THE CONCEPTUALISATION AND ANALYSIS OF A
VALUE NETWORK
How to Create Value with Inter Organizational Communities of Practice?
Cláudia Fernandes, Luís Rocha
Technological Center for the Metal Working Industry – CATIM, Rua dos Plátanos, 197, 4100-414 Porto, Portugal
Keywords: Communities of Practice, Value Networks, Collaborative Learning, Knowledge Management, Value
Creation, Innovation.
Abstract: This paper will discuss how an ongoing experience on collaborative learning in the industry field that aligns
with the principles of a community of practice and how technology is used to support the learning and
development processes. It is a conceptual analysis that is grounded on theoretical frames and that will
provide the audience with opportunities to further reflect on learning communities. The authors present the
main results and experiences from the use of knowledge networks. They start by comparing the community
with pre-existing models, e.g. “Communities of Practice (CoP)” (Wenger & Snyder, 2000) and “Knowledge
networks” (Büchel & Raub, 2002). The work is based on one on-going experience in the industry/services
field, directly with Portuguese Technical Commissions (PTC), and it has several outputs such as new norms
and directives elaboration, norm projects voting, working papers, norms translation (quality system), etc.
There are over 204 persons involved in the 8 PTC managed by Technological Centre for the Metal Working
Industry (CATIM) from several different organizations, technological centres, institutes, and universities.
The final result is the value creation between the participants that sometimes enables practice rethinking and
innovative processes. With the discussion of the experience we aim to contribute to further reflection and
analysis of this emerging reality.
1 INTRODUCTION
Communities, networks, teams… are some of the
names given to groups of individuals working
together. CoPs, most likely, were the typical way to
learn before the “formal teaching system”. As we
look back in history we can find several examples,
and ask ourselves if the rupestral pictures weren’t
less an “art form” and more one visual
representation of tacit knowledge required for
hunting (Silva, 2005). We can firmly say that CoPs
always existed along with ways for representing
knowledge and learning practices, and have been of
great importance in the social learning process (e.g.
the learning of a new profession and/or task). These
methods for learning can be viewed along with
Schon’ “reflective practice” (Schon, 1982) where
learning is preformed and accompanied by one
master/specialist/monitor in one collaborative
setting, and it’s done in phases.
The technology’ social importance has been
seriously acknowledged by practitioners “in most
fields they will consist on geographically separated
members, sometimes grouped in small clusters and
sometimes working individually. They will be
communities not of common location, but of
common interest…” (Lickider & Taylor, quoted by
Andrade, 2005, p. 11) or even expertise (Dvorak,
2005).
CoP, in our days, is almost like a buzzword.
Everyone is asking, “How can I create a CoP?”
“How can I implement a CoP?”. In Portugal, and all
over the world the teaching and training systems
hardly have the capability to respond to
organizational demands. Organizations want their
co-workers to compete in innovative settings so they
can survive shifting in one global economy. Human
capital and organizational knowledge are the key
words to organizational performance and survivor.
The concept of CoP has been described as
“groups of people informally bounded together by
shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise”
(Wenger & Snyder, 2000, p. 139). Some principles
are suggested to generate dynamics in CoP: trust,
collaboration, participation, communication, life
88
Fernandes C. and Rocha L. (2006).
THE CONCEPTUALISATION AND ANALYSIS OF A VALUE NETWORK - How to Create Value with Inter Organizational Communities of Practice?.
In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and
e-Government / e-Learning, pages 88-92
DOI: 10.5220/0001248900880092
Copyright
c
SciTePress
span and leadership. The challenge is in balancing
the belongingness and conflicts in emerging or
ongoing CoP.
According to some authors this definition
neglects the organizational support that networks
can benefit from the value that they can contribute to
the organization and not only the individuals
(Büchel & Raub, 2002).
Based on a study of 16 known organizations,
Büchel and Raub (2002, p. 589) proposed
knowledge networks of four types according to:
networks that primarily focus on individual benefits
vs those that focus on organizational benefits; and
networks that are self managed vs those that are
supported by managers. The proposed networks are:
1. Hobby Networks are based on individual
interests (e.g. travelling, tennis, etc) and usually
do not receive managerial support. Conform to
the traditional concept of CoP of Wenger and
Snyder.
2. Professional Networks extend beyond hobbies
by contributing to the building of individual
skills base. Like hobby, also professional
networks are according the traditional concept
of CoP of Wenger and Snyder. Knowledge
transfer in these networks is spontaneous and
ongoing, a natural by-product of work and
mutual support.
