Communities of Practice and Social Capital - Coursework Example

Compare and Contrast: “Communities of Practice” and “Social Capital” Student’s name Institution’s Affiliation Course +Code Professor’s name Date Compare and Contrast: “Communities of Practice” and “Social Capital” Introduction Knowledge management in an organization is an indispensable component that is meant to transform information into valuable and useable facts. It consists of the entire organizational infrastructure; including necessary incentive schemes, culture, critical people and teams in its sub-processes (Probst &Borzillo 2008). Two critical terms associated with an organization’s knowledge management include communities of practice and social capital. It is in this direction that this essay seeks to compare and contrast these terms based on the assumptions made in developing them. The paper also discusses challenges that organizations encounter when establishing communities of practice. Communities of practice and social capital Organizations, especially in their human resource management, need to manage and use knowledge in the most effective manner. Knowledge, either tacit or explicit, must be developed and nurtured through interactions between and among employees, the management and other facets of society. In their article, Wenger and Snyder (2000), posited that the economy runs on knowledge, and most business entities would work assiduously to capitalize on that knowledge. However, a paradigm in knowledge acquisition and sharing to compliment organizational learning structure has emerged (Wenger & Snyder 2000). Thus, organizations require “communities of practice” to galvanize how they share knowledge, learn, and change for better outcomes from their human resource capital. Communities of practice is a term derived from the need for individuals in an organization to learn through social contexts that emerge and evolve when people with common goals interact and strive to achieve these goals (Probst & Borzillo 2008). According to Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave, communities of practice denotes to the groups (communities) of practitioners where newcomers can enter and try to learn the socio-cultural practices of the community. Therefore, the need for legitimate peripheral participation in learning by newcomers is associated with knowledge management as it is viewed as a way of developing social capital, nurturing new knowledge, stimulating and encouraging innovation, and sharing tacit knowledge within an organization (De Waal & Khumisi 2016). Imperatively, social capital denotes to the informal resources in a community of practice that individuals within the community draw upon to get value for themselves and for the good of the group. For instance, through social capital resources, individuals reduce the time taken to locate an expert within an organization, thus minimizing costs linked to validating such expertise. Secondly, social capital reduces time and effort required in establishing an agreement between two people in an organization (Abou Zeid 2007). These social benefits help organizations to manage its knowledge resources in a better way. Therefore, social capital can be tapped and encouraged when required by individuals to execute their duties and responsibilities in a more effective and efficient manner. Differences between Communities of Practice and Social Capital The first difference is that communities of practice consist of individuals who form interpersonal relationships in social contexts within an organization with the aim of learning and sharing knowledge (Abou Zeid 2007). These individuals share work roles and a common situation. For instance, communities of practice are not limited by typical geographic, functional or business unit limitations or boundaries. They are devised based on common tasks, work interests and contexts. Conversely, social capital denotes the informal resources that these individuals would use to access learning or to learn. Therefore, social capital bases its fundamentals on interpersonal dynamics among individuals in a network, and involves issues concerning trust, shared values and norms, expectations and obligations (Preece 2004). Imperatively, one would say that communities of practice derived their learning from social capital resources. Secondly, communities of practice are found within an organization with the purpose of helping it to nurture knowledge and social capital while social capital occurs within an organization’s communities of practice. Social capital resources, therefore, vary from one organization to another since they are founded based on an organizational culture. Imperatively, each community of practice has its way of developing the three aspects or dimensions of social capital (Preece 2004). For instance, the structural dimension of social capital consists of informal networks while its relational dimension encourages the appreciation of interpersonal dynamics so that people within the community can share norms and values, and nurture trust. Therefore, social capital occurs within a community of practice before it moves to the entire organization while communities of practice occur in the entire organization as the basis of its knowledge. Thirdly, social capital and communities of practice differ based on their scope. One would argue that communities of practice are considered a fundamental part of enhancing organizational knowledge for people and ensuring that these entities achieve their goals and objectives for their human resource functions (Wenger & Snyder 2000). However, social capital is just a part of the process of enhancing knowledge, and is not the only path that an organization can use to encourage knowledge. Therefore, the scope of social capital is reduced in comparison to communities of practice. Fourthly, communities of practice is a more practical way of helping individuals in an organization perform their jobs and duties, and not how the work ought to be performed. Conversely, social capital is more idealistic since it encourages individuals to embrace these norms before they can practically demonstrate them. It suffices to point that based on the assumptions in developing these terms, social capital is supposed to be developed after communities of practice have been created (Tarmizi, de Vreede & Zigurs 2007). Social capital and its resources can only function within a community of practice. Further, communities of practice are not confined to certain boundaries but social capital resources remain unique to a particular community of practice. Similarities between Communities of Practice and Social Capital Experts posit that communities of practice and social capital share a lot of similarities. One of the similarities is that social capital is built by communities of practice. The implication is that without communities of practice, it is difficult to have social capital resources. However, social capital can only occur within a community of