Performance measuring in communities of practice: A method and case study

Abstract

Project organizations generally do not know how to stimulate knowledge sharing. Besides, the implementation of a knowledge management system to stimulate knowledge sharing often fails. Literature shows that there are several techniques to measure communities of practice, individual, and organizational performance. But which technique should be used? Although discussed by several authors, there is still not yet a generic method that can be used to efficiently implement knowledge management interventions. In this paper, a method to measure community of practice performance is developed and validated. The measuring method provides an indication of how a community of practice is functioning at a certain moment. On the other hand there is no valid proof that KM interventions have a positive effect on a community of practice. Therefore more validation is needed. Also, some limitations of the research and suggestions for further research are given. © 2010 IEEE.