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Overview (1) What is a ’Community of Practice’?
Definition, Key Characteristics, & Relevance
Cognitive Aspects Working, Learning & Innovating
Governance Aspects Communities within the Firm, Localisation of
Routines, Motivations and Incentives Management by Communities (vs. Management
by Design)
Overview (2) Literature
Brown, J.S. and P. Duguid. 1991. Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science 2 (1): 40-57.
Cohendet, P. and P. Llerena. 2003. Routines and incentives: the role of communities in the firm, Industrial and Corporate Change, 12 (2): 271-297.
Amin, A and P. Cohendet. 2004. ’Communities and governance of knowledge in the firm’. Chapter 6 in Architectures of knowledge: Firms, capabilities and communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
What is a ’Community of Practice’? (1) Definition (Lave and Wenger)
Groups of persons engaged in the same ’practice’,
communicating regularly with one another about their activities, and
seeking to improve their competence in the given ’practice’, through
construction, exchange and sharing of a common repetoire of resources
What is a ’Community of Practice’? (2) Key Characteristics of CoPs
Self-organization• Autonomy• Identity
Self-consciousness Mutual commitment Learning
• Individual acquisition of values and ’know-how’• A ’socially localized’ process
What is a ’Community of Practice’? (3) Relevance for Innovation
Intra-organizational• Collective problem-solving within organizations
leads to product and process innovation• Innovation as learning: identification, joint
production and sharing of tacit knowledge
Inter-organizational• An essential support for ’networks of innovation’• ’Relational proximity’ facilitates knowledge flows
across organizational boundaries
I. Cognitive Aspects
Working, learning, and innovating are conventionally thought to conflict Work practice: conservative Learning: problematic re: change Innovating: disrupts work & learning
Connecting these activities provides a basis for reconceiving and redesigning organizations to improve all three activities A focus on CoPs provides a relevant and
useful basis for developing a ’unified view’
Working (1) Canonical versus non-canonical practice
Practice is essential to understanding work But abstractions detached from practice tend to
distort or obscure its ’intricacies’
There is thus a basic conflict between ’espoused practice’ and ’actual practices’ of work Organizations tend to rely on ’espoused practice’ They are usually blind to ”what and who it takes to get
a job done” But ’actual practice’ is usually what determines their
success or failure
Working (2) Canonical practice: Photocopier service technicians
The company service manual as ’canonical map’: ’Directive documentation’ aimed at ’single point
failures’ A single predetermined route with no alternatives A decision tree for diagnosis and repair that assumes
’predictable’ machines’ & an ’unproblematic process’. Minimizes the amount of information provided
The training programme follows a similar approach ’Downskilling’: unhelpful and overly simplistic Assumes that ’reps’ are untrainable, uncooperative
and unskilled
Working (3) Non-canonical practice: What ’reps’ do
Trouble-shooting: Developing options where canonical approaches fail
Maintaining – and repairing -- social relations Replacing machines as the last resort
Solving problems by constructing coherent accounts out of incoherent data and documentation
Key aspects of actual practice: Narration: ’Stories’ are both adaptable (general
causal maps) and particular (detailed case histories) Collaboration: Joint development & group discussion Social Construction:Shared understanding & identity.
Learning (1) Conventional ideas of learning as
transmission – ’knowledge transfer’ increasingly under attack
A more useful alternative is to view learning as a process of construction As, e.g., in ’legitimate peripheral
participation’ (becoming an ’insider’) From this perspective, learners are not
acquiring ’expert knowledge’ Instead, they are developing ’the embodied
ability to behave as community members’
Learning (2) Groups and Communities
’Communities’ are not recognized sub- organizational groups (e.g., ’teams’)
They tend to be interstitial (e.g., involving both suppliers and customers) and to emerge independently (not by managerial fiat)
Fostering Learning Training programmes should avoid ’context stripping’ Learners need direct exposure to practitioners They also need both legitimacy and peripherality
Innovating (1) Innovation often emerges out of the interface between an
organization and its environment E.g., user-producer interaction
To innovate, an organization ’tries out’ a new concept on its environment, and reflects on the interaction E.g., making sense – and full use – of a new kind of office
equipment Drawing lessons from such reflection can be problematic,
due to a fixed ’world-view’ and ’identity’ But this kind of reconceptualization takes place continuously
within interstitial ’communities’ E.g., Adoption of ’dry photocopy’ technology depended on a
new concept of use, which emerged gradually out of experiments with new office practices and forms of work
Innovating (2) It follows that CoPs can play a key role in ’incremental’
improvement based on innovation as ’enacting’ Essentially, this kind of ’adaptive’ innovation involves
sense-making, congruence-seeking, and identity-building activities
If an organization suppresses or ignores input from CoPs, it runs two serious risks: Undermining working and learning practices that are
vital to its success Cutting off a major source of potential innovation that
arises from work and learning
Conclusions & Implications To foster working, learning and innovating, an
organization must close the gap between espoused and actual practice To do so, it needs to reconceive itself as a
community-of-communities, and to acknowledge and support the non-canonical communities in its midst.
