Communities of Practice in the Distributed International Environment

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Communities of Practice facilitate knowledge sharing across international boundaries in distributed organizations, addressing challenges of personnel loss and knowledge articulation.

Contribution

It explores the adaptation of Communities of Practice theory to international, distributed settings through two case studies, highlighting practical implications.

Findings

Communities of Practice can function across international boundaries.

Knowledge sharing in distributed environments faces unique challenges.

Case studies demonstrate effective practices and limitations.

Abstract

Modern commercial organisations are facing pressures which have caused them to lose personnel. When they lose people, they also lose their knowledge. Organisations also have to cope with the internationalisation of business forcing collaboration and knowledge sharing across time and distance. Knowledge Management (KM) claims to tackle these issues. This paper looks at an area where KM does not offer sufficient support, that is, the sharing of knowledge that is not easy to articulate. The focus in this paper is on Communities of Practice in commercial organisations. We do this by exploring knowledge sharing in Lave and Wenger's [1] theory of Communities of Practice and investigating how Communities of Practice may translate to a distributed international environment. The paper reports on two case studies that explore the functioning of Communities of Practice across international boundaries.