Linking Organisational Culture and Communities of Practice

Author(s):  
Anzela Huq ◽  
Jawwad Z. Raja ◽  
Duska Rosenberg

The purpose of this article is to identify a link between organisational culture and communities of practice. We propose that the informal nature of communities of practice places great limitations in terms of management and control and that for their purpose—which is primarily to share tacit organisational knowledge and enhance organisational learning—it is fatalistic to try to impose and enforce control. Rather, these communities ought to be left alone to formulate their knowledge sharing activities, and management comes in to provide the support, both cognitive and practical in terms of resources, to ensure that time spent at work is productive, and the knowledge is well spread and used throughout. So, not only do we intend to identify a link between culture and communities of practice, but we will demonstrate that the former has great implications in the survival and success of the latter. A review of the most prolific literature is provided, followed by a debate about the relationship between these two distinct concepts, followed by our visions for the future.

2021 ◽  
pp. 097206342110352
Author(s):  
Orit Shamir-Bladerman

Despite many studies that examined the relationship between organisational learning and organisational culture, none examined whether the levels of learning differ within a given organisation and if so, what factors lead to this difference. This article is based upon a study on organisational learning and investigates the relationship among organisational learning, culture and structure. Quantitative research was conduct on organisational learning practices in 17 medical departments of a large hospital in Israel. Three main categories of variables were examined: mapping the learning mechanisms, characterising the organisational culture and examining the organisational structure of various departments. Organisational learning was measured by means of a set of organisational learning mechanisms used in each medical department. Because data were collected from individuals, it was necessary to control and overcome self-report and common method bias. Reverse scoring of items, the use of variation in wording of items and guaranteeing anonymity to respondents helped control common method bias. As expected, it was found that those departments do differ one from the others by the extent to which organisational learning mechanisms are systematically used. The article further presents and discusses the effects of some structural and cultural factors upon levels of organisational learning on those departments. Both the method and the results of this research differ from previous studies of organisational learning; thus, the article sheds a new light on the concept of organisational learning. The study points to the importance and need of organisations to adopt a culture that encourages use of these organisational learning mechanisms to create effective and ongoing organisational learning. Increasing awareness among hospital departments of organisational learning as an essential process for coping with environmental change is also an important practical contribution.


2016 ◽  
pp. 1921-1934
Author(s):  
Ahmad Vazehi Ashtiani ◽  
Sharmila Jayasingam

This conceptual paper proposes social capital as a possible moderator of the relationship between commonly identified knowledge sharing enablers in the literature and knowledge sharing (KS). A literature review was carried out to determine the contextual influence of the level of social capital within communities of practice (CoPs). Propositions were developed based on a review of past studies addressing KS enablers and KS. The literature review revealed that prior studies built on resource-based theory (RBT) and knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) focused on organizational enablers of KS without any concern for the contextual influence such as the level of social capital of CoPs. Further analysis indicated that social capital could possibly moderate the impact of commonly identified KS enablers. These insights are presented as propositions in this conceptual paper. This paper addresses a gap in the area of KS. It questions the results of past studies and proposes the needs to consider the level of social capital when identifying appropriate KS enablers.


Author(s):  
Tuyet-Mai Nguyen

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between intrinsic motivation and online knowledge sharing intentions (KSIs) and the moderating effect of extrinsic motivation and organisational culture on this relationship. The influence of online KSI on two dimensions of online knowledge sharing behaviour, knowledge donating and knowledge collecting, was also investigated. Design/methodology/approach Based on the extensive literature review, a questionnaire was designed. In total, 290 questionnaires from employees in Vietnamese companies in the banking and insurance industry were collected and tested using structural equation modelling. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS and PLS 3 software to examine the research hypotheses. Findings This study found that rewards and reciprocity undermined the influence of self-enjoyment on online KSI, while top management support and social interaction ties undermined the relationship between self-efficacy and online KSI. Top management support positively moderated the effect of self-enjoyment on online KSI. The results also suggested that online KSI was a good predictor of online knowledge donating and collecting. Originality/value Little is empirically known about the moderating effect of extrinsic motivation and organizational culture on intrinsic motivation. The study brings new insights to further understand about online knowledge sharing in an organisation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weixu Ding ◽  
Eugene Choi ◽  
Atsushi Aoyama

This study is different from the usual cases that testing the intuitive factor as rewarding that affects the employees’ knowledge sharing. In this study, the focus shifts to concentrating on the emotional factors such as interpersonal trust and the prosocial motives. Empirical methods are used to test the hypotheses, and the results show that interpersonal trust affects employees’ knowledge sharing significantly. Moreover, the prosocial motives have been evidenced that it moderately mediates the relationship between interpersonal trust and knowledge sharing. This study has well evidenced all the hypotheses and gives suggestions for the future research at the end.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Orsan Alzoubi ◽  
Ala’aldin Alrowwad ◽  
Ra’ed Masa’deh

