Discussion
Informal Learning and Communities of Practice
Despite many organizations’ tendency to focus on formalized training, informal learning should not be overlooked for it represents a significant opportunity to create new knowledge. With the knowledge creation and sharing activities that can occur through informal learning channels, this results in significant untapped potential for taking knowledge from an individual level to a work group and even organizational level. By applying the discipline of knowledge management to informal learning, new learnings can be captured, shared, and applied. Thus through Nonaka and Takeuchi’s concept of socialization, informal learning can become a viable gateway to accessing tacit knowledge—and converting it into something that can benefit entire work groups and organizations.
At the same time, CoPs have long been considered an effective application method for sharing and creating individual and organizational knowledge. Recently, researchers are seeing the synergies between informal learning and CoPs. Marsick (2006) argues that “the emerging field of knowledge creation and management provides a framework for understanding how informal learning might be enhanced without divorcing the phenomenon of learning from the work itself” (p. 57)—and CoPs can be an effective tool for making that happen. Marsick et al. (2006) further argue that “three areas that seem particularly important for understanding informal and incidental learning in today’s workplace are tacit/implicit knowing, whole person learning, and communities of practice” (p. 796). De Laat (2006) also links informal learning, knowledge conversion, and CoPs as follows:
Communities not only provide an open learning space where they develop their knowledge domain and practice. It is also a place where community knowledge is kept alive and learning is situated in the activities, context, and culture of the community. (p. 8)
Maki-Komsi, Poyry, & Ropo (2005) argue that participation in CoPs provides the “fabric of learning” for dispersed communities of workers (p. 38). Further, they caution that in order to create knowledge it is critical for communities to “collaboratively pose questions, and intentionally seek for alternative solutions in order to create new knowledge and expand the community’s capabilities” (Maki-Komsi et al., 2005, p. 38).
Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management
In the past decade, more and more researchers and practitioners have begun to acknowledge the potential synergies and interrelationships between knowledge and learning. This is particularly evident in the convergence of the concepts of the learning organization (LO) and knowledge management (KM). Senge (1990/2006) first introduced the concept of the learning organization as a set of core learning capabilities that enable an organization to innovate (i.e., to create new knowledge) and create sustainable advantage. In 1999, Senge shared that he saw KM addressing “the same critical issues [that the Society of Organizational Learning] members have been struggling with—the sustainable creation, transfer, and dissipation of organizational knowledge” (Karlenzig as cited in McElroy, 2003). In studying the areas of organizational forgetting, organizational memory, and how knowledge transfer is a key to creating organizational learning, Argote (1999/2005) posits that “patterns of knowledge creation, retention, and transfer contribute to differences in the rates at which organizations learn” (p. 203). Loermans (2002) defines the relationship between KM and LO by stating that the LO focuses on the learning process and generating new knowledge while KM “takes the output from the LO, manages it and ensures that an appropriate environment to perpetuate the generation and management of knowledge capital is being properly maintained” (p. 292). Loermans (2002) also cites the research of Brown and Woodland, Wikstrom and Norman, and Allee, observing that organizational learning claims “that learning is the process of acquiring knowledge” while KM claims “that each aspect of knowledge has a corresponding learning activity that supports it” (p. 290). McElroy (2003) argues that “second-generation KM [is] a management discipline that focuses on enhancing organizational learning…[and that] KM is an implementation strategy for organizational learning” (p. 19). Mason (2005) also argues that “learning and knowledge have a symbiotic relationship; they depend upon each other” (p. 321).
Implications for Practitioners
So what are the implications of this convergence of the theoretical concepts of informal learning, CoPs, organization learning, and knowledge management for practitioners? Loermans (2002) recommends that “a corporate architecture [be created] to facilitate learning at the organization level and to create knowledge sharing and dissemination mechanisms across the organization” (p. 290). Maki-Komsi et al. (2005) recommend the use of CoPs for geographically dispersed workforces:
Communities of practice, even virtual ones, support the individual professionals in their work by providing not only information and knowledge but also support and a feeling of community with remote peers. Informal learning and information exchange occurs within these communities, and they form a structure supporting everyday work. (p. 52)
Mason (2005) recommends considering the use of e-learning as important “knowledge scaffolding” and that “much of the infrastructure development that supports e-learning [is] convergent with systems developed to support knowledge management” (p. 321) —for example, enterprise knowledge portals and Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS). Furthermore, while “content may have been king at the peak of the dot-com boom, [we now know] that context will always shape its usage” (Mason, 2005, p. 322)—and learning is where context and meaning are formed. In addition, any knowledge and learning initiative must be “designed with...[an] understanding of [how to] sustain online culture...[and an] appreciation that “e” [in e-learning] also stands for engagement” (Mason, 2005, p. 322). Thus people, cultural, and infrastructure considerations must always come first for the success of any knowledge and learning initiative. Additionally, practitioners should consider this final piece of advice from Loermans (2002):
If the discipline of KM operates in such a way as to improve an organization’s learning capability, it therefore improves the capacity for the organization to generate new knowledge and thus systematically expand the knowledge base of the organization. For this cycle to operate effectively, organizational learning and knowledge generation need to be fully integrated into every mission critical business process that the organization is involved in. This is more a cultural than a technological challenge. (p. 292) [Therefore], organizations should focus on the total inter-organization learning process (i.e., the creation of new corporate knowledge from the total environment within which the organization operates) and the nurturing of the cultural environment that supports it and ensures its continuing development. (p. 293)
References:
http://www.blog.klpnow.com/2008/03/references_knowledge_creation.html
- Robin
Copyright Robin Donnan 2008. All Rights Reserved.
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