This document discusses three articles related to communities of practice (CoP). The first article describes the basics of CoPs, including how they are groups that share knowledge through ongoing interaction. The second article critiques existing CoP theories and key concepts like participation and identity. The third article compares CoP theory to other frameworks like Foucault's power concepts and actor-network theory.

1. K6212 – Knowledge Management Strategies
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Aravind Sesagiri
Raamkumar
Daniele Izzo
Nirmala Selvaraju

2. AGENDA
 CoP Basics
 CoP: The Organizational Frontier
 Situated Learning and its relevance to CoP
 Communities of Practice, Foucault and Actor-
Network Theory
 Case Studies
 KM CoP
 Presentation Improvement CoP

3. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE - BASICS
CoP
• Groups of people who come
together to share and to learn
from one another face-to-face and
virtually. U.K.
• They are held together by a
common purpose; they contribute France California
to a body of knowledge and are Florida Georgia
driven by a desire and need to
share problems, experiences,
insights, templates, tools, and
best practices.
• Community members deepen
their knowledge by interacting on
an ongoing basis.
Source: APQC with Richard McDermott Building and Sustaining CoPs, 2000

4. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE - BASICS

5. ARTICLE 1
Title: Communities of practice: The
organizational frontier
Publication: Journal of Management Studies
May 2006
Authors: Etienne C,Wenger and William
M.Snyder
Type: Illustrative with examples

6. SUBAGENDA
 Communities in Action
 The Hallmarks of Communities of Practices
 A Paradox of Management
 Conclusion

7. COMMUNITIES IN ACTION
Drive
strategy
Help
Start new
companies
lines of
recruit and
retain talent business
Communities
of Practices
Develop Solve
professional problem
skills quickly
Transfer
best
practices

8. COMMUNITIES IN ACTION
Help drive strategy
production of knowledge collections (good practices, know-how, sector statistics, etc.)
dissemination and outreach to staff and partners
support to task teams, thus enabling staff to apply and adapt the global knowledge to the local
situation
raising additional funds for specific work program activities
Start New lines of business
• Met @ O‟Hare airport between engagements with clients
• Domain was retail marketing in banking industry and focused on new business
opportunities for client
• After 4 years, created new line of marketing approaches for financial services
companies.
Solve problem quickly
• A pulpmill customer in pacific Northwest have a dye-retention problem.
• Within a day received several responses from experts peers in Europe,southasia
and canada

9. COMMUNITIES IN ACTION
Transfer best practices
• Functional departments splits up to organize around cars platforms
• Feared to lose functional expertise and ability to keep up with leading-edge change.
• “”Tech club””-make the move to platforms, cut R&D costs and car-development cycle times by
more than half
• Engineering book of knowledge- information on compliances standards, supplier specifications
and best practices
Develop professional skills
• Communities of practice as effective arenas for fostering professional development
• At IBM,CoP hold their own conference, both in person and on-line
• Presentation ,hallway conversations, dinners and chat rooms – exchange ideas,build skills and
develop network
Help companies recruit and retain talent
• American management systems –communities of practice help the company win the war for
talent
• To develop skills and find new clients

10. HALLMARKS OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICES:
• “Corporations • Guilds played
” of similar roles • “Instead of
metalworkers for artisans being
,potters, throughout composed
masons and Europe primarily of
other people
craftsmen working on
had both their own,
social they often
purpose and exist within
a business large
function organization”

11. HILL’S PET NUTRITION
 Global leaders in pet nutrition
 Line technicians meet weekly to talk about
the recent successes and frustrations as well
as challenging looming ahead.
 The group has a “mayor” who‟s been chosen
by his peers to keep things on track from
week to week.

12. Roger,a
technician from Senior John
plumbing management explained the
At recent background
made a trip to
at the plant latest revision
gathering.12
this occasion to had not of his proposal
technician
help John warmed to the included
from first and
Hone proposal pneumatic evidence from
second shift
to “ Substitute tube idea. Roger, say
met around a
pneumatic Community that
large table in
tubes for the members had technology
the glass-
balky encouraged are reliable
walled
conveyor belt John to and would be
conference
that carried continue compatible
room.
the pet food pausing for with existing
kibbles to change. equipment
packaging bin”

13.  Result :
Significant reduction in downtime and wasted pet
food related to packing
Community provide opportunities for the members to
solve nagging problem and horn their ability to run
plant effectively.
Financial rewards in the form of bonuses

14. A PARADOX OF MANAGEMENT
 To get communities going and to sustain
them over time- managers should :
 Identifypotential communities of practices
 Provide the infrastructure
 Use non-traditional methods to access the value
of the company‟s communities of practice

15. IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL COMMUNITIES
 Informal networks of people with the ability
and the passion to further develop an
organization's core competencies already
exist.
 The task is to identify such groups and help
them come together as communities of
practice.

