First stage of the life cycle of a community in the Public Administration context. Strictly speaking, during the initial stage, that of the seedling community of practice, a group of people may well have some trouble in considering themselves a real community of practice. They are rather a proto-community of practice. This refers to a collection of enthusiasts concerned with the problems that arise in their day-to-day work, ones who are willing to find answers in the working practices of their own colleagues, yet which are never articulated, nor do they in any way act so as bring about this transfer of knowledge between one another. And while this is not how they go about it, they posses in their attitude what will later germinate to form a community of practice.
Published in Chapter:
Communities of Practice in Public Administration: The Case of Catalonia’s Government
Mario Pérez-Montoro (University of Barcelona, Spain) and Jesús Martínez (Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain)
Copyright: © 2011
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-802-4.ch023
Abstract
Currently, Knowledge Management (KM) is being received very positively by organisations. Nevertheless, there is a particular type of organisation in which there has been less of a general demand for KM: the public organisations. However, in the last three years, a Knowledge Management project, based in communities of practice (CoPs), has been put into practice in the area of the Justice Department in the Catalan government, the Generalitat of Catalunya. The aim of this work is to present a detailed analysis of this project. To achieve this aim, first of all, we are going to introduce the implementation methodology and the results obtained, as well as the success variables involved in this project. This will allow us to offer a guide for implementing CoPs in public administration. Lastly, by way of conclusion, we will provide a series of conclusions and lessons that can easily be applied to the majority of community of practice projects that are implemented in the Public Administration context.