Progress toward a knowledge economy means an increasing emphasis on acquiring, cultivating and leveraging knowledge to ensure pertinent information is available for groups of specialists in organizations. Yet the social dynamics that support resilient and appropriate mechanisms of learning and knowledge sharing, key to the constructive and sustainable development of knowledge and innovation among groups of experts are still not clear. This study contributes to understanding the unique socio-contextual influences of knowledge development in expert communities, in particular examining how community knowledge is sustained and yet is also dynamic, changing and innovative. The findings indicate that the development of expert knowledge relies on three types of socially inherent yet implicit and personal tacit knowledge in conjunction with an iterative process of knowledge review, refinement and reflection.
This research explores how communities of practice facilitate knowledge dynamics through unique social processes. Despite the growing focus on communities of practice as an effective way to facilitate knowledge management and innovation; the social processes used by such communities to engage in continuous knowledge sharing and new idea generation is yet to be fully explored. In particular, this study focuses on how expert communities operating within organisational boundaries use social processes to share knowledge among members which enhances their creativity and innovative outcomes within such expert communities. The findings highlight the significance of actively encouraging and supporting the cultivation of social networks within their organisations to create value through fostering knowledge sharing and new idea generation. Therefore, it is important for managers and senior members to recognise the value of social interactions when facilitating knowledge sharing and innovation within organisational communities.
Resiliant and appropriate mechanisms of learning and knowledge sharing are key to the constructive and sustainable development of knowledge and innovation in expert communities. Research exploring such mechanisms among different groups of experts, as examples of communities of practice, was undertaken both inside and outside formal organizations to reveal common foundations and different motivations. In the expanding knowledge economy, the need for organizations to cultivate and manage knowledge s their critical resource is an imperative. There is no doubt that communities of practice have a central role in the capability development. An interpretive approach was employed for this exploratory research; the findings indicate that expert knowledge is a complex outcome of social and contextual factors, and individual agendas. Further the sustainability and dynamics of expert knowledge in communities of practice is an outcome of these socio-contextual drivers as each collective negotiates the relevance or redundancy of knowledge for their shared objectives.
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