Support your local communities of practice: Learning and continuous change

Abstract

Purpose

This paper provides considerations for organizations interested in supporting knowledge sharing among employees based on experiences and recent research. Experiences emphasize the need to discover and recognize unofficial communities of practice; support distributed leadership; support control of the communities by their members; enable interaction and learning opportunities; consider social media carefully; leaving choices up to the community members; and an approach to calculating the value of communities of practice (CoPs) based on knowledge management.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach of this paper focuses on six basic themes from research and experiences in the literature with CoPs. Lessons learned and recommendations are provided.

Findings

Lessons from CoPs focus on the need for distributed leadership or all engage, participate and share responsibilities; control of the community belongs to the members, and they decide membership; interaction and learning opportunities are essential to support competitive advantage for the organization and continuous development for the community members. Social media is unproven in the workplace and should be approached carefully, as the CoP must determine benefits and advantages. An approach to calculating value is proposed, based on calculating the value of knowledge management.

Practical implications

As CoPs continue to evolve, organizations play a key role in supporting their development which in turn provides competitive advantage for the organization. Continuous learning and development are the key aspects of these communities, including opportunities for leadership, decision-making and professional development. Technology can play an important role in CoPs, but must be supported by the membership. The return on investment (ROI) may be significant and learning opportunities provide the potential for personal development and the enhancement of organizational performance.

Originality/value

This review offers insights into experiences and findings from CoPs, supports distributed leadership and control of the community among the members, strongly recommends interaction and learning opportunities and addresses social media as a possibility to support the CoP. The ROI potential supports and encourages organizations to develop employees and enhance overall performance.

Citation

Bandow, D. and Gerweck, J.T. (2015), "Support your local communities of practice: Learning and continuous change", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 7-9. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-11-2014-0083