Going virtual : distributed communities of practice

Contributes to the understanding of how more subtle kinds of knowledge can be managed in a distributed international environment. It describes academic work in the field of Knowledge Management, with a specific focus on the management of knowledge which cannot be managed by the normal capture-codify-store approach and hopes to answer the question, ""what is the nature of the more 'subtle' kind of knowledge and how can it be managed in the distributed environment?

Preface	p. vii
Section I Background and Context
Chapter I. Introduction	p. 1
Knowledge in the Modern Organisation	p. 1
The Need to Manage the Knowledge Resource	p. 4
Chapter II. Knowledge Management	p. 7
Introduction	p. 7
Managing Knowledge from the Historical Perspective	p. 8
Globalisation--The Need to Manage Knowledge Distributed Over Space	p. 11
What is Missing?	p. 12
KM Views of Knowledge	p. 16
Viewing Knowledge Differently	p. 22
Chapter III. What is Soft Knowledge?	p. 25
Introduction	p. 25
Distributed Cognition	p. 26
What is the Distributed Cognition View of Knowledge?	p. 27
Boundary Objects	p. 30
Common Ground	p. 33
Communities of Practice	p. 35
What is a Community of Practice?	p. 35
Informing the Other Views Regarding Soft Knowledge	p. 56
Distributed Cognition	p. 56
Boundary Objects	p. 59
Common Ground	p. 59
Making Softer Knowledge Hard	p. 60
Chapter IV. Going Virtual	p. 66
The Issues in Going Virtual	p. 66
Virtual Working	p. 66
A Virtual CoP?	p. 72
Section II Living with the Community
Chapter V. Living with the CoP--Stage One	p. 77
Introduction to the Community	p. 77
A Week in the Life of a Distributed International CoP	p. 80
Welcome to the World of WWIT	p. 81
What Issues Did We Find in Stage One?	p. 95
The CoP	p. 95
Distribution/Globalisation	p. 103
Communication/Collaboration	p. 104
Culture	p. 108
Face-to-Face Interaction	p. 108
Importance of Shared Artefacts	p. 111
Moving Toward Stage Two	p. 114
Chapter VI. Stage Two--Visiting the American Core	p. 116
WWITMan Face-to-Face	p. 116
Arrival and Day 1	p. 118
Day 2: Friday	p. 120
The Weekend	p. 122
Monday	p. 122
Tuesday--The Announcement	p. 123
The Final Two Days	p. 123
Issues and Insights	p. 124
The CoP	p. 124
Distribution/Globalisation	p. 127
Communication/Collaboration	p. 128
Culture	p. 130
Relationships	p. 131
Participation	p. 135
The Artefact	p. 138
Chapter VII. A Look at Other CoPs	p. 141
Introduction	p. 141
The Environmental Sustainability Community	p. 142
Education Excellence Alongside Work (EE-AW)	p. 143
Issues and Insights	p. 144
The CoPs	p. 145
Distribution	p. 149
Communication	p. 151
Social Issues	p. 151
A Shared Artefact	p. 154
Summary	p. 157
Chapter VIII. Lessons Learned	p. 158
Our Journey So Far	p. 158
What Have We Learned?	p. 159
The "Sharing" of the Softer Side of Knowledge	p. 159
Supporting CoPs	p. 165
The Last Word	p. 170
References	p. 172
Endnotes	p. 184
Abbreviations	p. 188
Appendix Section	p. 190
Glossary	p. 234
About the Author	p. 264
Index	p. 265

Available:*

On Order

Summary

Summary

Table of Contents