A descriptive study of the formation of a cross-organizational learning community of practice

The technological capacities to store, share and retrieve information are impacting social interactions within organizations and are influencing the design of work and organizational life. The critical role of informal social networks and social processes for enabling and creating knowledge and meaning need further exploration. In particular, the intentional processes for forming a community of practice within and across organizations may have particular significance during such times of technological advance and organizational change. This study offers such an exploration by describing an action research project designed to intentionally form a cross-organizational community of practice that utilizes a combination of face-to-face and web-based interaction.;With the growing recognition of the importance of existing communities of practice within organizations, there is an emerging question of whether communities of practice can be developed intentionally. The assumption implicit in this study is that a community of practice can be developed through a systematic facilitated process. The research questions guiding this descriptive study included: What processes support or inhibit this development? What are some of the distinct benefits of an intentional formation process? What is the relationship between the web-based discussion and the face-to-face meeting in the formation process?;The action research process described here used pre-session interviews, a learning history process, a case study, and cooperative inquiry with a group of executives from eleven different denominations to design a learning infrastructure for its on-going knowledge sharing and knowledge creation in what the author calls, a "learning community of practice.";An assessment of the facilitated process of the processes used benefited the group in some specific ways. The group was able to assess its own current learning practices, to surface undiscussable aspects of its interactions, and to design and begin to use tools for learning from and across organizations in their face-to-face and web-based interactions.;This study describes a process that can be designed for intentionally creating communities of practice that cross boundaries within a singular organization or across-organizations. A replication of the processes described here with other groups can build our understanding of how to intentionally form communities of practice in other contexts.