Knowledge Work and Organization

Introduction Many organizations in different sectors are using community of practice and innovation to improve on their productivity. Community of practice and innovation are interrelated in some ways. This study seeks to identify their similarities, differences and the effects each have on the organization. The last part explains the challenges that firms that participate in social networks face.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Knowledge Work and Organization specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Communities of Practice From the community’s point of view, communities of practice are groups of people who come together to meet a common goal. In the business perspective, it is a group of self-motivated people who follow laid out procedures and are challenged to train the persons working with them in order to improve their productivity (Wenger 2000, p.45). These communities of practice are responsible for the smoo th running of the organization. Therefore, they are accountable using their knowledge and skills, are included in the planning of the budget of the organization, and provide the time schedule for the activities carried out in the organization. They have artifacts which are documents, websites and stories and the appointed member maintain them since they are useful in the organization (Kortum Lerner 2000, p.680). According to Fageberg, Mowery and Nelson (2005, p.362), the communities of practice combine three elements in defining competence. They are brought together by understanding the values of their community and every member is accountable to sustain the relationship between them. For a person to be competent in the community of practice, he/she has to be a trusted member and to engage in the activities of the community (Kortum Lerner 2000, p.688). The success of every group depends on the competence and the ability of the leader to engage the whole group in the process of mee ting their goal. During the establishment of the community of practice, members should put in mind what will be bringing them together like the events, who will be leading the group, the projects, connectivity and membership. Unlike closed innovation, any person within or outside the organization can be involved in performing duties that will lead to the success of the organization (Robertson, Paul Langlois 1995, p.560). Innovation Innovation involves bringing valuable ideas into the firm. There are different types of innovation, the closed and open innovation. Open innovation is when those ideas come from inside or outside the firm and are meant to benefit the organization as a whole. Most of the people who create these ideas are from outside the firm and sometimes they are hired to educate employees in the organization on how to implement the ideas. Innovation in this case is the methods that organizations choose to use in response to the challenges in the business environment. T hey involve changing of the traditional practices of the organization to new practices with an aim of improving the productivity of the whole organization.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Innovation includes the introduction of machines and technology that in return requires trained personnel who are ready to apply their knowledge with the help of technology to achieve the objective of the firm (Trott Hartmann 2009, p.720). Open innovation principles states that the external research and development creates more value than the closed innovation. The organizations that use closed innovation believe that they have enough skills required to perform a particular task so they do not require help from outside the company. They believe that if they discover things for themselves, they will be the first to venture into the market. These companies are so self-centered and do not all ow others to benefit from their ideas. This is totally contrary to what open innovators perceive (Dasgupta 2003, p.320). Innovation involves generation of ideas that are essential for an organization to maintain its position in the market. Therefore, it differs from the community of practice in that the community of practice follows the ideas that the innovators have already generated in operating the organization and maintaining their relationship. Innovation involves education, technology and training in the organization (Chesbrough 2006, p.111). The employees are trained on the use of new technologies in their practices to become competent and add productivity. Community of practice uses the ideas to meet the goals and objectives of the whole organization. Therefore, the community of practice requires innovation in their daily work. However, both innovation and community of practice involve learning and training in the performance (Francis 2000, p.34). Social capital is the abili ty to find, combine and utilize knowledge and skills of employees within and outside the organization. Just like open innovation, social capital involves employees from outside the individual organization. Social capital encompasses the information flows, exchange of knowledge, community of practice and all other connected networks that bring together stakeholders in an organization. These stakeholders include suppliers, regulators, employees, customers and partners that are all interested in different aspects of the organization. The social capital and community of services are interconnected since both involve innovative practices. The social capital is obtained from employee business networks and the profession.