Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are defined as a group of people sharing the same sentiments of what they do and learn how to grow it as well as enhance it (Wenger, 2011). Organisational networks are described as “the focal organisation’s pattern of relationships with other organisations in the same network” (Gulati, et al., 2008). In Chevron Texaco, the difference between communities of practice and organisational network is that community of practice connect people with work responsibilities meaning that the network consists of a leader and a voluntary membership, whereas organisational network provides proficiency in a specific field to the organisation usually internal consultants. In addition, Community of practice differs to organisational networks in that they provide solutions to common problems, knowledge sharing and develop new practices. The networks are classed because they satisfy the core team’s role in a network. Also, each network differs in accountability, sponsorship and funding as well as the member interaction (Communities of Practice Lessons from Leading Collaborative Enterprises, 2004).

The communities of practice have been developed in various ways that include; an assembled online toolkit guiding the group in design, grouping members with similar skills and responsibilities, critical skills, and competencies/expertise, built COPs around senior management support. Senior managers identified the need for such groups and provided leadership in running affairs of the groups (Wenger, 2011). In addition, the networks have formal charters and annual operating plans, business units, selected leaders, and core-team members. The network also comes with performance agreements, network funding, clear deliverables, and metrics. There are also regular conferences, workshops, and moderated collaborative websites (Wenger, 2011).

ChevronTexaco has developed its tacit and explicit knowledge through its community of practices. Explicit knowledge is searchable information that can be easily found. Users can collaborate on the value and use of the knowledge. On the other hand, tacit knowledge is knowledge found