Knowledge Sharing Through Communities of Practice

Higher education institutions aim at preparing young adults for the world-of-work, be it as employees, managers, self-employed workers or entrepreneurs. At the same time they generate new knowledge in the form of published papers, either research by individuals or in partnership with other academics. This article aimed to determine the knowledge sharing culture and trust attitudes of academics using a portal in a higher education institution such as a university. It is common knowledge that knowledge sharing, especially implicit knowledge, forms the pivot of increasing the intellectual capital of any organisation. This paper is part of a greater study which aimed at establishing communities of practice at an educational institution by first determining existing practices of academics among themselves and then developing the means to enhance existing communities of practices and creating new ones. Since there was an existing portal which was used for communication among academics, it was felt such a tool could be used in a more productive and formal way which was to formalise communities of practice. Communities of practice "thrive on passion" and "die" because of the lack of it and constant communication fuels knowledge sharing. The rationale was that as a portal already exists and is a good tool for communication, then by collecting data about the reasons why academics use the portal it will give rise to a number of criteria which can be used to enhance communication and thus knowledge sharing which impacts on the intellectual capital of the institution. To achieve this aim a questionnaire consisting of open-and closed-ended questions was administered to academics. An empirical survey on communities of practice at a University in South Africa, confirmed previous research findings about what gives rise to communities of practice and on the other hand, through qualitative and quantitative research, established a number of criteria which could be used by any higher education institution either to create new communities of practice or support existing ones, which they can ultimately blend to form a society of communities of practice within the university.