Encycopedia of Communities of Practice in Information and Knowledge Management

Citation

Calvert, P. (2006), "Encycopedia of Communities of Practice in Information and Knowledge Management", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 79-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520610650345

The concept of communities of practice (CoPs) has become popular in a variety of academic fields, including organisational studies and education. In the broad area of information management CoPs are of interest for their relevance to knowledge management (KM) and learning, and that is the focus of this single‐volume encyclopaedia. It will be of great interest to people in this growing field, whether directly involved in the study of CoPs or simply needing to know more about them for their relevance to KM. More than 120 researchers from over 20 countries have written the more than 100 chapters. In excess of 1950 references to the existing literature and research on CoPs are included. One feature of the encyclopaedia that is especially worthy of note is not just that 550 technical and managerial terms have been defined for the reader, but that all the terms appear in a cumulative index, making this a ready reference work. In the past I have been critical of the general indexes of other Idea Group encyclopaedias, but this one is better. Perhaps the smaller scale of the work helps, but it seemed much easier to find all, or nearly all, chapters on the topics that interested me.

Usage of the term “communities of practice” has been diverse to date, and it is interesting to see if this volume leans towards one particular definition. The editors quote Wenger in their preface, which might suggest they would characterise CoPs as a cohesive group brought together for “mutual engagement” in an enterprise. This differs somewhat from Brown and Duguid's use of the term, which can include informal groups that form to improvise solutions to problems, their idea being made famous by the tale of the Xerox repair manual ignored by the repairmen it was intended for. That the repairmen chose to communicate with each other rather than consult the official manual indicates that loose communities of practice can and do occur, but can such informal groups be the basis of a knowledge management initiative, for example? What becomes apparent when looking at the individual chapters is the high number of authors who have cited Brown and Duguid; more, it seems, than have cited Wenger. This probably reflects the extra influence of Brown and Duguid's The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, 2000) among information managers.

The work has a simple structure that makes it easy to browse, if that is the reader's intention. There are seven broad section headings: generic aspects of CoPs, CoPs and the business environment, organizational aspects of CoPs, virtual teams and the role of communities, the role of knowledge management, enabling technology, and finally the philosophy theory of CoPs/KM. It would not be surprising if readers of Online Information Review looked first at either the section on KM, or at the section on technology. Each broad heading is divided into smaller sections of between one and six chapters (most are two or three), and this leads the reader further into the structure. The sub‐section called “Teamwork issues in virtual teams” contains four chapters and they are all spot‐on.

It is good to see such a range of topics covered by these chapters. While never going into great detail on software, there are chapters that deal with the subject in a fair degree of technical detail. Going in a different direction, there are two chapters examining the role of trust in CoPs. I could not see much on a topic that I consider to be crucial in KM, that of rewards.

The range of chapters is such that students or academics starting to look at CoPs will find something to get them started. There is also enough detail, and useful bibliographic referencing, for those doing research. It will not answer all the questions, but I highly recommend it for collections dealing with KM at any level.