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Designing and Operating Communities of Practice for Managing Knowledge: Lessons from a Comprehensive Global Knowledge Management Survey

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Abstract

Based on a survey of 1,034 knowledge managers, knowledge workers, and senior managers from organization of all types, forms, and sizes from many industrial sectors from 76 countries around the world, from July 17, 2007, to November 14, 2011, we study the role of communities of practice (CoPs) in managing knowledge in organizations. We formulate 10 hypotheses and draft 51 questions to test these hypotheses pertaining to forming and operating CoPs. We find that properly managed CoPs could perform many essential tasks in creating, sharing, and applying knowledge to operations for change and innovation. The lessons drawn help us provide guidelines for designing and operating communities of practice (CoPs) in organizations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Only one known survey has more respondents, and that survey was not specifically a KM survey but had only a few KM questions included in it

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their acknowledgment of the assistance from Maria L. Granados of Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, and Brian Raffaele of the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, in preparation of this chapter.

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Correspondence to A. D. Amar Ph.D. .

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© 2013 Springer India

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Amar, A.D., Coakes, E. (2013). Designing and Operating Communities of Practice for Managing Knowledge: Lessons from a Comprehensive Global Knowledge Management Survey. In: Akhilesh, K. (eds) Emerging Dimensions of Technology Management. Springer, India. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-0792-4_7

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