ABSTRACT:
A number of large organizations have adopted virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) as a new way to generate and share knowledge without much help as to how to successfully “cultivate” and “nurture” them. Contrary to the “one-size-fits-all” approach widely used in the literature on how to sustain virtual communities of practice, this paper advocates that successful management practices should be contingent upon the VCoP’s characteristics and a set of structuring characteristics is used to compare and contrast VCoPs. The results of the study of eight virtual communities of practice, where both qualitative and quantitative data is used, show that management practices can be grouped into five categories: resource allocation, leadership structure management, hands-on top management support, symbolic actions, and organizational practices. Further analyses show that decisions regarding the operational leadership of a VCoP, followed by resource allocation, take precedence over other management practices. When facing challenging characteristics such as an obstructive environment, a high level of geographic dispersion, cultural diversity, and boundary crossing, a low level of technological literacy, little or no history of prior work together, and low topic relevance, the results show that more resources and more active support from top management are needed for the VCoP to be successful.
