A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Hierarchical structures and processes in organisations that manage large infrastructure programmes are designed to better control their implementation. Bureaucratic rigidities of the organisations do not allow them to deal with increasing complexity as they lack environments that encourage the knowledge flow, risk taking and flexibility on which adaptation thrives. The centralised power structure generates defensive mechanisms and discourages individuals to learn and to share knowledge. To remain flexible and adaptive the bureaucracies need to sustain their competitive advantage by capitalising on knowledge and experience of their experts. The leadership needs to think holistically about combining conditions of hierarchy and discipline with other forms of cooperation. Communities of practice can become the spaces of explicit and especially tacit knowledge exchange outside the usual organisational constraints and can foster environment of learning and collaboration internally and externally. However, there are many examples of failure to evolve them into a sustainable entity. This paper explores the process of cultivating communities of practice within a hierarchical organisation that manages large infrastructure programmes. It aims at studying how application of problem structuring techniques can assist the organisation under scrutiny in understanding the key sponsors' perceptions regarding communities of practice and how that can contribute to reducing a tension between a need to capitalise on expert knowledge and the individuals who are discouraged to learn by control structure of a hierarchical organisation.
Hierarchical structures and processes in organisations that manage large infrastructure programmes are designed to better control their implementation. Bureaucratic rigidities of the organisations do not allow them to deal with increasing complexity as they lack environments that encourage the knowledge flow, risk taking and flexibility on which adaptation thrives. The centralised power structure generates defensive mechanisms and discourages individuals to learn and to share knowledge. To remain flexible and adaptive the bureaucracies need to sustain their competitive advantage by capitalising on knowledge and experience of their experts. The leadership needs to think holistically about combining conditions of hierarchy and discipline with other forms of cooperation. Communities of practice can become the spaces of explicit and especially tacit knowledge exchange outside the usual organisational constraints and can foster environment of learning and collaboration internally and externally. However, there are many examples of failure to evolve them into a sustainable entity. This paper explores the process of cultivating communities of practice within a hierarchical organisation that manages large infrastructure programmes. It aims at studying how application of problem structuring techniques can assist the organisation under scrutiny in understanding the key sponsors' perceptions regarding communities of practice and how that can contribute to reducing a tension between a need to capitalise on expert knowledge and the individuals who are discouraged to learn by control structure of a hierarchical organisation.
Facilitating Knowledge Sharing Environment Within Bureaucracies by Cultivating Communities of Practice: a Case Study
2017-09-01
In: Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Knowledge Management:ECKM 2017. (pp. pp. 283-292). ACPI: Barcelona, Spain. (2017)
Paper
Electronic Resource
English
DDC:
690
Elsevier | 1981
Mechanisms to Initiate Knowledge-Sharing Connections in Communities of Practice
| Online Contents | 2017
The Rise and Decline of Energy Bureaucracies
| British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996