Research


Communities of Practice

The driven nature of today is to understand the context: 'Communities of Practice' (CoP). CoP to me means how people share their expertise knowledge within the work place (a social place) which is then converted in practice (practical on hands: by doing the task) to build competitve advantage. Wenger (1998) defines this as learning concern to share.

Virgin for example, primarily focuses on being one of the 'world's most recognised and leading brand'. It is seen they appear to have a desire to challenge and transform different industry norms to deliver better value to customers by offering it's distinctive approach. My context is to understand how does Virgin operate to have such a diverse range of knowledge and how Richard Branson managed to make the organization successful.

Research found that his concept of "I love new project's, I love new ideas" and "they can just go ahead and do it" fostered and offered the opportunity for employees to experiment (Manfred, 1997). Also, Clarke (2008) a business journalist wrote Virgin gathered 'experience and skill' from across the team. Both these I see people experimenting their idea's in a workplace helping to improve communication amongst internally where the sharing and innovation of their knowledge is acknowledged.

Thoughts ~ Is there defensiveness if one stops talking & sharing information?

References:
Clarke, E. (2008). Virgin's Vision. [Online]. Available: http://www.supplymanagement.com/EDIT/CURRENT_ISSUE_pages/CI_features_item.asp?id=17448 [2009, 23/01/2009].

Manfred, F.R. (1997). Creative Leadership: Jazzing up Business. [Online]. Available: " Link within above" [2009, 23/01/2009].

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning & Identity - Chapter1. Cambridge University Press, USA.

Virgin, (2008). About us. [Online]. Available:

Virgin, (2008). Products. [Online]. Available: http://www.virgin.com/Products.aspx [2009, 23/01/2009].
Posted by @
Labels:

6 comments:

  1. RAVI23 January 2009 at 12:32

    have your views changed from yesterday...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. MCT29 January 2009 at 21:48

    yes, my view has has changed from last week's workshop. This word was new to me probably because it was like a termingnology that I have not come across. But I can visualise what this really means, this is because of the type of organization environment I am working in.

    ReplyDelete
  3. prasad vasili30 January 2009 at 17:48

    less information with more references thats good .we feel good for guiding us.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The A-Team4 February 2009 at 21:33

    Hello Prasad,
    Are you using this as a guide, or are you learning from it on how to guide for yourself?
    All images from last week - Team members - you shall recieve. Hence my reason of not sending it to you, was so that you could develop on building your writing scripts/skills rather than pictures.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. RAVI8 February 2009 at 20:31

    CoP definition is concise….

    I wanted to share another example with you:

    The A-Team is Organisation….

    CoP within The A-Team…

    is when us 2 share expertise and knowledge together to complete our objective….


    does that sound correct to you…?

    ReplyDelete
  6. The A-Team25 February 2009 at 07:05

    Sorry for my long pause on this..yes, you are correct Ravi, sharing the 2 expertise in different areas which should in effect pose to work towards the intended purpose.

    Not only us 2 but also trying to get the team members to understand so that could be able to adapt?..This will work but we cannot enforce integrity...
    :)

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)