Virtual communities of practice: do they work, where and why?

ARTIGOS

Virtual communities of practice: do they work, where and why?¹

Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay

Profª Télé-Université, Université du Québec

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights various results from a research on communities of practice in Canada, in particular the main conditions and challenges of such new modes of knowledge creation and management. It does this on the basis results to a questionnaire survey administered to the participants of these communities of practice. Participants’ commitment and motivation in the project, dynamism and continuity of leadership, organizational support and recognition of employees’ involvement appear to be the key elements. Some of these variables present interesting differences by age and by gender, and these will be adressed.

RESUMO

Este artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa sobre comunidades de prática realizada no Canadá, abordando, em particular, as principais condições e desafios desse novo modo de criação e de gestão de conhecimento. O trabalho é realizado com base nos resultados de uma pesquisa survey, na qual foram aplicados questionários aos participantes de comunidades de prática. O comprometimento e a motivação dos participantes no projeto, o dinamismo e a continuidade da liderança, bem como o apoio e o reconhecimento organizacionais ao envolvimento dos empregados, revelam-se elementos-chave no processo. Algumas dessas variáveis apresentam diferenças por idade e gênero, as quais são exploradas no trabalho.

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References

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1

This research was conducted under the aegis of the Cefrio (

www.cefrio.qc.ca). It was conducted in partnership with colleagues from Université Laval, Université de Montréal and HEC Montréal (see Jacob et al., 2003, for information on the project’s participants). The organisational and HRM part of the research was conducted with Anne Bourhis, from HEC Montréal; we wish to thank Mireille Gaudreau, research assistant, for her excellent work on the statistics and Anne Bourhis for her cooperation in the project. Some of the data of the article are taken from Bourhis and Tremblay (2004).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  22 Oct 2014
• Date of issue
  Mar 2008