Knowledge Management in Communities and Networks of Practice: Challenges, Issues and Paradoxes

This research-in-progress paper investigates knowledge management activities in communities and networks of practice and the role and use of IT in such knowledge networks. Drawn from the network model including social-practice perspectives (Wenger 1998; Brown and Duguid 2000; Brown and Duguid 2001), social network theory (Granovetter 1973), and actor network theory (Law and Callon 1992; Latour 1996) and by reviewing existing literature, we develop five research questions. A case study with a university IT department is used to answer the five research questions.

[1]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Re-place-ing space: the roles of place and space in collaborative systems , 1996, CSCW '96.

[2]  S. Faraj,et al.  The Web of Knowledge: An Investigation of Knowledge Exchange in Networks of Practice , 2001 .

[3]  M. Callon Techno-economic Networks and Irreversibility , 1990 .

[4]  G. Lakomski Managing Organizational Knowledge , 2005 .

[5]  Edwin Hutchins,et al.  The technology of team navigation , 1990 .

[6]  Mark S. Granovetter The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[7]  D. Leidner,et al.  KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN IS RESEARCH , 2002 .

[8]  John Seely Brown,et al.  Book Reviews : The Social Life of Information By John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. 320 pages , 2000 .

[9]  Mark S. Granovetter Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[10]  Lynne P. Cooper,et al.  Knowledge Reuse for Innovation , 2004, Manag. Sci..

[11]  D. Sandy Staples,et al.  Using electronic media for information sharing activities: a replication and extension , 2000, ICIS.

[12]  R. Burt Structural Holes versus Network Closure as Social Capital , 2001 .

[13]  B. Latour,et al.  Power, Action and Belief. A New Sociology of Knowledge? , 1986 .

[14]  J. Law A Sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination , 1991 .

[15]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[16]  Michael H. Zack,et al.  Managing Codified Knowledge , 1999 .

[17]  Daniel Robey,et al.  Situated learning in cross-functional virtual teams , 2000 .

[18]  Noriko Hara,et al.  IT Supports for Communities of Practice: An Empirically-based Framework , 2002 .

[19]  Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi,et al.  Designing Information Technology to Support Distributed Cognition Ceo Publication G 93-16 (236) Designing Information Technology to Support Distributed Cognition Designing Information Technology to Support Distributed Cognition , 1994 .

[20]  E. Wenger Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems , 2000 .

[21]  L. Edelman THE DARKER SIDE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL , 2002 .

[22]  Alexander Ardichvili,et al.  Motivation and barriers to participation in virtual knowledge-sharing communities of practice , 2003, J. Knowl. Manag..

[23]  D. Sandy Staples,et al.  The use of collaborative electronic media for information sharing: an exploratory study of determinants , 2000, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[24]  Madeleine Akrich,et al.  The De-scription of Technical Objects , 1992 .

[25]  M. McLure Wasko,et al.  "It is what one does": why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice , 2000, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[26]  R. McDermott Why Information Technology Inspired but Cannot Deliver Knowledge Management , 1999 .

[27]  Dorothy E. Leidner,et al.  Studying Knowledge Management in Information Systems Resarch: Discourses and Theoretical Assumptions , 2002, MIS Q..

[28]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing , 2002, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[29]  Maureen S. Battistella,et al.  Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization , 1991 .

[30]  Hugh Willmott,et al.  Comment on Wenger and Yanow. Knowing in Practice: A `Delicate Flower' in the Organizational Learning Field , 2000 .

[31]  J. Brown,et al.  Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective , 2001 .

[32]  R. Burt The contingent value of social capital. , 1997 .

[33]  H. Tsoukas The firm as a distributed knowledge system : A constructionist approach , 1996 .

[34]  Wiebe E. Bijker,et al.  Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change ed. by Wiebe E. Bijker, John Law (review) , 1994, Technology and Culture.

[35]  James F. Courtney,et al.  Decision making and knowledge management in inquiring organizations: toward a new decision-making paradigm for DSS , 2001, Decis. Support Syst..

[36]  E. Hippel Sticky Information and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation , 1994 .

[37]  Jennifer Preece,et al.  Towards knowledge-sharing and learning in virtual professional communities , 2002, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[38]  Sue Newell,et al.  Limits of IT-driven knowledge management initiatives for interactive innovation processes: towards a community-based approach , 2000, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[39]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  Knowledge Networks: Explaining Effective Knowledge Sharing in Multiunit Companies , 2002 .

[40]  Ronald E. Rice,et al.  Computer-Mediated Inter-Organizational Knowledge-Sharing: Insights from a Virtual Team Innovating Using a Collaborative Tool , 2000, Inf. Resour. Manag. J..

[41]  E. Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Communities of Practice , 1991 .

[42]  M. Callon Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay , 1984 .

[43]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  The Search-Transfer Problem: The Role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organization Subunits , 1999 .

[44]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

[45]  M. Callon The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle , 1986 .

[46]  M. Callon,et al.  Mapping the dynamics of science and technology : sociology of science in the real world , 1988 .

[47]  JoAnne Yates,et al.  It's About Time: Temporal Structuring in Organizations , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[48]  B. Latour Technology is Society Made Durable , 1990 .

[49]  George P. Huber,et al.  Transfer of knowledge in knowledge management systems: unexplored issues and suggested studies , 2001, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[50]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage , 1998 .

[51]  Dorothy E. Leidner,et al.  Review: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues , 2001, MIS Q..