Communicating Knowing Through Communities of Practice: Exploring Internal Communicative Processes and Differences Among CoPs

Knowing is an enacted, communicated process that is difficult to observe, let alone manage, in organizations. Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box. This research extends CoP theory as a means to determine the presence of a CoP and distinguish between various CoPs, and as a practical means to evaluate the communicative processes of organizational knowledge. CoPs enact the communicative nature of knowing through the elements of mutual engagement, negotiation of a joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Specifically, two groups of volunteers are examined through a combination of participation, observation, and interviews in order to explore CoP theory as a dynamic system for examining and evaluating organizational knowledge.     

Striving to Be King of Mobile Mountains: Communication and Organizing Through Digital Fitness Technology

This study considers fitness-tracking applications as settings for communicative performances. Qualitative interviews and observations with 41 users of a cycling-focused fitness application revealed communicative themes of qualifying, social sharing, and withholding. Users also assessed other members through social-group comparing and upward comparing. This study develops theory by revealing how individuals use the technology to communicate about their physical acts, and how the context of use facilitates organizing processes. We argue that use of this fitness application extends our understanding of how communication can constitute a community of practice (CoP; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Primarily, the hybrid online/offline nature of Strava complicates the traditional understanding of communication and CoPs.     

Communicating Expertise: Knowledge Performances in Professional-Service Firms

Researchers in many disciplines treat expertise as an individually held attribute that allows for consistently superior performance in a specific domain. However, in knowledge-intensive environments, where work practices are ill-defined, invisible, and their outputs are ambiguous, attributions of expertise are not likely to emerge solely from objective criteria such as task performance or professional standing. This study offers an alternative communicative view of expertise arguing that attributions of expertise are developed from visible performances of knowledge in the practice of work. Using qualitative data collected from fieldwork at two public relations organizations, this work develops themes regarding the attribution of expertise in knowledge-intensive firms and then shows that experts are more likely than nonexperts to perform behaviors reflective of those themes. Findings suggest that attributions of expertise in knowledge-intensive organizations emerge through social interactions and are produced by and a product of communicative acts.     

知识型政府的建设要件分析

电子治理引致政府在管理理念、管理体制和决策方式方面深刻的变革。构建以信息和知识的吸收、开发、运用和创新为基础的知识型政府是实现电子治理的必然要求。知识型政府以信息、知识和人才为依托,以知识共享和创新为价值机制,以扁平化和网络化为组织形式,以知识性权力为政治特性。作为一种新型组织体系,知识型政府正日益为人们所接受。     

Expressions of Identifications: The Nature of Talk and Identity Tensions Among Organizational Members in a Struggling Organization

This study investigates how organizational members communicatively enact identification and more specifically how tensions in identification are expressed through members’ talk and behaviors. Using a case-study approach, we explored the experiences of members in an organization in turmoil. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires given at two times, and observations of organizational events were used to understand the identification tensions these individuals negotiated and ways that identification, disidentification, and ambivalent identification were enacted. The study provides empirical evidence of changing identifications and articulates their communicative manifestations. The findings not only support the notion that identification is a complex and dynamic process but also contribute to the identification literature by illustrating specific ways that various forms of identification tensions are enacted and communicated in response to organizational change.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Protean places: teams across time and space

Proteanism is about the simultaneous disruption of place and the seeking of a new sense of place. These metaphorical concepts of the fluid yet grounded, the shape shifting and consolidation, and the evolving creation of a sense of place are applied to a discussion of changing organizational forms and communicative processes. These new formings within ever-changing forms are referred to as Protean Places. The protean concepts of sequentiality, simultaneity, and sociality are examined within the context of what we know about changing organizational forms, major communicative processes, and the history of a virtual customer service team organized across time and space. Finally, the metaphor of Protean Places and the case study are utilized to provide direction for future research, theory building, and practical application in organizational communication.     

