Communities of Practice: the Organizational Frontier

Abstract Today’s economy runs on knowledge, and most companies work assiduously to capitalize on that fact. They use cross-functional teams, customer-or product-focused business units, and work groups-to name just a few organizational forms-to capture and spread ideas and know-how. In many cases, these ways of organizing are very effective, and no one would argue for their demise. But a new organizational form is emerging that promises to complement existing structures and radically galvanize knowledge sharing, learning, and change. It’s called the community of practice. What are communities of practice? In brief, they are groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise engineers engaged in deep-water drilling, for example, consu1tants who specialize in strategic marketing, or frontline managers in charge of check processing at a large commercial bank.