Management knowledge sharing in virtual communities of practice with a data focused domain

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis

Authors

Date

2021-08-25

Department

Major/Subject

International Design Business Management

Mcode

SCI27

Degree programme

Master’s Degree Programme in International Design Business Management (IDBM)

Language

en

Pages

56+13

Series

Abstract

This research provides an opportunity to understand a community of practice with a data focused domain and how it experienced rapid migration to full remote work. The aim is to capture the effects of this unprecedented global happening and at the same time highlight opportunities to further explore said effects. This work studies the intersection of three areas: communities of practice, knowledge management, and remote work in a data intensive context and the COVID-19 pandemic. Research question one uncovers the characteristics of a community of practice in an organisation in the tech industry and how the community organises through the lens of Wenger’s levels of participation. The second research question identifies trends in communication and knowledge sharing in the community, focusing on the activities and tools they use. The third and last research question, the study identifies the impact remote work measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on community functionality, communication and knowledge creation using the SECI model. A survey based on the Community Assessment Tool was created and used to gather information from the community such as demographic data about the respondents, data bout goals and motivation, preferred activities, and perceived changes in ways of interacting with the community due to the move to remote work. Results from the survey were analysed with quantitative and qualitative methods, and trends identified. The community characteristics, organisation and activities are outlined. The impact on the community’s knowledge creation processes is identified and recommendations for designing community activities and measures are provided that consider the differences in goals and perspectives of members that participate at different levels of the community. Some key findings of the research include the confirmation that the target community has a distribution across Wenger’s Levels of participation aligned the expected theoretical range. Some trends identify the Periphery as diverging from the Core and Active levels and specific recommendations for further exploration are given. It is also clear that each level of participation experienced differently the move to full remote work and that overall, the migration to remote work affected knowledge creation in the community hindering the socialization, externalization, and combination modes, however the internalization mode saw improvements.

Description

Supervisor

Vartiainen, Matti

Thesis advisor

Olsson, Johan

Keywords

community of practice, COlVID-19, evels of participation, SECI-model, knowledge management, data science

Other note

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202108298589

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[dipl] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI