Communities of Practice

Going Virtual: Distributed Communities of Practice contributes to the understanding of how more subtle kinds of knowledge can be managed in a distributed international environment. It describes academic work in the field of Knowledge Management, with a specific focus on the management of knowledge which cannot be managed by the normal capture-codify-store approach and hopes to answer the question, "what is the nature of the more subtle' kind of knowledge and how can it be managed in the distributed environment?"

The continued prevalence of major incidents (most recently the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill) and preponderance of workplace fatalities and injuries as well as Process Safety Management (PSM) Incidents, globally, begs the question: why do incidents continue to occur in today’s technologically advanced era? More importantly, with 80-85 percent of incidents being repeated, the more obvious questions are:

Knowledge Networks: Innovations Through Communities of Practice draws on the experience of people who have worked with CoPs in the real world and to present their combined wisdom in a form that is accessible to a wide audience. CoPs are examined from a practical, rather than a purely academic point of view. The book also examines the benefits that CoPs can bring to an organization, provides a number of case studies, lessons learned and sets of guidelines. It also looks at virtual CoPs and to the future by asking 'what next?' This book is a resource for all people who work with CoPs - both in academia and in the real world.