The Perfomativity of a Cop in Innovation Context

This chapter aims to explore opportunities, challenges and problems of community of practice (CoP) in rising economies. This subject is explored through the case study of the performance of a CoP of entrepreneurs of startup from the Belo Horizonte ICT's cluster of innovation, Brazil. Our objective is to confront this informal organization to the normative orientation of cluster in which they can emerge in an innovation context and pursue its performance. The analysis of the development of this CoP, from its creation to nowadays, shows how the CoP quickly becomes the leverage of a regional innovation dynamism. Findings show also the performance behavior of the CoP facing the normative pressure from the innovation cluster created in that region.

Communities of Practice in Transition Economies

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are informal groups of individuals sharing knowledge and experience within or outside an organization. CoPs can help organizations, especially Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited financial and human resources improve efficiency and productivity by leveraging knowledge resources in the organization. Transition economies have different social and economic conditions as compared to developing and developed countries. The success of CoPs in SMEs located in transition economies depends to a certain extent on the social and cultural factors in transition economies. This chapter explores the factors contributing to the success of CoPs as well as challenges that CoPs face in transition economies. This chapter explores the role of national and organizational culture on the functioning of CoPs in SMEs in transition economies. The objective of this chapter is to develop a framework that could be applied to CoPs in transition economies. This chapter also identifies the factors that might limit the work of CoPs in the context of innovation in SMEs in transition economies.

Transferring Knowledge through Cross-Border Communities of Practice

The aim of this chapter is to explore the use of Cross –Border Communities of Practice (CCoP) as way for managing knowledge in a global socio-economic environment, mainly referring to the rising economies. In doing so, some important issues related to cross-border knowledge transfer have been investigated, taking into account the impact that cultural diversities have on individuals' propensity to cooperate, as well as on their attitude to transfer and to share knowledge. The Authors explain the role that Global Managers have as “cultural bridges” in multicultural teams, thus enabling the last ones' transformation into a CCoP. With reference to both the opportunities and challenges that characterize the rising economies, CCoP arises as the best suitable way to transfer knowledge at international level, when firms from developed countries encounter firms from emerging countries.

Logistics, Marketing and Knowledge Management in the Community of Consumers

The logistics business is related to virtually all areas of the organizations. This is an advantage, to understand the organizations, but it is a disadvantage to study logistics. To help study business logistics have created four models qualitative-quantitative, which analyze it from different approaches. The Logistic Model Based on Positions (LoMoBaP, [MoLoBaC]), studying the logistics through the roles that they play who have charges related to it. From the positions of the MoLoBaC, some aspects of the organizations have been studied: the flows, the measurement of the performance and managerial diagnoses. But principally there has been studied the generation and management of the knowledge. As main contribution in this work it will be undertaken the study of the generation and management of knowledge, emphasizing an external group to the organization, the community of the consumers (CC). And the position of the MoLoBaC, that will be used for this study is the Marketing and sales manager.

Reflections on the Roles of Community of Practice (CoP) in Engineering Education

Community of practice (CoP) encompasses shared approaches for carrying out tasks with a view to facilitating intellectual neighborliness among learners, educators and practicing professionals. Despite the popularity of the CoP approach within industries and the medical education, the practice of using it in engineering education is not widespread as most educators have limited knowledge of how to implement CoP into their classrooms. Moreover, it is not clear from the engineering education literature how the implementation of CoP has enhanced conceptual understanding and imparted employable skills to learners. To address these concerns, available literature detailing the implementation of CoP across professional disciplines and education sector over the past one and half decades were evaluated with a view to identifying and documenting evidences of current practices of CoP, and subsequently developed into a framework for re-designing an important aspect of engineering curricula: work integrated learning (WIL). This will have an objective to successfully enhance conceptual understanding and impart employable skills to learners.

