Providing infrastructure for communities of practice using social computing

Abstract

Knowledge Management involves the management of an organization‟s knowledge assets and includes knowledge creation, sharing, storage and application. Information technology was thought to enable this, but the key challenge is to address all components of knowledge. This can be done by organizing communities of practice. Social computing is a collection of technologies normally sharing collaborative functions, community formation and user defined content. Individual social computing technologies have been suggested to address KM challenges, but indications demonstrate its effects and usage in organizations is limited and depends upon appropriate strategies. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate how organizations support communities of practice and how the portfolio of social computing technologies has been implemented with KM purpose. This would present both obstacles and opportunities. With an ethnographic approach, nine informants from multi-national organizations were interviewed. Competence management, which is part of KM, was found to be conducted in various forms throughout all organizations. This study also highlights the lack of comprehensive knowledge strategies within most organizations and indicates most social computing technologies have been implemented with a technical approach to KM. The findings also suggest a closer co-operation between the HR and IT departments is needed, as more technology is being introduced and used. Additionally, existing social computing technologies with some modifications were concluded to be a suitable infrastructure for communities of practice.