Article Summary and Review by KMx6 for Class 10 – KM & Social Capital

Title: Tacit Knowledge and Social Capital: Supporting Sociability in Online Communities of Practice
Author: Jennifer Preece

SUMMARY
A community of practice (COP) focuses on a domain of knowledge and is a group of people who come together to learn from each other by sharing knowledge and experiences and solving problems. These actions themselves build the trust and empathy that form the social capital that makes COPs successful. COPs not only supports explicit knowledge transfers but also supports tacit knowledge transfers. Storytelling, anecdotes, impromptu comments and opinions occur naturally in many COPs and combined with the less formal setting promotes tacit knowledge transfers.

Explicit knowledge generates new explicit knowledge by a process of combination and tacit knowledge by a process of internalization. Tacit knowledge generates new tacit knowledge by a process of socialization and explicit knowledge by a process of externalization.

COPS are built on knowledge, empathy and trust where people come together to form a community where interactions is initially guided by policies but overtime replaced by behaviour norms. COPs members’ individual goals become a shared goal.

REVIEW
The article struggles to convey the key message and does not clearly explain some of the concepts. Despite these factors the article touches in an interesting and current topic that greatly influences social capital in today’s organization.

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