KM methods in organizations
Communities of practice is a term originally developed by Lave and Wenger (1991). It describes a learning theory with a strong relationship to the social construction of knowledge.
The community of practice consists of members who interact with each other for their pursuit of a common practice. It is therefore this collective social practice that links individuals together across official organizational boundaries and departments, and makes up the community.
It is important to note that these are not teams. A community of practice can be defined as "a group of professionals informally bound to one another through exposure to a common class of problems, common pursuit of solutions, and thereby themselves embodying a store of knowledge" (Stewart 2001 in Botha et al 2008).
There are numerous benefits resulting from collaborative work within a virtual team. However, there are also a variety of difficulties associated with this type of group work. If virtual teamwork is to be successful and take advantage of all the benefits, while avoiding the pitfalls, it is necessary to understand how virtual teams work, what affects them and what strategies can be employed to make optimum use of them. Where group work takes place in a virtual environment, it is important to understand the impact of virtuality on the lifeworld and the processes involved in virtual organisation.
Bibliography:
Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice
