Managing for Knowledge: HRs Strategic Role

One of the characteristics that distinguishes a community of practice from a community, such as a local residential neighbourhood, is the level of coherence among community members brought about through the mutual engagement of members in achieving what needs to get done. So membership is grounded in practice. In addition, being included in what matters is an essential ingredient of participation in communities of practice. This may involve being included in routines and rituals, or it may mean simply being included in the particular memos, or the latest gossip. Work is another defining feature of a community of practice, it is not simply a case of building different social relationships. However, these do inevitably form through engagement in practice.

For mutual engagement to work, it doesn’t mean that there needs to be homogeneity amongst community members – many communities are characterised by diversity and difference. Despite their differences, community members work together, exchanging ideas and opinions, and in doing so influence each other’s understanding. In belonging to a community of practice, it is just as important to give and receive feedback thereby contributing to the overall knowledge of the community, as it is to know everything yourself.

From an organisational perspective it is important that communities have access to the resources that they need to help them learn what it is that they need to learn, so that they can refine and develop existing practices.

Joint Enterprise

The second characteristic that distinguishes a community of practice is that of being part of a joint enterprise. The community invents its own practices in order to achieve its goals. While external forces can influence this process they have no direct power, as it is the community itself that negotiates its overall enterprise.

For communities to flourish not everyone in the community needs to see things in exactly the same way, or agree with the practices that occur within the community. Instead what is important is that practices are communally negotiated. Whatever the practices that community members are involved in they share a common purpose of making these real and workable. In addition there is mutual accountability for the practices within the community. This does not just relate to getting things done, but also about how things get done. For example, treating information and resources as something to be shared, being personable to others and not acting in a way that makes life more difficult for others.

Shared Repertoire

The final characteristic that distinguishes a community of practice is the development of a shared repertoire. This includes routines, use of language, tools, ways of doing things, stories, symbols, actions or concepts that the community itself has developed, or taken on board, over time and thus have become part of its accepted practice. These repertoires become a resource for building shared meaning, which themselves are subject to discussion and negotiation.

What are the implications of this theoretical perspective on learning for organisations? Wenger argues that communities of practice represent fundamental elements of an architecture of learning in organisations, and are key to an organisation’s competence, as well as the evolution of their competence. Communities of practice are different to other entities in organisations, e.g. groups, or project teams, since they: negotiate their own enterprise; they are self-forming and they shape their own boundaries. In addition they are driven by doing and learning, as opposed to institutional politics.

Their importance to organisations include:

• Negotiation of meaning – in communities of practice participation is rooted in a history of practice, which in itself is a resource for continuing the community history. This is vital for the negotiation of meaning, as every action is based upon a wealth of past interpretation and negotiation.

• Preservation and creation of knowledge – because communities are concerned with developing and sustaining meaning through shared practice, they are the ideal context for the acquisition and creation of new knowledge. Communities of practice are living entities that enable new generations of the community to develop the necessary competence to participate in practice. As Wenger points out, they are privileged entities for the acquisition of knowledge. However, as they are informal structures, they can easily be overlooked and thus their benefit, from an organisational learning perspective, can be overlooked too. Organisations then need to foster the communities that occur naturally within the workplace, or at the very least, work at removing the institutional practices that can get in their way. Equally, communities provide a context for exploring new ideas and concepts that can lead to the creation of new knowledge. For this to occur the tension between the interaction between experience and competence needs to be maintained, in order to keep the community alive and alert.

• Spreading of information – the mutual accountability of participation in a community of practice necessitates the sharing of information among community members. Information sharing and communication are synonymous, as they are both tied in with the process of developing meaning. It is for this reason that communities, particularly in organisational contexts, cut across organisational boundaries thereby enabling knowledge to flow more freely. Wenger suggests that multi-membership of communities of practice ought to become a core organisational principle.

• Source of identity – Wenger points out that, as individuals, we function best when our knowing is steeped in an identity of participation. This occurs when we can contribute to shaping the community that we belong to. What Wenger is referring to here is the notion of engagement. Creative work, he says, relies on the personal investment and energy of community members, more so than institutionalised compliance. As communities straddle the boundary between work and learning in encouraging communities of practice, organisations are effectively enabling them to take responsibility for some aspects of organisational learning.