Role Development in the Managed Care Era: A Case of Hospital-Based Nursing

Managed care poses numerous opportunities and challenges for today's health care organizations and their employees. This article investigates the ways that hospital nurses develop and make sense of their professional roles and organizational environments in a changing and often uncertain managed care setting. The case study approach used in this research combined qualitative methodologies to gain a rich, detailed, and contextual understanding of nurses' work roles and organizational experiences. After an analysis of interviews with 24 nurses and observations of nurses' communicative activities on one inpatient unit, the complexity of sensemaking and role development in a managed care environment is considered. Conclusions are then drawn regarding the theoretical and pragmatic implications of nurses' communicative processes, as they attempted to develop and understand their roles in a changing organizational context.     

知识管理的层次与层次结构系统

知识管理理论是当今信息—知识时代关于各类社会组织在迅速发展和非连续性变化的社会环境中如何适应环境,赢得竞争优势的一种解决方案。一切社会群体、组织和个人只有通过持续不断地进行知识生成和创新,实现自我超越,才能赢得生存与发展的机会。知识管理就是为此而进行的通过对相关信息和知识资源充分开发利用而实现的一个知识创新过程和有效管理过程。它分为个体知识管理、组织知识管理和社会知识管理3个层次,并在这3个层次相互作用的基础上,构建了知识管理的三层次结构系统。参考文献6。     

合作式参考咨询服务组织动态能力形成过程研究

环境不确定因素给CDRS造成了巨大压力。论文从动态能力的概念和CDRS组织动态能力入手,构建了CDRS组织动态能力形成过程研究框架,详细地剖析该研究框架中诸要素之间的作用关系,即知识吸收、知识整合、知识创新与知识应用四个阶段,依次循环,呈现螺旋上升发展趋势,并对CDRS组织创新产生积极的影响作用,将为CDRS知识管理活动的实施与开展提供有益的理论建议和实践指导。该研究框架也将用来解释CDRS获得持续竞争优势途径的最优理论之一。最后,给出一个案例。     

知识管理的理论基础

从认识论、方法论角度论述知识管理的哲学基础,从经济增长理论与知识资本理论角度论述知识管理的经济学基础,从科学管理、组织行为理论、战略管理、人力资源管理与信息资源管理角度论述知识管理的管理学基础。由此得出结论：知识管理是吸纳并融合哲学、经济学、管理学理论而发展壮大的一门新兴学科。参考文献36。     

知识链组织之间的知识共享

重视知识共享是组织发展在现代竞争环境中的一种必然选择,也是强化组织核心竞争力的重要方式。文 章从知识链的角度出发,对比组织内部与组织之间的知识共享特点,通过知识链组织之间知识共享的过程来分析知识 共享的影响因素,进而从知识主体、组织文化、信任机制方面提出了知识共享的策略。通过知识共享,知识从个别组 织逐渐扩散到其他组织进而到整个知识链,并在这个过程中不断完善,使得属于个别组织的专有知识上升为具有完整 的共性、为整个知识链所适用的知识。     

组织知识创新能力开发的内在心智基础及演化过程分析

组织知识创新能力是指组织作为一个整体通过对各类与组织发展相关的新知识的发现与发明,从而创造产生出新的组织知识的能力。在组织知识创新能力开发过程中,组织共享心智模型既为组织中各种知识的复杂协作与一体化提供着潜在的认知背景,又为组织知识载体———知识员工的创造力的激发提供着内在的精神意义支持。本文正是基于这一假设出发,按照组织知识创新流程的不同阶段,对组织共享心智模型在组织知识创新能力开发过程中的作用进行了系统的分析,最后给出一个拓扑算子模型进行了数理实证。     

推动网络空间中的知识传播——评《内容开放式平台中的知识传播研究》

内容开放式平台是网络环境下知识生成与传播的重要实现机制。《内容开放式平台中的知识传播研究》一书以知识传播的动力和动力机制问题为核心内容,并系统阐述了公共知识和内容开放式平台两个基础问题。该书内容丰富、理论多元、视角独特、方法规范且新颖,对于认识和推动网络空间中的知识传播活动具有一定价值。     

基于“知识发酵”视角的数字图书馆知识管理分析

"知识发酵"理论是知识管理领域的新生物,它对知识活动的转换进行了系统、合理的阐释。数字图书馆知识管理的核心是寻求人与知识的有机结合,促进组织创新,如果将"知识发酵"理论应用于数字图书馆知识管理,必将对优化知识服务具有创新意义。     

Organizational storytelling as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer: Case study from a Sri Lankan university

Sri Lanka has a long history and culture of storytelling but the use of stories for transferring tacit knowledge is absent. This paper is the first to examine the application of orgnisational stories as a method of tacit-knowledge transfer management tool in the library domain.