Mentoring Programs as a Basis for Creating Communities of Practices in Tourism

The connection between educational institutions and tourism organizations is of great importance in the time of a turbulent and competitive labor market. The labor market requires employees with knowledge and high skills that can be used in everyday work. Human capital is a building block of a sustainable, competitive, and innovative tourism organization. Retention of employees with key knowledge, experience, and skills and the transfer of that knowledge to new employees, when resources are limited, is becoming of great importance. Mentoring is a learning mechanism where a process of social participation results in the transfer of knowledge and skills. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to suggest a mentoring framework, taking into account the different interested parties: educational institutions, tourism enterprises, mentors, and students. The results of this chapter could be used for improvement of the existing mentoring practice.

Utilizing Communities of Practice to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing in the Digital Age

This chapter explains the overview of knowledge sharing; the perspectives of knowledge sharing behavior; the barriers to knowledge sharing; the overview of communities of practice (CoPs); the relationships among CoPs, knowledge sharing, and information technology; and the utilization of CoPs to facilitate knowledge sharing in the digital age. CoPs can create the valuable opportunities for members to explicitly discuss the productivity of their participation in the group toward sharing knowledge in modern business. The strong CoPs facilitate the social interactions and encourage the members' willingness to share knowledge and ideas in the workplace. CoPs help promote a growing cycle of knowledge sharing activities that allow for the members to regularly meet, reflect, and evolve in the knowledge management (KM) environment. The chapter argues that utilizing CoPs to facilitate knowledge sharing has the potential to improve organizational performance and reach strategic goals in the digital age.

Hints for Rethinking Communities of Practice in Public Administration

Communities of Practice (CoP) have become one of the most widely used strategies for promoting Knowledge Creation and Management (KCM) processes in Public Administration. This chapter is based on some of the practical research and consultancy carried out by the Organisational Development Team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (http://edo.uab.cat) over the last 10 years, presenting some ideas to facilitate the introduction of improvements in the usual functioning of CoP in the public administration. Specifically, the purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to analyse the procedures of KCM by means of CoP in the public administration and through the intensive use of technology; and (2) to suggest elements which may allow us to rethink and improve CoP. The main results indicate that the most important factors in determining CoP participation are related in greater measure to personal processes (interest in change, curiosity, commitment to innovation, profile within the CoP) than to circumstances (professional category, age or seniority).

What Can Reverse Mentoring Relationships Contribute to Communities of Practice involving Developed and Rising Economies?

Communities of practice have been proposed as effective means of building cooperative knowledge sharing relationships between locals and experts from emerging and developed economies (including divisions within some multinational companies). Mentoring relationships in general have been found to support the work of communities of practice. Reverse mentoring relationships are the reverse to what is traditionally expected of a mentoring relationship; they involve the mentoring of a mature or more experienced employee by a younger or generally less experienced employee, but also have the potential to offer much to communities of practice. In the context of communities of practice involving developed and emerging economies, reverse mentoring relationships have the potential to facilitate nationals' (the reverse mentors) sharing of local knowledge while at the same time providing them with leadership development courtesy of the developed country's representative(s) (the reverse mentee(s)), a winning solution for communities of practice and multinational companies. This chapter outlines the benefits of reverse mentoring relationships for communities of practice, and identifies some potential challenges for these partnerships. The implications of these for managers and practitioners are outlined. An agenda for research into reverse mentoring arrangements will complete this chapter. The aim of the chapter is to show how reverse mentoring relationships can complement the work of communities of practice in fostering co-operative knowledge sharing between those in developed and emerging economies.

Does a Knowledge Management Community Manage Knowledge?

Applying knowledge management has been examined and researched within organizational systems, in which Chief Knowledge Officers (CKO) lead these processes. There is a significant lack of professional literature in Israel and elsewhere regarding the application of knowledge management processes within the community of knowledge managers (CKO's CoP). The question of whether or not processes of knowledge management exist among the community of leading KM professionals, and the quality of these processes, is important for gaining insight, both in the practice of knowledge management, as well as for researchers in the field. An analysis of a case study of the “Forum of Knowledge Management in Israeli Organizations” which is a CoP (community of practice) attempts to examine these issues; to define and clarify the current situation, and to propose additional directions for exploration, research, and application. This study may result in implementation of “best practices” which will be of significance in emerging economies, and will benefit vision and knowledge for companies and governmental organizations in executing CoP undertakings in an efficient and effective way. This will prevent “reinventing the wheel” and costly “first hand” experience.