Week Six - Topic 3: Communities of Practice and Organisational Units

Wenger states "These 'communities of practice' are mostly informal and distinct from organizational units" What do you think Wenger means by an "organizational unit"?


I think that Wenger uses the term ‘organisational unit’ to mean a group or department of people who have been put together for a reason rather than formed themselves in a ‘self organising’ manner. I think that people in an organisational unit have to be together whereas people in a community of practice have chosen to be together.Wenger states that in a community of practice “membership is based on participation rather than on official status” and that members are “informally bound”. However an organisational unit membership is given to a person because they have to be a part of it and the membership is more formal.
Also, communities of practice are meant to be about a shared understanding and knowledge and the desire to learn, where as organisational units are more groups of people you have to work with, but many not have the same desires or understanding of the subject relevant to them.
An example I found was of a case study of Xerox machine repair workers. They formed a community of practice outside their typical organisational unit due to problems they were having. Their typical organisational unit would have been their boss, anyone who worked with them on repairs and also the company supplied manual, whereas their community of practice were others who did the exact same job as them (they don’t all work together). This community of practices’ joint enterprise was to help each other out and improve their work. Their community of practice included meeting up to discuss their stories and problems and help one another with any struggle they were having with repairing and also any problems with tricky customers.
Sharp, J (1997) Communities of Practice; a review of the literature, http://www.tfriend.com/cop-lit.ht