16. SHELL
Join with
Develop consultant Looks at
new and interview challenges &
prospective problems across
community units and team
members
Group begin the Build individual and
Coordinator
discussing plans group capabilities
calls the for activities and increase
members company‟s strategic
agenda

17. U.S VETERANS ADMINISTRATION
Core group-technical
capability • Sharing tips about
Group participation implementing a
First line
was limited and managers new team
structure
progress was slow
• Help to set
Customer standards to reduce
service
representative processing time
Core group
• Upgrade training
Training modules across
coordinators organization

18. PROVIDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE
AMS
World Bank
1.Formal approach 1.Combine formal and
2”thought leaders” informal
approach
3.Potential member
must be recognised by 2.Knowledge bank
his or her manager 3.Membership is open
4.member‟s paid by 4.Funding for specific
business unit Activities & manage
their own budgets
Shows how different styles of formal commitment to
communities of practice was effective when aligned with the
organization's culture

19. USING NON-TRADITIONAL METHODS TO
MEASURE VALUE
 Managers feel it difficult to assess the value
of communities
 The effects are often delayed
 Results are generally appear in the work of
teams and business units, not in the
communities themselves
 The best way to access the value of a
community of practice is “Listening to
member's stories”

20.  At Shell
 They often conduct interviews to collect these stories
and then publish them in newsletters and reports
 Organizes yearly competition to identify the best
stories.
 Communities saved the company $2 million to $5
million and increased the revenue more than $13
million in one year

21. CONCLUSION
 The managers have to understand what
these communities are and how they work
 Realize the hidden fountainhead of
knowledge development and the key to
challenge of the knowledge economy
 Appreciate the paradox of management

22. ARTICLE 2
Title: Within and Beyond CoP: Making sense
of Learning through Participation, Identity and
Practice
Publication: Journal of Management Studies
May 2006
Authors: Karen Handley, Andrew
Sturdy, Robin Fincham and Timothy Clark
Type: Critique of established theories

23. SUB-AGENDA
 Situated Learning Theory vs. Cognitivist
theories of Learning
 Key Concepts in a CoP
 Participation
 Identity
 Practice
 Situated Learning within Multiple CoPs
 Notion of Participation in CoP
 Conclusion

24. SITUATED LEARNING VS. COGNITIVIST LEARNING
Situated Theory of Learning
Cognitivist Theory of Learning
 Learning by observance
 Classroom based learning
 Contextualized
 Decontextualized
 Concentrates on tacit
 Positivist assessment of
knowledge
abstract knowledge
 Integral and inseparable
 Learning – Accumulation of
aspect of social practice
symbolic representation
 Core processes –
 Largely Explicit
Participation, Identity-
 Replicated through Artificial
construction and Practice
Intelligence
 Knowledge is provisional,
 Knowledge is abstract and
meditated and socially
symbolic
constructed

25. KEY CONCEPTS - PARTICIPATION
Mutual
Recognition
Action Connection Participation
Negotiate
Meaning
 Socialization bias between Novices and Masters Possibility
of conflict
 Marginal vs. Full participation

26. KEY CONCEPTS - IDENTITY
Identity
Regulation
Organization
enforced Identity Work
1.)Who we are
2.) How we Self-enforced
are accepted Negotiation between
Organizational and
in CoPs Personal perception
Identity
“Identity dictates an individual’s participation level in CoP”

27. KEY CONCEPTS - PRACTICE

28. SITUATED LEARNING WITHIN MULTIPLE COPS
Mutual
Engagemen
t
Joint Enterprise
Shared Repertoire

29. SITUATED LEARNING WITHIN MULTIPLE COPS
Identity- Lifecycle
construction
Individual Heterogeneous
across
development dimensions
Experimentatio Geographic Pace of
Role Modelling
n Spread Evolution
CoP of Claim Processors and CoP of Claim
Managers
Issue lies in the management of roles, actions
and relationships across multiple CoPS

30. SITUATED LEARNING WITHIN MULTIPLE COPS
Wenger‟s
Compartme Different Types of
-ntalization Participation
of practices
1. Marginal
2. Contingent
3. Not to Join
Mutch’s
Approach
Bourdieu‟s Agency through Bernstein‟s
concept of adoption/adaption work on
„habitus‟ codes
of participation
and identity
construction
I
D
E
N
Fatalism of
continual CoP1 T
T
CoP2
reproduction I
T
Y

31. NOTION OF PARTICIPATION IN COP
“Individuals who successfully navigate a path from peripheral to full
participation can be categorized as participating”

32. CONCLUSION
 Development of identities and practice is not
within CoPs but between CoPs
 Distinction between Participation and
Practice
 Definition of Practice is to be limited to
activity
 Participation denotes meaningful activity
developed through relationships and shared
identities
 Scope for research on individual participation
within and beyond CoPs

