Identifying the success factors of Communities of Practice (CoPs). How do they affect on students to create knowledge?
| Published date | 11 May 2015 |
| Date | 11 May 2015 |
| Pages | 198-213 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/VINE-03-2014-0022 |
| Author | Peyman Akhavan,Babaeianpour Marzieh,Masoumeh Mirjafari |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,Knowledge management systems |
Identifying the success factors of
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
How do they affect on students to
create knowledge?
Peyman Akhavan
Department of Management, Malek Ashtar University of Technology,
Tehran, Iran, and
Babaeianpour Marzieh and Masoumeh Mirjafari
Department of Management, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to identify the success factors of communities of practice (CoPs) that will
improve knowledge creation (KC) in educational organizations. Today, educational organizations are
faced with constant changes in their environment. These changes have forced organizations to view
their human capital as knowledge capital to survive and thrive. CoPs can be one of the most important
factors to achieve these goals, and it should be considered by educational organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – The present paper tries to identify the success factors of CoPs
and examine the impact of the success factors of CoPs in KC. The research method is descriptive. The
population of the research consists of students of Payame Noor University as a case study. A
questionnaire based on experts’ opinion was designed and more than 35 articles were reviewed. Factor
analysis was used to categorize and examine the correlation between success factors of CoPs and KC
and, nally, the regression equation based on correlation’ result was formed.
Findings – The results showed six success factors: “organization”, “optimizing interactions”,
“infrastructure”, “supporting tools”, “strategy and goals” and “organizational support”. These factors
reect the effective factors in educational organizations attempting to progress in KC should focus.
Among these success factors, “strategy and goals” and “organization” have the highest effect on CoPs
in this case.
Research limitations/implications – The paper discusses how the success factors of CoPs
improve KC in universities as educational organization and how an organization will benet from these
factors. It can help the development of guidelines for educational organizations to increase their
community knowledge information. They can also apply the ndings of this research to promote the
scientic level of their related organizations through reinforcement of CoP practices. In this paper, the
authors faced some problems to collect expert’s opinion and also gather the questionnaires.
Originality/value – This paper may have great value to researchers, as well as practitioners involved
in knowledge-creation programs in organizations about CoPs and the knowledge-creation eld. This
research can establish guidelines for Payame Noor University Tehran-North as a case study using the
right policies and make changes to the traditional structures of the university, improve and develop the
knowledge-creation process and the formation of CoPs. This study can guide managers and, especially,
the university managers to provide suitable base to shape COPs, help them emerge and enhance them
effectively.
Keywords Communities of practice, Knowledge creation
Paper type Case study
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0305-5728.htm
VINE
45,2
198
Received 22 March 2014
Revised 11 June 2014
26 July 2014
18 November 2014
31 January 2015
10 February 2015
Accepted 12 February 2015
VINE
Vol.45 No. 2, 2015
pp.198-213
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0305-5728
DOI 10.1108/VINE-03-2014-0022
1. Introduction
The topic of community of practice (CoP) has been discussed in management literature
since the early 1990s, and since then, it has attracted a lot of attention from academics
and professionals around the globe. Communities of practice (CoPs) have become a
strategic approach for fostering learning and transferring knowledge. There are a few
studies that explain what makes a community engage in a discussion to share their
knowledge and experience (Hafeez and Alghatas, 2007). CoPs increasingly are used in
organizations and are probably one of the most prominent knowledge management
(KM) tools today. They are a truly useful tool for sharing, transferring and retaining
knowledge, surpassing other intra-organizational networks such as project teams,
operational teams and purely informal networks (Borzillo, 2006). CoPs are developing in
importance for the organizational world. In the eld of knowledge, increasing
importance is placed on the social aspects of knowledge (Akhavan et al., 2010) and how
it can be managed, as opposed to how technology can be utilized (Coakes and Clarke,
2006). Organizations which focus on building an enterprise-wide knowledge system
(KS) to manage mostly explicit knowledge are looking for alternative ways for creating,
sharing and managing knowledge (Jeon et al., 2011). CoP is emerging as an alternative
system to explicit knowledge-oriented KS implementation. This is done by establishing
a social process whereby an organizational member voluntarily participates in creating
and sharing one’s implicit, as well as explicit, knowledge that helps each member to
learn from one another (Chen et al., 2009;Chu and Khosla, 2009;Lesser and Stork, 2001;
Swan et al., 2000;Wenger and Snyder, 2000).
There are several denitions of CoP. CoPs can be considered as ways to improve
individual skills. They are targeted on their members (Lave and Wenger, 1991;Brown
and Duguid, 1991); also, CoPs are groups of people informally bound together by a
shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise or groups of professionals who share
knowledge, work together, create common practices and gather knowledge in a eld of
mutual interest (Wenger and Snyder, 2000). CoPs are formed by people who share
interests, exchange experiences and discuss their practices, be they physical, mental or
victual activities and to promote mutual learning.
CoPs are currently attracting much interest among academics and consultants in
commercial organizations. Academic researchers are undertaking research that shows
CoPs to be a feasible option and how this can support the generation of new knowledge.
Similarly, consultants in the CoP eld are developing tools and techniques to support,
coach and facilitate CoPs. These professionals advise organizations regarding how to
identify and nurture CoPs, as well as demonstrating how organizations can benet from
them. Despite such interest in CoPs by organizations, there has been no consensus
among researchers on the success factors that affect the CoPs. Among the reasons we
can mention are:
• the complexity of social systems;
• the complexity of group development techniques;
• the existence of group’s indifferent areas of the organization; and
• difculty in assessing the effects of groups (Kreitner, 2001).
Hence, not all aspects that should be considered regarding CoPs have been researched.
In today’s knowledge and learning society, knowledge is becoming an asset with
199
Communities
of practice
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