Communities of practice in landscapes of practice

The original formulation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) primarily focused on describing how learning, meaning, and identity within a community can translate into a sustained practice. Wenger-Trayner et al. (2014) elaborated the concept of Landscapes of Practice (LoPs) to describe how different CoPs may interact, and belong to broader landscapes of practice, rather than rely exclusively on their own local situated practices. In this conceptual paper we apply the perspective of LoPs to organizations. The first part of our argument is descriptive, and it is aimed at developing a model of LoPs in organizations. With regards to this model, we propose that practices can be seen as multi-level, including local situated practices, generic practices, and cultural fields. This, in turn, helps to clarify and organize a number of central concepts within the practice literature. The second part of our argument is prescriptive as we suggest that LoPs call for triple-legitimization of situated learning, meaning that legitimization is not only needed at the level of community and organization, but also by attending to the dynamically changing epistemic texture of the landscapes.