Knowledge Networking (Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D.)
Structure and Performance in Networks of Practice
The overarching goal of this thesis is to improve our understanding of networks of practice from a business firm’s perspective, and in particular to investigate issues of structure and performance, two important areas generally left by the wayside in previous network of practice research.
Comment: We should incorporate this thinking in our Community of Practice Models!
“..….but most importantly I have my network from the internet. I’ve been in this for four years so really there is a core clique of people who know each other and who trade secrets with each other even though we have never met each other face-to-face. We pass over nondisclosure agreements of different companies all the time and trade company secrets.” (Interviewee in a high technology multinational, 1998)
“People from other offices [within the company] call me up pretty often for help because they have heard about me. But it feels really strange to help them when you don’t know them. It then becomes a matter of prestige - why should I help you?” (Interviewee in a high technology multinational, 1998)
THE RECENTLY DEVELOPED knowledge-based view of the firm argues that knowledge is the firm’s most valuable resource, yet as the above quotations reveal, valuable firm knowledge can leak easily across the firm’s legal boundaries while it can get stuck within them. As a result, management in business firms is finding that knowledge cannot be “managed” using the same tools that once were appropriate for dealing with physical goods, thus presenting considerable challenges. A tension arises because much of the knowledge within organizations is controlled at the level of individuals who make discretionary choices about the sharing of knowledge. In addition to the willingness of individuals to share knowledge, another challenge in the management of knowledge lies in the nature of knowledge itself – that knowledge is situated in a local practice. As a group of individuals who have a shared practice conduct their work, boundaries are created around their practice within which their knowledge is embedded. Within the group, tacit knowledge is shared relatively easily between individuals often without even being made explicit. However, sharing the group’s knowledge with others outside the group presents difficulties even if there is a willingness to share due to the embeddedness of the knowledge.
Full text: http://streamdp.hhs.se/LinkedStaffDocs/download.aspx?dl=00785_001
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