33. ARTICLE 3
Title: Communities of Practice, Foucault
and Actor-Network Theory
Author: Stephen Fox
Year: 2000
Publication: Journal of Management
Studies, Lancaster University

34. SUB-AGENDA
• Example: The work practices of Naval quartermaster
• COPT and CLT compared
• Foucaultian concept of Power and COPT
• Actor Network Theory and COPT
• Conclusions

35. EXAMPLE: THE WORK PRACTICES OF NAVAL
QUARTERMASTER
• Recruiting
• Learning how navigate: individuate where
the ship is in relation to the seabed,
calculate routes, avoid obstacles and
collision.
• Newcomers learn through the “Learning
by Doing”
• Newcomers became member of a community and participate to
the navigation
• After 1 year newcomer become young master and will teach to
novel newcomers

36. COPT AND CLT COMPARED
Communities of Practice Theory Conventional Learning Theory
(COPT)
• Integration of working and • Separation among Learning and
learning, “Learning-in-Working” Working
• Dilemma: • Leaning but not participation in
 On one hand there is the a community
involvement into the real work
through understanding,
VS • Understanding from the books
participation, became member and not from the practice
of the community
 On the other hand there is • Just Explicit knowledge is
they shape their own identity in moved
their future
• Both Tacit and Explicit
Knowledge are moved

37. FOUCAULTIAN CONCEPTION OF POWER AND COPT
What Power is: What Power is not:
• Is moving substrate of Force Relations in • Power is not a central point of
every point of a Network sovereignty
• Power seen as Act – Action • Is not constrain or dominate other
people
• Force is the way power acts
• Is not the possession of some people
• Pouvoir / Savoir – Power and Knowledge over others
are indisociable
• Is not a group of institutions or
• Power is Everywhere, not because mechanism to ensure the subservience of
embraces everywhere but because comes the population
from everywhere
• Actant: Inanimate object can Act – Nuclear
Weapons

38. FOUCAULTIAN CONCEPTION OF POWER AND COPT
Actant  Inanimate Object can Act
Nuclear Weapons:
• Inanimate Objects
• Act
• Frighten people

39. FOUCAULTIAN CONCEPTION OF POWER AND COPT
Example: how Newcomers became Quartermasters
• Quartermasters imposes knowledge and power to the
newcomers
• Newcomers enforce their memories and learning process and
use power as Force relation in the community
• Newcomers use power and knowledge of the quartermasters in
order learn
Relation with COPT:
Power not related to the individual but Power
related to the Force Relations in every part of a
network

40. ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) AND COPT
• Power is active and tangible
• Substitution from passive to reactive
• Passive is not the opposite of active but is another kind of active – like
inertia

41. ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) AND COPT
COPT ANT
 COPT tells us how tacit
 ANT supplies a set of
knowledge is moved inside CoPs
concepts for understanding how
but do not tell us how practice
practices changes or innovate
changes or innovate in CoPs
and how actors became
obligatory point of passage
 COPT claim that learner can
 ANT considers the learner
be a community – So human
as human and non human
actors
Actant – changes in action can
occur either in human and non-
human element

42. ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) AND COPT
How practice changes or innovate and actors became
obligatory point of passage
Problematization
Interessemen
t
Enrolment
Mobilization
of the allies

43. ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) AND COPT
Fishermen Example
Problematization: Fishermen realize that the declining stocks of
scallops
Interessement: Fishermen agree to give a try to the experiment of
the researchers
Enrolment: The role and activities of the researchers are defined
Mobilization of allies: Researchers reduce the fishermen to a
handful of spokesmen

44. CONCLUSION
 COPT tells us that Learning and Working
together means moving tacit and explicit
knowledge
 Foucault says that Power in COPT is not
related to the individual but to Force Relation
in a community
 ANT tells us how practices changes or innovate
 ANT tells us how actors become mandatory point of passage

45. KM STUDENTS‟ TRYST WITH
COPS

46. KM COP
Website URL:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/km.cop/
How often does the KM CoP meet in a single year? 4 times / year, as each meeting is
1 quarter.
What are the topics discussed during the meet? The topic is depending on the
speaker, we are not restricting to the topic itself as we are promoting people to share
knowledge.
Any online/virtual meetings conducted so far? No Virtual Meeting conducted so far.
But if u want to consider Face Book group as virtual meeting, then I would say yes
Who are part of the administrative group and what is their roles?
So far for core team we have Don Chai, Noraini Rahman, Prof Kan himself as well as
me(Tendon Rudi).
What are the benefits that have come forth after the initiation of this CoP? The
benefit itself is more toward socialization, maintain the rapport of members as well as

47. PRESENTATION IMPROVEMENT COP
Website URL: http://www.facebook.com/groups/km2011present/
Objective: This CoP aims to improve the presentation skills of KM students by
providing opinions and suggestions.

48. THANK YOU