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Knowledge Work and Organization specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More An organization that is able to apply the social capital is always more productive that the one that ha s no social capital. Innovation is an essential aspect for the productivity of the firm. â€Å"Social capital provides benefits to both the individual and the group as a whole† (Burt Ronald 1992, p.45). Differences between open innovation and communities of practice Communities of practice are groups of people in organizations who converge, share ideas about performing a duty or meeting a goal and learns how to the duty better to get the best practices. Open innovation on the other hand involves identifying and bringing together internal and external resources and ideas to expand on their innovation strategy with an aim of maintaining the firm’s market position on getting new opportunities (Amina Roberts 2008, p. 359) Open innovation is a cognitive model researching, creating and interpreting innovation practices while the communities of practice are not a cognitive model. Communities are not restricted by the organization’s structure, they involve people acr oss the geographical and organizational limits while the open innovation is limited by the structure of the organization and must follow the hierarchy. Similarities of the communities of practice and the open innovation The community of practice must use the technology while still sharing their ideas and learning more about those ideas. Similarly, open innovation involves the use technological practices to bring new ideas in an organization (Amina Roberts 2008, p. 354). Both communities of practice and open innovation involve a group of individuals in an organization and are aimed at improving the performance of the firm (Hardcastle 2011, p.52). The members of both communities of practice and the innovation group are from different professions and are not restricted to one organization but involve internal and external knowledge in the improvement of the firms’ performance. Communities of practice and open innovation involve the process of learning searching for informat ion about how they can create new markets or future opportunities for the organization. Challenges Faced by the Organizations’ Social Networks As discussed earlier, the community of practice, the social capital and the practice-based networks depend so much on innovation. Innovation depends so much on the technology which most of the employees fear since they think that they will lose their jobs. The community of practice may come up with ideas that can cost the organization a lot of money and resources that the organization may not afford. The organization can be forced to borrow or hire the resources, which affect the budget and affect the productivity of the organization. The social groups in the organization require frequent training, which can also be costly to the organization (Francis 2000, p.40). Through innovation, the leaders in the organization may be over possessed with competition giving much pressure to the other employees and reduces their productivity. Accord ing to Chesbrough and Melissa (2007, p. 69), the community of practice in many cases asks for higher pay than the others since they have more responsibilities of changing the old practice of the organization to new improved processes. This is a major challenge for the organization. People perceive ideas differently therefore, for an organization to benefit fully from the community of practice and the social capital, the members involved must understand each other’s behavior. This will help them accommodate each other. The organization is responsible for the education and leadership of this individual in understanding each other and enhancing their knowledge (Chesbrough Melissa 2007, p.62). Conclusion Changes in technology around the world have improved the performance of organizations. Firms traditionally used the closed innovation in their research and development but today they have changed to open innovation. Communities of practice are also used in all organizations in a ll sectors to develop ideas on increasing the productivity of the firm. However, companies are faced with so many challenges in the process of promoting their social groups. This is because the decision making process is slowed by a number of people whose perspective is different from policy makers but trust, negotiation and consultations bring the ideas together.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More List of References Amina, A and Roberts, J 2008, Knowing in action: Beyond communities of practice, Elsevier B.V, vol , 37, pp, 353–369. Burt, Ronald, S 1992, Structural holes: The social structure of competition, Harvard University Press, London. Chesbrough, H and Melissa M, 2007, Open innovation and strategy appleyard, California Management Review, vol.50, no.1, pp.57-76. Chesbrough, W 2006, Open innovation: the new imperative for creating and profiting from technology, Harvard Business Press, New York. Dasgupta, P 2003, Social capital and economic performance: Analytics, in foundations of social capital, Critical Studies In Economic Institutions, vol.2, no.1, pp.309–39. Fageberg, J, Mowery, D Nelson, R 2005, Oxford handbook of innovation, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Francis, F 2000, The great disruption: Human nature and the reconstruction of social order, Simon and Schuster, New York. Hardcastle, D 2011, Community practice: Theories and skills for social work ers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, Kortum, S and Lerner, J 2000, Assessing the contribution of venture capital to innovation, Journal of Economics, vol.31, no.2, pp.674–692. Robertson, Paul L. and Langlois, R 1995, Innovation, Networks, and Integration, Research Policy, vol. 24, pp.543-562. Trott, P and Hartmann, D 2009, Why Open Innovation is old wine in new bottles, International Journal of Innovation Management, vol.13, no.2, pp.715–736. Wenger, E 2000, Communities of practice and social learning systems, Sage, New York. This essay on Knowledge Work and Organization was written and submitted by user Elijah George to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.