ORGANIZATIONAL BENEFITS OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: A TWO-STAGE INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

The concept of Communities of Practice (CoPs) has been recognized as a means to foster knowledge sharing and learning in organizations. In this article, we first address the challenge of measuring the value of CoPs. Second, we develop and test a two-stage information processing model including information generation through CoP participation and information processing into the organization. An enhanced network position of CoP-members in relation to the primary organization is identified as a critical means to facilitate information processing. We analyze data from 222 community members from different communities of a multinational company, using partial least square structural equations modeling.