Purpose This study aims to assess the relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, communities of practice (CoPs) and employees’ abilities to solve problems, customer’s satisfaction and innovation. Design/methodology/approach This quantitative research aims to examine the causal relationships among the key study variables. A questionnaire-based survey was developed to evaluate the research model by drawing a convenience sample that includes 219 employees working in the King Abdullah Design and Development Bureau which is located in Amman, Jordan. Surveyed information was examined following the structural equation modelling procedures. Findings Results revealed that sharing tacit knowledge in defence organizations had no direct effect on employees’ abilities to solve problems, customer’s satisfaction and innovation, while there was an affirmative effect to CoPs on employees’ abilities in those areas. Also, this study showed that CoPs had a significant mediating role to play in the relationship between sharing knowledge and employees’ abilities in terms of solving work problems, customer’s satisfaction and innovation. Research limitations/implications Findings of this study have laid the basis for future studies related to examining the effect of tacit knowledge sharing and the CoPs on improving employees’ abilities as preconditions for organization performance. These findings can be supported by conducting further research studies to examine the large samples of defence companies to give deeper meanings and insights to the relationship among the key study variables. The authors recommend expanding future studies and examine the mediating role of other social learning methods such as mentoring and storytelling on the relationship between sharing tacit knowledge and employees’ abilities. Practical implications The research model may enable managers and practitioners to make decisions related to the improvement of collective learning by encouraging employees’ engagement in the process of tacit knowledge sharing. The model also helps managers to understand the role of CoPs as a knowledge sharing tool that contributes to increasing employees’ abilities and organizational competitiveness. Furthermore, the research model can be a step forward for further research studies on the relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, CoPs and employees’ abilities. Social implications The suggested model can act as the promising step for continuous improvement to the defence industry in terms of producing high-quality products and services that protect national security, humans’ lives and society at large from enemies and terrorist groups. Originality/value In spite of the fact that most academic studies on knowledge management show a positive relationship between tacit knowledge sharing and organizational performance, a few studies have examined the effect of mediating the CoPs on relationships between sharing tacit knowledge and employees’ abilities as preconditions for raising the performance of the organizations working in security and defence industry. Hence, this research attempts to fill these gaps and gives a new direction for future research.


2005 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 113-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zheng

Organisational culture has been regarded as an important factor affecting knowledge management practices. This paper is an initial effort in constructing a new conceptualisation of the relationship between organisational culture and knowledge management. In view of this conceptualisation, organisational culture, rather than a mutually exclusive concept from organisational knowledge, overlaps with the concept of knowledge management. It highlights the absolute necessity to view organisational culture and knowledge management simultaneously. It also suggests new directions for managing organisational culture in the context of knowledge management.


Author(s):  
Isabel Martins ◽  
Ana Martins ◽  
Orlando Petiz Pereira

Organisations continuously innovate, create, and are competitive if they improve their performance through continuous intellectual capital development, a key resource for value creation and organisational performance driver. Apart from sustaining competitive advantage, intellectual capital is increasingly important due to its ability to increase shareholder value, especially in public organisations. Employee learning, talent development, and knowledge creation allow the organisation to generate innovative ideas due to the quickness of knowledge obsolescence. The organisation’s dynamic capabilities create and re-ignite organisational competencies for business sustainability being co-ordinated by well-structured organisational strategic routines ensuring continuous value creation streams into the business. This chapter focuses on the relationship between notions of knowledge sharing and trust in organisations. Lack of trust can impact negatively organisational knowledge sharing, dependent on trust, openness, and communication. The research sample included graduates and postgraduate students from two universities in Portugal. The findings revealed different perceptions according to the age group.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Ayousha Fayyaz

This research paper focuses on the practices of TQM which are being implemented in Pakistan and finds out the relationship between the quality implementation and the performance of the organizations. There is a significant impact of TQM on performance of organizational operations especially in larger firms that have specialized processes of manufacturing. In Pakistan, TQM is implemented by 3 types of methods: Assurance of Quality, Consistent Improvement and Control of Quality. The results indicate that Total Quality Management has two effects on the performance of organizations: First, the practices of TQM may affect the performance of the organization; or it may halt the firms to achieve the goals which has a negative impact on their performance. One limitation of this research is that it is limited to Pakistan only. So the future researchers can base their studies on different context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-436
Author(s):  
Josep Maria Antentas

Abstract. Every crisis is a moment both of the intensification of borders (social, economic, geographical …) and of their potential breaking down – a moment of the reaffirmation of a certain social model and of its questioning. Borders have acquired centrality in the imaginary of the management of the pandemic. They are a constitutive part of the pandemic condition, endowed with a new symbolic and cognitive force. The new importance of borders in times of a pandemic also shows the complexity of the concept of border itself and accelerates the trends underway regarding borders' transformations. The pandemic draws a new strategic border space and accentuates the complexity of the relationship between sovereignty and territory inherent to the process of globalization. The massive interventions by states to shore up the economy and support businesses and workers have the goal of stabilizing the economy, without any intention of entering into a logic of redistribution and expansion of public services. These massive bailouts may simply be the prelude to a more virulent phase, where a crisis of legitimacy and a crisis of social reproduction and of the global forms of governance of neoliberalism are interwoven. The contradiction between the free movement of capital and goods and the limited movement of labor that characterizes globalization can be further intensified, while the rhetoric of borders and control takes on new relevance.


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