Blog 4: Communities of Practice

In my first three blogs, I studied knowledge: what it is, how it is created, and how it is transferred. The next series of blogs will attempt to understand how knowledge is manifested in organizations. In this blog, I will seek to understand “communities of practice” (CoPs), beginning with Brown & Duguid’s early work in lending support to the term.

Brown & Duguid (1991) were among the first to lend support to the idea of CoPs by integrating previous research on working, learning, and innovation. Their main thesis is that formal descriptions of work – e.g. training manuals and job descriptions – don’t match, and often impede the actual practice of work. They use Orr’s studies of service technicians, which show that these “reps” often find existing documentation (canonical practice) to be lacking in terms of its usefulness in solving problems. These reps instead engage in a collaborative, socially constructed, and continuous cycle of learning through story telling that not only creates innovative solutions to problems but allows these solutions to be recalled later when more problems arise. The authors argue that organizations are at their most innovative when they allow these self-developing CoPs to flourish, instead of hindering their development by focusing on individuals and codified work practices.

This is among the most fascinating articles I’ve read so far for this class. I, like Jenn Nippert, think the opening metaphor of a road map vs road conditions is a very useful way to orient this article’s discussion. I also appreciate Jenn’s discussion of how this article related to Polanyi because I think this article borrows heavily from the explicit/tacit dimensions of knowledge, despite the fact that the authors don’t seem to mention or reference Polanyi. Finally, this article is interesting for its applicability. This was especially the case with the discussion about learners needing to have “legitimate access to the periphery of communication” (p. 50). As a first-year grad student, I am consistently on that periphery. I get to sit in on meetings between PIs on projects I’m involved in, in which they discuss grant proposals and technical stuff that goes way over my head. I may not understand all of it, or feel that is personally relevant, but I see how instrumental it is in my learning and training as an academic.

After the development of the communities of practice term, research in to CoPs skyrocketed. But with the explosion of research came a wave of criticism, especially from economists who were more interested in individual, explicit knowledge processes. These “skeptical economists” believe there is a paradox in claiming that “knowledge causes markets to fail because it is a public good” while also claiming that “knowledge production merits subsidy and resists free riders because knowledge is not a public good” (Duguid, 2005, p. 114). Duguid (2005) argues against this notion, noting that the paradox only exists if a distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is not made. He notes that everyone who can read has access to explicit knowledge (i.e. it is a public good). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the tacit knowledge to know how to act with it (i.e. knowledge is sticky). Thus, by trying to explain away the tacit with explicit knowledge, these skeptical economists create more questions than answers.

It is bizarre to me to think that there is skepticism of tacit knowledge, but I suppose that is a healthy side-effect of the scientific process. Still, I think Duguid effectively handles the criticisms lobbed his way. I do find it interesting that he notes in the final paragraph that “these distinctions are not made to vaunt the superiority or even hegemony of CoP theories over rivals” (p. 115). While Duguid may say this, it sure seems that this article says otherwise.

Another side-effect of the increased proliferation of CoPs is that the term has become increasingly formulaic and generic. Amin & Roberts (2008) developed a typology of knowing in action, motivated by these concerns. Their typology emphasizes four knowing in action sets:

1. Task/craft-based: In task/craft-based communities, knowledge is seen as embodied and can only be transferred through long-term, face-to-face interaction, such as through apprenticeships. Practitioners in this set are more concerned with preserving existing knowledge than creating radical innovation.
2. Professional: In professional communities, tacit and explicit knowledge are both important. Explicit knowledge can be learned through study, but tacit knowledge is learned by doing, similar to the task/craft-based apprenticeship model. However, once a newcomer has developed a tacit knowledge base, they often work more individually. Innovation occurs incrementally, and often occurs when different groups interact. However, change is often impeded by regulations imposed by professional associations.
3. Epistemic/highly creative: Epistemic communities are groups that intentionally set out to find creative solutions to problems. They are characterized by highly individual members working in distributed groups. These groups often have some measure of “organized slack”, but there also must be an alignment of individuals to produce real innovation. Without alignment, little would be achieved because epistemic communities are not held together by strong hierarchies or social ties.
4. Virtual: Virtual communities are a relatively new set, made distinctive by their unique interactions. In virtual communities, strong social ties can be formed despite obvious geographic barriers. This is especially the case for smaller, more focused virtual groups, where knowledge generation is more common than for open access communities. The authors state “virtual knowing seems to work best when technological and human intermediaries are available to help cultivate a ‘net’ sociality building on purposefulness, social interaction, and affective commitment” (p. 364).

The authors clearly show through this typology that the term “communities of practice” is far too imprecise, and that there need to be additional levels of detail when describing or implementing communities of practice. While the authors do point out that their typology is only meant to serve as a “heuristic”, and not a fully-developed, mutually-exclusive group of sets, I do wish there had been more effort put in to fully developing this typology. In particular, I’m not sure I buy the author’s arguments regarding the inclusion of the virtual set. I don’t know that virtual communities constitute their own community; instead, it makes more sense to think of the virtual realm as a medium in which the other three sets operate in.

Reading about communities of practice was interesting not just because of the concepts explored, but because of the fierce debates and continual refining of the concept over the years. Communities of practice are clearly a major part of the knowledge management literature, and one that will only become more important as it is refined and redeveloped.

References:

Amin, A., & Roberts, J. (2008). Knowing in action: Beyond communities of      practice. Research Policy, 37(2), 353–369. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2007.11.003

Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40-57. doi:10.1287/orsc.2.1.40

Duguid, P. (2005). “The art of knowing”: Social and tacit dimensions of knowledge and the limits of the community of practice. Information Society, 21, 109-118. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01972240590925311

Nippert, J. (2018, February 15). The road map versus road conditions: How social capital helps us reach the destination of learning. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://jennnippert.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/the-road-map-versus-road-conditions-how-social-capital-helps-us-reach-the-destination-of-learning