IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eurman/v31y2013i1p27-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Another cog in the machine: Designing communities of practice in professional bureaucracies

Author

Listed:
  • Harvey, Jean-François
  • Cohendet, Patrick
  • Simon, Laurent
  • Dubois, Louis-Etienne

Abstract

This paper explores the purposeful design and development of a community of practice within a professional bureaucracy. The view of communities of practice has shifted from fundamentally organic entities to ones that can be deliberately designed and developed and they have frequently been presented as a panacea for knowledge sharing and creation, a basis for innovation in organizations. However, evidence that organizations have succeeded to achieve this challenge is lacking. Through the processual analysis of such an organizational intervention, this longitudinal study shows that these two contexts – the community of practice and the professional bureaucracy – do not mesh well and create tensions for those employees who are also community of practice members. This implies that the community of practice approach may not serve all types of organizations. The findings also lead to the reconsideration of communities of practice in organizations and a critique of the main appraisal of this approach is presented. It is suggested that communities of practice should be regarded as a social phenomenon rather than an organizational learning tool.

Suggested Citation

  • Harvey, Jean-François & Cohendet, Patrick & Simon, Laurent & Dubois, Louis-Etienne, 2013. "Another cog in the machine: Designing communities of practice in professional bureaucracies," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 27-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:31:y:2013:i:1:p:27-40
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2012.07.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026323731200076X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.emj.2012.07.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Probst, Gilbert & Borzillo, Stefano, 2008. "Why communities of practice succeed and why they fail," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 335-347, October.
    2. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid, 2001. "Knowledge and Organization: A Social-Practice Perspective," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 198-213, April.
    3. Richard J. Boland & Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi, 1995. "Perspective Making and Perspective Taking in Communities of Knowing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(4), pages 350-372, August.
    4. Büchel, Bettina & Raub, Steffen, 2002. "Building Knowledge-creating Value Networks," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 587-596, December.
    5. Ash Amin & Patrick Cohendet, 2004. "Architectures of knowledge : Firms, capabilities, and communities," Post-Print hal-00279605, HAL.
    6. Kimble, Chris & Bourdon, Isabelle, 2008. "Some success factors for the communal management of knowledge," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 461-467.
    7. Joanne Roberts, 2006. "Limits to Communities of Practice," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 623-639, May.
    8. Henry Mintzberg, 1980. "Structure in 5's: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 322-341, March.
    9. Pettigrew, Andrew M., 1997. "What is a processual analysis?," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 337-348, December.
    10. Mark Thompson, 2005. "Structural and Epistemic Parameters in Communities of Practice," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 151-164, April.
    11. Haridimos Tsoukas, 2009. "A Dialogical Approach to the Creation of New Knowledge in Organizations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(6), pages 941-957, December.
    12. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid, 1991. "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 40-57, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cristina Páez-Avilés & Esteve Juanola-Feliu & Islam Bogachan-Tahirbegi & Mónica Mir & Manel González-Piñero & Josep Samitier, 2015. "Innovation And Technology Transfer Of Medical Devices Fostered By Cross-Disciplinary Communities Of Practitioners," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(06), pages 1-27, December.
    2. Geilinger, Nina & Haefliger, Stefan & von Krogh, Georg & Rechsteiner, Lise, 2016. "What makes a social practice? Being, knowing, doing and leading," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 319-327.
    3. Jyoti Jagasia & Utpal Baul & Debasis Mallik, 2015. "A Framework for Communities of Practice in Learning Organizations," Business Perspectives and Research, , vol. 3(1), pages 1-20, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emmanuelle Vaast & Geoff Walsham, 2009. "Trans-Situated Learning: Supporting a Network of Practice with an Information Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 547-564, December.
    2. Amin, Ash & Roberts, Joanne, 2008. "Knowing in action: Beyond communities of practice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 353-369, March.
    3. Caccamo, Marta & Pittino, Daniel & Tell, Fredrik, 2023. "Boundary objects, knowledge integration, and innovation management: A systematic review of the literature," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Moingeon, Bertrand & Quélin, Bertrand & Dalsace, Frédéric & Lumineau, Fabrice, 2006. "Inter-organizational communities of practice: specificities and stakes," HEC Research Papers Series 857, HEC Paris.
    5. Samer Faraj & Georg von Krogh & Eric Monteiro & Karim R. Lakhani, 2016. "Special Section Introduction—Online Community as Space for Knowledge Flows," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 668-684, December.
    6. Karin Dessne & Katriina Byström, 2015. "Imitating CoPs: Imposing formality on informality," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(11), pages 2277-2284, November.
    7. Verena Brinks, 2016. "Situated affect and collective meaning: A community perspective on processes of value creation and commercialization in enthusiast-driven fields," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(6), pages 1152-1169, June.
    8. Simon Turner, 2013. "Absorptive Capacity: The Role of Communities of Practice," Working Papers wp444, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    9. Sandra Dubouloz & Anne Berthinier-Poncet & Luciana Castro Gonçalves & Emilie Ruiz & Catherine Thevenard-Puthod, 2021. "Innovation communities: from their characterization to the questioning of their boundaries [Comunidades de innovación: desde su caracterización hasta el cuestionamiento de sus fronteras]," Post-Print hal-02891869, HAL.
    10. Paola Perez-Aleman, 2011. "Collective Learning in Global Diffusion: Spreading Quality Standards in a Developing Country Cluster," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 173-189, February.
    11. Müller, Felix Claus & Ibert, Oliver, 2014. "(Re-)Sources of Innovation: Understanding and Comparing Innovation Dynamics through the Lens of Communities of Practice," IRS Working Papers 52, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS).
    12. Ian Clarke & Matias Ramirez, 2011. "Intermediaries and Capability Building in an Emerging Resource based Cluster," SPRU Working Paper Series 197, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    13. Torsten Ringberg & Markus Reihlen, 2008. "Towards a Socio‐Cognitive Approach to Knowledge Transfer," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 912-935, July.
    14. Marijn A. van Weele & Henk J. Steinz & Frank J. van Rijnsoever, 2018. "Start‐up Communities as Communities of Practice: Shining a Light on Geographical Scale and Membership," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 109(2), pages 173-188, April.
    15. Patrick Cohendet & Jean-Alain Héraud & Patrick Llerena, 2010. "Division of Labour and Division of Knowledge in Firms’ Innovative Networks: An Essay on Ehud Zuscovitch’s Theoretical Perspectives," Chapters, in: Jean-Luc Gaffard & Evens Salies (ed.), Innovation, Economic Growth and the Firm, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Kent D. Miller & Shu-Jou Lin, 2010. "Different Truths in Different Worlds," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 97-114, February.
    17. Gerardo Patriotta, 2003. "Sensemaking on the Shop Floor: Narratives of Knowledge in Organizations," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 349-375, March.
    18. Papadopoulos, Thanos & Stamati, Teta & Nopparuch, Pawit, 2013. "Exploring the determinants of knowledge sharing via employee weblogs," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-146.
    19. Agterberg, M. & Hooff, B. van den & Huysman, M., 2008. "Keeping the wheels turning : multi-level dynamics in organizing networks of practice," Serie Research Memoranda 0003, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    20. Alessia Contu & Hugh Willmott, 2003. "Re-Embedding Situatedness: The Importance of Power Relations in Learning Theory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 283-296, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:31:y:2013:i:1:p:27-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.