CoPs typically excel in ’incremental’ or ’adaptive’ innovation, but they might also contribute to ’discontinuous’ or ’radical’ innovation Here, harnessing the creative energy of CoPs would
require changes in the ’organizational archecture’ by which CoPs are linked to one another, and whose design influences their patterns of interaction.
II. Governance Aspects
The view of the firm as a ’myriad of communities’ is especially useful for understanding how ’routines’ are localized within organizations Organizational routines have been analysed as if
context does not matter – but it does!
Routines emerge out of the interaction between organizations and individuals -- a process mediated by communities, which help to ’shape’ routines. Understanding the important role played by
communities in this context has important implications for the firm’s organizational structure and incentives.
Communities within the Firm
Ob-jec-tives
A-gents
Cog. Activi-ties
Re-cruit-ment
Learn-ing
Mode
Cohe-sion
Incen-tives
Func-tional Group
Ensure given tasks
Homo-genous
Disci-plinary
Special-ization
Hierar-chical
Unin-tended learn-ing by doing
Defini-tion of
tasks
Meet given target
CoP
Devel-op skill in prac-tice
Homo-genous
Know-ledge of prac-tice
Co-opta-tion
Intend. learn-ing by doing
Interest in prac-tice
Perfor-mance in prac-tice
Epis-temic Com-munity
Pro-duce
new know-ledge
Hetero-genous
Codifi-cation & Cir-cula-tion
By peers
Intend. search and codifi-cation
Resp. Proce-dural autho-rity
Recog-nition by peers
Localisation of Routines (1) Hitherto, most work on routines has stressed the cognitive
aspect. This has led theory and research to neglect the motivational dimension, generally internal selection mechanisms relying on managerial
decisions agency (“the agents who are involved in the routine”)
Viewing the creation and distribution of knowledge as inherently and mainly linked to the distribution of power and conflicts of interests has important implications for our understanding of governance mechanisms: the “origin” is no longer inequalities in the distribution of
information instead, it resides in the need to control learning dynamics
Localisation of Routines (2) From this perspective, incentive schemes within the firm
have to avoid a number of risks specific to a collective learning framework: the risk of a lack of incentives to improve an existing routine the risk of a lack of incentives to explore new routines the risk of conflicts between individual and collective
learning C&L hypothesise that the nature and intensity of these risks
are context dependent or , “more precisely, ‘community-dependent’”.
Hence, socially localised interactions within the organisation, are a key to understanding the motivational and cognitive aspects of routines. All of this leads, quite naturally, to a focus on “communities”.
Motivations & Incentives (1) C&L propose a twofold classification of incentives:
Intrinsic incentives (e.g., pride in one’s work) Extrinsic incentives (e.g, money)
They further consider that the appropriate balance between intrinsic and extrinsic incentives will differ, according to the type of community. Hierarchical communities (e.g., functional groups)
will rely strongly on extrinsic incentive schemes. Autonomous communities (e.g., epistemic
communities) will rely strongly on intrinsic incentive schemes.
Motivations & Incentives (2) Given the existence within firms of different
communities that are apt follow different incentives, “new questions” arise about:
compatibility of the rules and routines emerging in these communities
coherence of the communities, both within the firm and in relation to each other
the frontier of the firm, given the presence within it of ‘boundary crossing’ communities
These are very good questions, which C&L try to address in what follows.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (1) For C&L, providing answers to the above questions
depends on applying some sort of functional standard. The standard they choose to begin with is, not
surprisingly for two neo-Schumpeterians, the entrepreneurial function, which has several aspects: The ability to manage strategically the adaptation,
integration and reconfiguration of resources in relation to a changing environment.
