Question 1
Communities of practice refers to a group of people with similar interest or zeal for their job description
and discover ways to improve on their work by interacting with each other. It consists of 3 characteristics
namely the domain, the community, and the practice (Wenger, no date). The domain refers to the shared
interests and it is decided by members of the community who are involved in similar practice, whereas an
organizational network can be viewed as teams where the organization decides membership of the teams,
their leaders, goals and reporting (Lesser and Storck, 2001).
TexacoChevron community of practice differs from the organizational networks in that membership into
it are voluntary, thus consisting of members of similar skillset. Their accountability, interactions,
sponsorship and funding are less formal. They help members seek solutions to problems, seek expertise,
share and adopt successful practice and improve members skillset whereas its organizational networks are
more formal, are created by the company for a purpose with the leaders chosen by the company. An
example of such is the operational excellence network.
Question 2
The CoPs have been developed initially by informal associations between workers of similar job
descriptions but this has been improved on to develop more formal approaches for specific interest. The
company provides an online model that helps in the design, launch and sustain new networks derived
from the experiences of older networks. It also makes provisions for facilitators to assist in the
development of new networks.
Question 3
Tacit and explicit knowledge sharing is being developed through the following ways:
Rapid communication- through global networks designed that connected technical experts, refinery
operators and engineers to enable them share answers, ask questions about operational challenges and
share successful practices and seek knowledge from a single location. To get faster response, questions
asked are mailed to a group of member s who have shown their willingness to answer questions in certain
areas, and if no response is gotten to questions asked in 24 hours, the questions are then redirected to
experts in that area.
Proactive sharing of successful practices- this has helped put out new practices to be available, such that
when the need arises like in the water-washing procedure, that was made available in their online forum
can be made use of.
References
Lesser, E.L and Storck, J. (2001) ‘communities of practice and organizational performance’, IBM systems
journal, 40(4), pp. 831-841. Available at:
Wenger, E. (no date) communities of practice- a brief introduction