3. Best-practices Networks are essentially
institutional forms of knowledge sharing in
organizations, in a multi-directional way, each
member and each unit can, in principle, learn
from all the others.
4. Business Opportunities Networks are
business-driven, entrepreneurial networks,
which are potentially the most innovative and
attractive from a growth and development
perspective.
As we have exposed above the importance of
CoP and Knowledge Networks is recognized
worldwide, but there are several questions (e.g. Chae
et al, 2005) around the best way to build them.
According to Büchel and Raub (2002) there are four
stages for building knowledge networks:
1. Focusing the knowledge network. This is a
new concept (“Knowledge network”) that can
be viewed with some suspicion, so it has to be
aligned with the organizational strategic
priorities, and the bondages are around these
same priorities. There is a direct link between
the focus of a network and its ability to obtain
management support. In this stage links are
created to support the network.
2. Creating the knowledge network context. In
most cases networks form around a parallel
structure that exists alongside the more
traditional boundaries of functional
departments, product groups, business units, etc.
It’s very important to choose appropriate
communication mechanisms and fostering trust.
3. Routinizing network activities. Sometimes
there are loosen or non-links between the
members of a network, a certain amount of
routinization is an important step though
effective exchange and continued engagement
of the members. In these phase is established
the network “heartbeat” and it’s also very
important to define roles for each one of the
members. As in other groups, networks require
a set of differentiated roles to be developed over
time. Some examples are: network coordinator,
network supporter, network editor and network
sponsor.
4. Leveraging network results. Results are very
important to sustain a network, along with
knowledge creation and transfer. There is a need
to demonstrate to the community outcomes.
2 CATIM’ KNOWLEDGE
NETWORKS
This technological center (CATIM) is a
Normalization Sector-based Organism (NSO) since
1987 and adopted a different methodology since
2004. The mission of a technological center is to
support the industry development.
This shift in the used methodology was
accelerated by a process’ evaluation and by an
investment in a Learning Management System
(LMS) and all the technological and human structure
underneath.
First of all, we will define some concepts, and
underline our study scope. A Technical Commission
(TC) is a group of people with common interests that
work on them according to some expected outputs,
it’s volunteer and non remunerated work. A NSO is
an organism that coordinates the work of a TC, it’s
volunteer and non remunerated work also. The
Portuguese Quality Institute (PQI) is the mediating
organism between the Portuguese Technical
Commissions (PTC) and other countries TC, and
also between PTC and NSO. CATIM is a Portuguese
NSO and it’s a member of some PTC. In this paper
we will explore the experience of one techonological
center - CATIM as a NSO with coordination
functions.
This technological center manages 8 TC, there
are 13 CATIM’ technicians actively evolved in the
network (some with participation in several TC) plus
4 with support activities. There are over 210
THE CONCEPTUALISATION AND ANALYSIS OF A VALUE NETWORK - How to Create Value with Inter
Organizational Communities of Practice?
89
elements in the several TC (mean of 26 elements for
TC). It were created as many networks as active TC.
There are, on average, 36 presential meetings/year
(data since 1987), this number was severely
decreased in 2004 for 21 presential meetings/year.
From 1987 until 2003 the information
dissemination was done through letter, fax and e-
mail, the contacts where mostly done via telephone,
and the voting and idea exchange via fax. That was
very laborious and implicated a lot of time, namely
in the information photocopying (e.g. some
documents with several pages) its expedition to all
the participants in the different TC, and also, the
gathering and management of all the send/received
documentation from PIQ and the TC’ members. In
these settings there are important economical and
organizational issues to take in account (time,
human resources, paper, toner, stamps, phones, etc.).
Due to this setting evaluation the process started to
be mediated by one LMS available in the Internet
since the beginning of the year 2004. This LMS is
accessible by everyone that is recognized as a TC’
member or as a TC’ management team member
(authentication mechanism). The information is
gathered on a specific “room” (specific TC room) in
the LMS. Presently, all the tasks and information
dissemination are done on-line, eventually there are
some information exchange through telephone. The
LMS allows document voting and sharing, it has
synchronous and asynchronous communication
mechanisms, such as chat rooms and discussion
forums, and in addition it has also a leisure place
where games and thematic discussion rooms are
available.
The voting process was simplified because of its
mediation by the technology, for example, statistics
and tasks to be done are automatically generated and
sent to all the TC’ members, the work can be done
from anywhere with access to the Internet. The LMS
allows the process to be confidential and
anonymous. This fact is of great importance due to
the increasing number of members (in the present
over 210) from different locations and of increase of
TC managed by CATIM.
