Communities Of Practice: The Source Of Competitive Advantage In Organisations

Abstract

Communities of Practice (CoPs) have become increasingly influential in recent times in both academia and praxis. According to Roberts (2006) CoPs have emerged as a key domain in the realm of knowledge creation more so as knowledge is increasingly being highlighted in the literature as the key and main source of competitive advantage for organisations (Garavan & Carbery 2007). Grant (1996) suggests that knowledge can be integrated externally through relational networks that span organisational boundaries. These networks provide effective mechanisms for accessing and integrating new knowledge, however they may not do so quickly enough to stay abreast with competitive changes. There is no standard definition for CoPs but the widely accepted definition is by Wenger et al. (2002), who opines that it ‘… is a group of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting regularly’. The group acts as a forum for practitioners to share what they know, to learn from one another regarding some aspects of their work and to provide a social context for their work. CoPs have become an important method of knowledge management in order to support promote the advancement of an organisation’s intellectual capital by enhancing knowledge exchange and promoting continuous organizational learning (Mittendorff et al. 2006). This paper illustrates that core competences do not reside in the abstractions of management theories; instead it resides and grows in communities of practice. This paper also discusses the relevance of this concept to strategic knowledge management. Specifically, this paper will explore the value and effects of CoPs in organizations.