Identification of an emerging community of practice in a knowledge workplace

This paper reports research in progress, focussing on the emergence of a Community of Practice (CoP) in a knowledge workplace. The paper first describes a planned, long term research study. in the second part of the paper, results from the initial stages of the study are reported. In the first part of the paper, the aims, background and research approach are outlined for a study, which is to investigate how the emergence of a CoP might be facilitated by the introduction, for example, of select communication technologies. The study also seeks to investigate how, over time, the interaction of that community with the wider organisation develops and changes, and how 'successful practice' in this area might be captured and reused. The full study is designed as a three stage research program in the action research (AR) mode. In the second part of the paper the results from the initial stage of the study are reported. The initial intervention, a workshop for CoP members designed to promote group discussion of how the members of the embryonic CoP perceive themselves and the "group", is reported. Data gathered from an associated set of interviews has been interpreted in terms of Wenger's three characteristics of a CoP (Wenger, 1998), so providing a baseline for ongoing work. Various sub-themes have been drawn from the interview data, as possible focus points for investigation in the full action research program.