Can an organization also be viewed as a community of practice?

There are several well defined viewpoints of what constitutes an organization and what constitutes a community of practice (COP). An organization can be a structure that processes a resource from its environment to produce an output Laudon and Laudon (2006) where as a COP according to Wenger (Unknown) is “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”.

There are some organizations whose mission is to promote knowledge and awareness within a particular area. One such example is the Good Homes Alliance (GHA). Within this organisation there are several correlations to those found in a community of practice. Using the GHA as an example we can compare the characteristics outlined by Wenger for a COP with those of the GHA.

Characteristic	COP: Wenger (unknown)	GHA (http://www.goodhomes.org.uk)
Domain	A shared domain of interest.	Sustainability
	A Commitment	Committed to improve sustainability homes throughout UK
	A shared competence	Expert contribution from both member and non member bodies
Community	Engage in joint activities and discussions.	GHA provides government advice on sustainability. Exhibitions Discussion forum
	learn from each other	Learning events and conferences Open source research materials Membership only research materials.
Practice	Practitioners developing a shared repertoire of resources	Member and non member Practitioners: Green Oak Housing Bioregional Quintain Swan Country Homes UCL Leeds Metropolitan University Aiyana Ltd

In direct comparison between GHA and Wenger’s characteristics the similarities are striking however Seaman(2008) presents two points that could be taken into account.

Firstly that a COP develops informally and secondly that a COP follows specific stages of development: “potential, coalescing, active, dispersed and memorable”. An organization such as the GHA does not develop informally. The life cycle suggest by Seaman(2008) implies the COP has a finite usefulness although the same could be said about any organisation, its services or products. In the case of the GHA, if all houses were built with sustainability in mind they may then need to re-evaluate both their mission statement and business model. Interestingly a similar model is outlined by Slack et al(2007) to identify a products or service’s life cycle although the memorable stage is not presented: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

Seaman(2008) does note that “all members share a common goal and all contribute to meet that goal” which is echoed in the GHA mission statement:

“group of housing developers, building professionals and sustainability experts, whose aim is to build and promote sustainable homes and communities, and to transform the whole of mainstream UK house building into a sustainable endeavour”

Conclusion

There is no suggestion in any of the literature that I have found that an organisation can be a COP, yet if we look at both definitions presented here they could be considered interchangeable: A COP produces an output (knowledge) from the resources of its environment; an organisation can be a group of people that share a common passion (GHA).After contacting a member of the GHA I was interested to find that the organisation actually formed from a group of practising professionals all concerned with, and interested in, sustainability meeting regularly to discuss issues and deciding to create a more formalised alliance to tackle the problem.

In conclusion I feel that organizations such as the GHA do share both a cultural and operational similarity to the definition and ethos of a COP and as such may well be the exception to the rule.

References

Good Homes Alliance (2005),Mission statement, available at: http://www.goodhomes.org.uk/mission/, [Accessed 3 February 2009]

Laudon, J., Laudon, K. (2007). Management Information Systems- Managing the digital firm, 10th edition. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education

Seaman, M., 2008. Birds of a Feather? Communities of Practice and Knowledge Communities. Curriculum & Teaching Dialogue, 10(1; 1), pp. 269-279.

Wenger ,E., (unknown) Communities of practice : a brief introduction: [online] available at : http://www.ewenger.com/theory/ [accessed 11 February 2009]