Communities of Practice in Organizational Learning
Summary
Communities of Practice (CoPs) constitute groups of individuals who engage collaboratively in a shared domain, fostering collective learning and knowledge creation. Rooted in social learning theory, CoPs are defined by three interrelated elements: a joint enterprise that defines the community’s purpose, mutual engagement in collaborative activities, and a shared repertoire of resources, language, documents and routines. Within organisations, CoPs bridge formal structures and informal networks to enable the flow of both explicit and tacit knowledge across departmental or disciplinary boundaries. By providing a social context for problem solving, innovation and skill development, CoPs support organisational adaptability and resilience. They contribute to the diffusion of best practice, the incubation of new ideas and the alignment of individual expertise with strategic objectives. In digital environments, virtual CoPs extend the geographic reach of such communities, while boundary spanning roles and objects facilitate interaction across organisational silos. Globally, the proliferation of CoPs has been observed in sectors ranging from healthcare to manufacturing, illustrating their versatility and practical impact on continuous professional development and system-wide learning.
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Communities of Practice in Organizational Learning publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in communities of practice in organizational learning across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Communities of Practice (CoP): Groups of individuals who share a concern or passion and learn through regular interaction.
Tacit knowledge: Unwritten, experiential knowledge gained through personal involvement and practice.
Boundary object: Artefacts or tools that facilitate understanding across different social worlds.
Situated learning: Learning that occurs through participation in authentic, context-specific activities.
Joint enterprise: The collective purpose and negotiated goals that bind CoP members together.
References
- A Fuzzy-Bayesian Network Approach Based Assessment of CoP System in Forging Higher Education Social Responsibility. Systems (2024).
- Reimagining community relationships for organizational learning: a scoping review with implications for a learning health system. BMC Health Services Research (2021).
- Gamifying situated learning in organisations. Management Learning (2021).
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