Communities of Practice

The book offers two themes: one is about Communities of Practice (CoPs) and learning, the other is about social informatics approaches. The book examines how people share and construct their knowledge by using case studies of public defender's offices.

1.1 Introduction Each year corporations spend millions of dollars training and educating their - ployees. On average, these corporations spend approximately one thousand dollars 1 per employee each year. As businesses struggle to stay on the cutting-edge and to keep their employees educated and up-to-speed with professional trends as well as ever-changing information needs, it is easy to see why corporations are investing more time and money than ever in their efforts to support their employees' prof- sional development. During the Industrial Age, companies strove to control natural resources. The more resources they controlled, the greater their competitive edge in the mark- place. Senge (1993) refers to this kind of organization as resource-based. In the Information Age, companies must create, disseminate, and effectively use kno- edge within their organization in order to maintain their market share. Senge - scribes this kind of organization as knowledge-based. Given that knowledge-based organizations willcontinuetobeadrivingforcebehindtheeconomy, itisimperative that corporations support the knowledge and information needs of their workers.

New methods of informal learning with Co. Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Contenu
Theoretical Foundation.- Ethnographic Accounts of a Community of Practice in Square County.- Characteristics of a Community of Practice in Square County.- Communities of Practice and Information Technologies in the Circle County Public Defender's Office.- Online Communities of Practice: Beyond Organizational Boundaries.- Toward an Understanding of Communities of Practice.