Design Principles for Convergence of Practices: An Action Research Study

Abstract

Communities of practice is a conception for describing social aspects of organizational units. Interactions across the boundaries of these are achieved by means of artifacts and practices. The convergence of information artifacts and the community it is intended for is a process of negotiation and adjustment of both. Shared information systems are boundary objects that offer great potential for effective boundary spanning. This paper documents an action research study for development, implementation and evaluation of design principles for enabling the convergence of practices. The results supported that implementation of the principles of transparency and of defragmentation enable the convergence of practices.