The study had two objectives; 1) To explore the potential of storytelling to transfer tacit knowledge from the Librarian to the junior executives. 2) To examine whether captured stories serve the pursuit of knowledge by the junior executives. Two research questions were formulated to achieve these objectives. The first research question (RQ1) How can the tacit knowledge of a retiring senior executive be captured through stories? was framed and addressed to achieve objective one and the second research question (RQ2) Can the captured “stories of work” benefit knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge? was framed and addressed to achieve objective two. The study was based on primary data collected from the Librarian and executive staff of the Library by means of two Interview Schedules and the entire study was underpinned by an extensive review of research literature related to organizational storytelling. Qualitative as well as quantitative methods were used to analysis and interpretation data.

The findings of the study proved in response to RQ1 that organizational stories can be captured using a six-step process and a story capturing model which could be used by the other researcher emerged from the research. Nevertheless, findings also established that the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge that could be captured through stories would depend on the degree of confidentiality of the contents of the stories. Therefore all stories could not be recorded as they are told. Responding to RQ2 the findings proved that, captured “stories of work” can be used for the benefit of knowledge workers in their pursuit of tacit knowledge.

Based on these findings it was recommended that, the library should take initiatives to exploit the already prevailing habit of organizational storytelling in the library as a method of transferring tacit knowledge in a deliberated manner and for this several activities were recommended.

The findings were based only on a single case, in a single organization carried out during a six-month period, within the boundaries of a specific organizational and social culture. Therefore additional case studies would be necessary to test the validity and reliability of the story capturing model.

This research is the first of its kind carried out in the library domain of Sri Lanka. Therefore it provides significant insights on which future researchers can build their studies.     

论适应知识管理的图书馆组织文化建设

本文在分析图书馆组织文化内涵和功能的基础上,探讨了组织文化建设对于图书馆知识管理实施的重要性,分析了知识管理条件下图书馆组织文化的新特征及图书馆组织文化建设现状,提出了构建适应知识管理的图书馆组织文化的途径与策略。     

组织知识变革管理

组织的环境是动态变化的,因此,组织的知识资产需要不断更新,组织知识管理的战略要不断变化。提出支撑知识变革管理的框架和在组织变革中可操作的流程。图1。参考文献13。     

The Flexible Organization: How Contemporary Employees Construct the Work/Life Border

The subject of work/life balance and boundaries has received much scholarly attention in the last 15 years. How employees understand these concepts and organizational response to this construction can and does have real consequences for an employee's work/life balance. Consistent with work/life border theory, initial qualitative data indicated that employees identify flexibility and permeability as key concepts in work/life balance. We sought to understand how contemporary employees define these terms. Interview data suggested that contemporary employees desire four distinct but interdependent types of flexibility: time, space, evaluation, and compensation. The emphasis on flexibility suggested a trend, at least among this sample, toward integrating the domains of work and life consistent with work/life boundary theory and raised questions about the changing conception of work in contemporary organizations. Conclusions and implications are discussed. Results of this study suggest that future research should seek to uncover what communicative strategies organizations and employees use to co-create and negotiate this work/life border.     

Modeling the Structure of Collective Action1 This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0352517. The authors are equal contributors to this article.

We propose an improved theoretical approach to the rich variety of collective action now present in public life. Toward this end, we advance a conception of collective action as communicative in nature, and offer a two-dimensional model of collective action space, comprising dimensions for (a) the mode of interpersonal interaction and (b) the mode of engagement that shapes interaction. We illustrate the perspective by describing the location of a variety of contemporary collective action groups within it and by an explication of the space that reveals its utility for making sense of modern collective action efforts. Specifically, we apply the collective action space to illustrate the changing presence of collective action groups over time, deviations in collective action groups through changes in size, shape, and location, and variations in the experiences and motivations of people engaged in collective action efforts. Finally, we show how our communicative approach to collective action can integrate the insights of several theoretical traditions, including collective action theory, social capital theory, and aspects of organization theory.