Managing corporate knowledge : communities of practice purposefully designed for improving business performance | |
| Author | Sophon Yamklin |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.SM-14-01 |
| Subject(s) | Community development Knowledge management |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management of Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. SM-14-01 |
| Abstract | Community of practice (CoP) is considered to be a knowledge management tool with great potential. Numerous companies have allocated resources to intentionally create CoPs in their organizations, hoping they will add value through the continuous creation of new knowledge and innovation. However, not all CoPs are successful. Researchers have tried to identify the characteristics and conditions of successful CoPs and found that the tangible value of a CoP to the organization is considered as one of the critical success factors. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of empirical research on how a purposefully designed CoP should be structured toward achieving these ends. The recent economic crisis, budget cutbacks, and lack of measurable benefits have resulted in many organizations reducing their budgets for KM and discontinuing related CoPs. This dissertation aims to explore management approaches to purposefully creating and sustaining strategically designed CoPs as a tool to deliver tangible organizational performance improvements. This research identifies management approaches to intentionally creating CoPs by conducting a comprehensive exploratory case study research based on in-depth interviews with executives, middle managers, and employees in three field sites located in Thailand’s manufacturing sector. One of the cases included in this study discontinued its corporate KM efforts during the last economic crisis, in 2009, and such efforts have yet to be reinstated. The three case studies demonstrate how these companies purposefully designed and established CoPs to target tangible organizational objectives and how they refocused the agenda of their CoPs in order to support productivity improvements in addition to other more traditional KM goals. This study also identifies the structures of a CoP created with the intention of achieving tangible organizational performance goals. Organizations that create CoPs with the purpose of improving tangible organizational performance dimensions can gain insights from our findings with respect to designing and managing such CoPs. This research is one of the first to empirically explore and describe approaches to creating and managing CoPs in order to improve explicit business performance goals. |
| Year | 2014 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. SM-14-01 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Management (SOM) |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Master of Business Administration (MBA) (Publication code=SM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Igel, Barbara; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Sununta Siengthai;Janecek, Paul;Garavan, Thomas; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Royal Thai Government;Dhurakij Pundit University; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2014 |