The ability to develop and diffuse a specific ‘vision’ of the firm’s context and future.
The ability to structure the organisation of the firm according to this vision.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (2) To accomplish all of this, the management of the firm
has to mediate between the selection environment external to the firm and the communities within the firm.
In effect, this involves the development of an internal selection environment, which can operate to achieve “relevant trade-offs’ between the incentives affecting different communities.
In particular, it is important to strike an appropriate balance between the routines of the so-called “autonomous communities”: Epistemic communities – essential for “exploration”. Communities of practice – fundamental for
“exploitation”.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (3) These communities must be given sufficient freedom
or latitude within the organisation but not so much that they lose all integration with the
hierarchical communities.
“Project” organisation represents an effort to escape from this difficult balancing act but one can question its cumulativeness.
These considerations have important implications for the governance structure of the firm.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (4) Transaction costs economics – arguably, the dominant
approach to understanding firm governance – begins from the perspective that the firm is essentially “an information processing machine”. Thus, its point of departure is the distribution of information. It applies a “make-or-buy” logic to informational issues.
Evolutionary economics takes a different approach, and is concerned instead with the firm as a knowledge-producing/learning organisation. Its point of departure is distributed knowledge and
distributed learning processes. It cannot apply a “make-or-buy” logic to issues of
knowledge and learning.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (5) Notwithstanding these considerations, firms do not
face an “all-or-nothing” choice between these two theoretical perspectives and the practices they imply.
Rather, firms tend to apply the “evolutionary” perspective to their core activities. In effect, core activities are decoupled from the
market. Similarly, firms tend to apply the “transaction costs”
perspective to peripheral activities. Peripheral activities are effectively coupled to the
market.
Routines, Communities & Structure of the Firm (6) Based on these considerations, C&L
maintain that firms have a dual governance structure -- in which the frontier between core and
periphery is subject to change.
Within this framework, the most difficult problems concern management of the core activities and the communities they involve – but these are also the most important
problems to solve for firms that seek to innovate.
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 1 Amin and Cohendet outline a set of
principles regarding ’Communities and Governance of Knowledge in the Firm’
To begin, they ´distinguish between:Management by Design
• Top-down; Static view of ’knowledge’
Management by Communities• Bottom-up; Dynamic view of ’knowing’
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 2 A&C advocate ’management by
communities’, which means: Enactment: value and support learning
based on practical experimentation Engagement: provide and maintain the
’architecture for certain kinds of interaction’• Emphasis on ’sociality, not trust’
Strike a Balance between exploration and exploitation
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 3 Two advantages of management by
communities:Communities absorb some critical costs
of knowledge-generation• skills, experience, routines• sunk costs of building ’infrastructure’
Communities do not require costly external incentive schemes
• Incentive schemes of communities are ’internal to the practices of communities’
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 4 Limits of Communities:
Parochialism• Discrimination towards other communities;
incompatibility with organizational priorities Lack of Variety
• The ’tendency for communities to be relatively homogenous’; low interaction with other communities
Internal hierarchy• Each community has its ’core’; and ’key actors’
may be stronly motivated by self interest.
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 5
o Back to B&D’s idea of the firm as ”a community-of-communities”.
o Here, the key management problem
concerns the ’organizational architecture’ by which CoPs are linked to one another.
o Organizational design influences CoPs’ patterns of interaction – which, in turn, may or may not lead to innovation
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 6 In linking heterogenous communities within
the firm, two factors are especially important: Degree of repetition of interaction between
communities• Recurrent interaction, cooperation, coordination
through reciprocal adjustment
Quality of communication between communities
• Shared codes, common ’language’, culture
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 7
Weak Repeti-tiveness of Interaction
Strong Repeti-tiveness of Interaction
Poor Quality of Communi-cation
Weak commu-nicative cul-ture
Strong tacit culture
Strong Quality of Communi-cation
Strong codified culture
Strong communi-cative culture
Management by Communities (vs. Management by Design) 8 Weak Repeti-
tiveness of Interaction
Strong Repeti-tiveness of Interaction
Poor Quality of Communi-cation
Traditional sequential process
Overlapping problem solving
Strong Quality of Communi-cation
Modular organization
Evolutionary organization