Knowledge management issues for online organisations: ‘communities of practice’ as an exploratory framework
Abstract
Communities of practice have been identified as sites where knowledge is created in organisations. The author reviews studies of situated learning and situated action and suggests that these two activities may characterise the learning process in communities of practice where they are supported by a distinctive ‘social’ infrastructure. She analyses recent fieldwork in three online communities (a digital library reference service, a virtual enterprise and an online shopping group) to discover to what extent they may be described as communities of practice, and to establish how they support participants’ learning.
Keywords
Citation
Davenport, E. (2001), "Knowledge management issues for online organisations: ‘communities of practice’ as an exploratory framework", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 57 No. 1, pp. 61-75. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007077
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited