangible returns (promotion, raises or bonuses), intangible returns (reputation, self-esteem) and community interest (exchange of practice related knowledge, interaction).

Collaboration

Collaboration is essential to ensure that communities of practice thrive. In a study on knowledge exchange in a business network, Sveiby and Simons found that more seasoned colleagues tend to foster a more collaborative culture. Additionally they noted that a higher educational level predicted a tendency to favor collaboration.

Cultivating successful CoPs

See also: Motivations for online participation

What makes a community of practice succeed depends on the purpose and objective of the community as well as the interests and resources of community members. Wenger identified seven actions to cultivate communities of practice:

1. Design the community to evolve naturally – Because the nature of a community of practice is dynamic, in that the interests, goals, and members are subject to change, CoP forums should be designed to support shifts in focus.
2. Create opportunities for open dialog within and with outside perspectives – While the members and their knowledge are the CoP's most valuable resource, it is also beneficial to look outside of the CoP to understand different possibilities for achieving their learning goals.
3. Welcome and allow different levels of participation – Wenger identifies 3 main levels of participation. 1) The core group that participates intensely in the community through discussions and projects. This group typically takes on leadership roles in guiding the group. 2) The active group that attends and participates regularly, but not to the level of the core group. 3) The peripheral group who, while passive participants in the community, still learn from their level of involvement. Wenger notes that the third group typically represents the majority of the community.
4. Develop both public and private community spaces – While CoPs typically operate in public spaces where all members share, discuss and explore ideas, they should also offer private exchanges. Different CoP members could coordinate relationships among members and resources in an individualized approach based on specific needs.
5. Focus on the value of the community – CoPs should create opportunities for participants to explicitly discuss the value and productivity of their participation in the group.
6. Combine familiarity and excitement – CoPs should offer the expected learning opportunities as part of their structure, and opportunities for members to shape their learning experience together by brainstorming and examining the conventional and radical wisdom related to their topic.
7. Find and nurture a regular rhythm for the community – CoPs should coordinate a thriving cycle of activities and events that allow members to regularly meet, reflect, and evolve. The rhythm, or pace, should maintain an anticipated level of engagement to sustain the vibrancy of the community, yet not so fast-paced that it becomes unwieldy and overwhelming.

History

Since the publication of "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation", communities of practice have been the focus of attention, first as a theory of learning and later as part of the field of knowledge management. Andrew Cox offers a more critical view of the different ways in which the term communities of practice can be interpreted.

Early years

To understand how learning occurs outside the classroom, Lave and Wenger studied how newcomers or novices become established community members within an apprenticeship. Lave and Wenger first used the term communities of practice to describe learning through practice and participation, which they described as situated learning.

The process by which a community member becomes part of a community occurs through legitimate peripheral participation. Legitimation and participation define ways of belonging to a community, whereas peripherality and participation are concerned with location and identity in the social world.

Lave and Wenger's research examined how a community and its members learn within apprenticeships. When newcomers join an established community, they initially observe and perform simple tasks in basic roles while they learn community norms and practices. For example, an apprentice electrician might watch and learn through observation before doing any electrical work, but would eventually take on more complicated electrical tasks. Lave and Wenger described this socialization process as legitimate peripheral participation. Lave and Wenger referred to a "community of practice" as a group that shares a common interest and desire to learn from and contribute to the community.

Later years

In his later work, Wenger shifted his focus from legitimate peripheral participation toward tensions that emerge from dualities. He identifies four dualities that exist in communities of practice: participation-reification, designed-emergent, identification-negotiability and local-global. The participation-reification duality has been a particular focus in the field of knowledge management.

Wenger describes three dimensions of practice that support community cohesion: mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise and shared repertoire.

• Mutual Engagement: Through participation in the community, members establish norms and build relationships. In doing so, they develop a shared understanding for how to interpret ideas or events. For example, community members might share similar technical jargon or inside jokes, but new members need to learn about their meaning through mutual engagement. These relationships bind the community members as a social entity.
• Joint Enterprise: Community members share similar goals, but they may have different motivations. Joint enterprise refers to the negotiation of those goals as a community, hence "joint". When community members negotiate a joint enterprise, they also develop mutual accountability for their actions within the community. These actions include how to directly attain their goals, as well as more implicit norms such as what topics can or cannot be discussed; what tools can or cannot be used; or what actions can or cannot be taken in different circumstances.
• Shared Repertoire: The community produces communal resources known as shared repertoire. This is used in the pursuit of their joint enterprise and can include both literal and symbolic meanings. For example, shared repertoire can include physical tools like a communal document or manual, or intangible tools like community routines and concepts.

Society and culture

Examples

The communities Lave and Wenger studied were naturally forming as practitioners of craft and skill-based activities met to share experiences and insights.

Lave and Wenger observed situated learning within a community of practice among Yucatán midwives, Liberian tailors, navy quartermasters and meat cutters, and insurance claims processors. Other fields have used the concept of CoPs in education, sociolinguistics, material anthropology, medical education, second language acquisition, Parliamentary Budget Offices, health care and business sectors, and child mental health practice (AMBIT).

A famous example of a community of practice within an organization is the Xerox customer service representatives who repaired machines. The Xerox reps began exchanging repair tips and tricks in informal meetings over breakfast or lunch. Eventually, Xerox saw the value of these interactions and created the Eureka project, which allowed these interactions to be shared across its global network of representatives. The Eureka database is estimated to have saved the corporation $100 million.

Examples of large virtual CoPs include:

• Wikipedia
• Healthcare Information For All (HIFA)
• Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)

See also

• Adaptive management
• Discourse community
• Distributed leadership
• Duality (CoPs)
• Guild
• Knowledge transfer
• Knowledge tagging
• Landscape of practice
• Learning community
• Learning organization
• Network of practice
• Organizational learning
• Personal network
• Professional learning community
• Social environment
• Situated cognition
• Situated learning
• Teamwork
• Thought collective
• Value network
• Value network analysis
• Virtual community of practice

Further reading

• Barton, T; Tusting, K (2005). Beyond Communities of Practice: Language Power and Social Context. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83643-2.
• Chua, Alton (October 2002). "Book Review: Cultivating Communities of Practice". Journal of Knowledge Management Practice.
• Dalton, R.A (2011). Knowledge Transfer for the Military Leader. pp. Chapter 5. Archived from the original on 2018-11-09. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• Gannon-Leary, P.M. & Fontainha, E. "Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors" ELearning Papers 26 Sept 2007 [Accessed Nov 2007]
• Lesser, E.L., Fontaine, M.A. & Slusher J.A., Knowledge and Communities, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000
• Nonaka, Ikujiro (1991). "The knowledge creating company". Harvard Business Review. 69 (6 Nov–Dec): 96–104. Archived from the original on 2009-11-25.
• Polyani, Michael; Sen, Amartya (2009). The Tacit Dimension. University Of Chicago Press; Reissue edition. ISBN 978-0-226-67298-4.
• Putnam, Robert (2001). "Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences". ISUMA (spring): 41–51.
• Roberts, Joanne (2006). "Limits to Communities of Practice". Journal of Management Studies. 43 (3): 623–639. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00618.x. S2CID 153340083.
• Saint-Onge, H & Wallace, D, Leveraging Communities of Practice, Butterworth Heinemann, 2003.
• Smith, M.K. (2003). "Communities of practice". The Encyclopedia of Informal Education.
• van Winkelen, Christine. "Inter-Organizational Communities of Practice". Archived from the original on 2004-02-08.