With figure 1 we try to illustrate the voting
processes over time, we see a rise of the activity
from 1996 to 1998 due to support of European
structural funds and also because of the natural work
cycles as we can see in the frequency curve. In 2004
there was a visible increase in the voting process,
this was owed to the internal re-organization of the
process, it’s mediation through the LMS and also, to
the work cycles.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2004
Year
Normative documents voting
Frequency
Cumulative frequency
Figure 1: Document voting.
In figure 2 we have the number of finalized
documents, as direct outputs from the different PTC
and the volunteer work of over 210 persons from
different organizations. These documents were sent
to PQI and are now used by different organizations
(industrial and services), technological centres,
universities, and associations, among others, that
want to certificate their products and/or services.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2004
Year
Number of finalized document
s
Frequency
Cumulative frequency
Figure 2: Finalized documents.
The LMS has some available mechanisms not
yet used in these communities, such as chats rooms.
This is due to the nature of the work carried out,
although the exchanging documents’ and the voting’
areas are widely used.
2.1 CATIM’ TC Analysis
According to the Büchel and Raub model the TC
managed by this technological center, aligns in the
“business opportunity” network conceptualization,
which goes a little bit further than the traditional
Wenger and Snyder’ definition of CoP. It’s
presupposed the “creation of value”. In figure 3 we
WEBIST 2006 - SOCIETY, E-BUSINESS AND E-GOVERNMENT
90
can see that TC have great managerial support
although the individual support and participation are
clear to all. The benefit level is clearly
organizational, but all the participants have gains in
belonging to these networks/communities (TC).
They are basically driven by knowledge and
opportunity. The members have access to privileged
information and start to enlarge the personal and/or
organizational contact list, and get to know experts
in areas of common interest. The social capital is
one of the reasons that make people join a specific
network. In our case the LMS enhanced the
workflow and made the process easier and cheaper.
Supported
Managerial
“Professional
Learning” Network
“Best Practice”
Network
support
Self-managed
“Hobby”
Network
“Business
Opportunity”
Network
Individual Organizational
Benefit level
Figure 3: PTC integration according to the “Value
Network” model.
The group of individuals in PTC are genuinely
interested in creating new products (e.g. working
documents, Portuguese norms, working papers) that
can create new business opportunities and/or
products related to this new knowledge. These
outputs don’t necessarily fit in existing business
models. Unlocking this potential is one of the
intangible products of these networks that with time
can become tangible. Sometimes, in these settings,
rules are broken and new ones created, new
processes are created, and this strives the innovative
and creative processes.
As several studies (e.g. Karrisson et al, 2004;
Nerkar & Paruchuri, 2004) point up that most of the
knowledge used in the majority of companies is
developed externally. We can face this experience as
one example for a knowledge source.
3 CONCLUSION
The importance of knowledge networks is highly
recognized worldwide and in several areas, from
leisure to work. But as in other companies
worldwide, CATIM is learning with experience and
trying to get the best of it. One central concern is
how can we produce knowledge and get the best out
of the community? In our opinion, for fostering and
developing networks, one of the central issues is to
manage the context rather than little details. The
focusing on tangible results is one important setting
to “get the work done”.
Clearly the networks (TC managed by CATIM)
converged around knowledge and were based on
volunteer work, mainly virtually sustained through
an LMS (since 2004).
Its members took a proactive behaviour.
Participants used their existing skills and developed
new ones with the participation on these groups.
Several tangible outputs were achieved. This is
clearly the scenario that “1+1=3”, the group is
different from adding its parts, according to the
definition of a business opportunities network.
The used model can be partially replicated when
the following conditions are met:
1. The gains in belonging to the network are
individual but, mainly organizational;
2. The network has some managerial support;
3. The network is mediated by technology and
has technical support;
4. There are tangible results to be achieved (in
these particular case, norms, working papers,
working documents, norms’ translation,
discussion and voting, etc.);
5. The members have interest and gains by
belonging to the network (contact list, less
costs, work optimisation) and have the clear
conscience of that;
6. Contextual and economical variables, among
many others.
The technology opened new doors and enhanced
the learning and participation potential of singular
individuals in this mutual learning and production
process.
The organization ability to continuously
innovate and improve is clearly linked to the
capability of developing new skills based on (new or
renewed) knowledge. It’s the process of capability
building it self. And has we know increased
efficiency is a precondition to success. Belonging to
a knowledge network (or even to a CoP) is a
competitive advantage for the global economy.
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