practice (Wenger & Snyder 2000). On this basis, the two are similar since they share same informal nature. The second similarity emanates from the fact that the two share similar structural, relational, and cognitive aspects. For instance, communities of practice provide individuals with the opportunity to develop a network focused on work interests, just like social capital that is based on shared common interests, including work interests (De Waal & Khumisi 2016). Additionally, communities of practice are used as a reference point, and enables individuals to assess the knowledge of others, just like social capital that allows individuals to share their norms, values, and reciprocate them to others through their informal interactions. Thirdly, the benefits derived from these two knowledge management terms are similar. Both communities of practice and social capital enable individuals to enhance their organizational knowledge, cooperate and collaborate in a better way, and increase positive interactions within the organization’s community. Further, they enable individuals to increase their positive social behavior, improve team success in business activities, and learning. Finally, they help in reducing financial risks and bridging the cultural gaps because they allow the sharing of knowledge and identity. Also, the association between social capital and communities or practice implies that social capital is realized through communities of practice. Therefore, incentives like money, technology, and time are regarded as the capital resources that will enable the communities of practice to learn and enhance organizational knowledge. More precisely, social capital is nurtured and enhanced through communities of practice (Preece 2004). The strong relationship between these two terms implies that they are interlinked and one cannot be achieved without the other. For instance, communities of practice learn through the informal engagements and that learning occurs in the presence of necessary social capital resources like time and money among others. Conversely, social capital resources would not have an impact if they are not directly used by communities of practice to enhance learning and knowledge. Imperatively, the similarities between these terms are more compared to the differences that they share. Organizations’ knowledge and learning depends on how these communities use the available social capital resources to improve their productivity and have people who are bound by these relationships but fundamental to their successes. Challenges Faced By Organizations in Establishing Communities of Practice According to Halbana Tarmizi and colleagues, organizations can achieve potential advantage through communities of practice. However, they are categorical that establishing and maintaining these communities is a challenging duty. They posit that facilitation is required among other things to help communities of practice overcome the problems (Tarmizi, de Vreede & Zigurs 2007). It suffices to note that organizations face challenges in establishing these communities, consequently, this part of the paper is to examine some of these difficulties. One of the challenges faced by these organizations is facilitation. Facilitators are leaders that are in charge of a community. Organizations need to understand the challenges that these leaders go through to enable them successfully establish and maintain communities of practice. For instance, facilitation of the COPs is hindered by poor participation. Facilitators postulate that most members of their teams do not actively participate in these informal interactions because of different reasons (Tarmizi et al 2007). It is incumbent of these organizations to nurture good facilitators by training them on what is expected in order to establish these communities and cope with the participation problem, especially motivating members to be active members. Again, organizations face challenges in establishing these communities because of scarce resources. When these organizations fail to avail social capital resources like time, funds, and necessary technology, for instance, in virtual communities, the success of communities of practice as knowledge and learning centers is jeopardized. Organizations have constrained resources but need to capitalize on the scarce resources to build these groups to enhance their knowledge development. Another challenge faced by organizations in establishing communities of practice is the lack of a core group (Probst & Borzillo 2008). COPs fail in companies because of lack of critical members, who can actively participate in the meetings, share fresh ideas, and provide support to others on how to solve problems. Other challenges they face include low level of one-on-one interactions among members, intangible practices, and lack of identification with communities of practice within an organization. Therefore, organizations need to overcome these challenges and encourage COPs to flourish, and become an integral part of their knowledge management. Conclusion Communities of practice and social capital are fundamental aspects for organizations in establishing and managing organizational and individual knowledge within their scope. Communities of practice have become a convenient way of different organizations and individuals accumulating knowledge, especially cultural knowledge, since they encourage informal networks and interactions that develop one’s perspective. It suffices to note that firms need to develop COPs and nurture social capital to accrue the benefits that they provide, and understand their association. References Abou Zeid, E.S., 2007. “A Theory-Based Approach to the Relationship between Social Capital and Communities of Practice.” The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, vol.5, no.3, pp 257-264. De Waal, M & Khumisi, O., 2016. ‘Supporting communities of practice: A reflection on the benefits and challenges facing communities of practice for research and engagement in nursing’, Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 58–73. doi: 10.5130/ijcre.v9i1.4717 Hildreth, P. & Chris K., 2004. Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice. London / Hershey: Idea Group Inc Preece, J., 2004. Etiquette, Empathy and Trust in Communities of Practice: Stepping-Stones to Social Capital. Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 10, no. 3 (2004), 294-302 Probst, G, and Borzillo, S., 2008. Why Communities of practice succeed and why they fail. European management Journal, vol.26, pp.335-347. Tarmizi, H., de Vreede, G, and Zigurs, I., 2007. Leadership Challenges in Communities of Practice: Supporting Facilitators Via Design and Technology. International Journal of e-Collaboration Wenger, E.C., and Snyder, W.M., 2000. Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, Harvard Business Review. Accessed on March 13, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2000/01/communities-of-practice-the-organizational-frontier Read More