Workplace Connectors as Facilitators for Work
| dc.contributor.author | Su, Norman Makoto | |
| dc.contributor.author | Mark, Gloria | |
| dc.contributor.author | Sutton, Stewart A. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-04-15T12:05:15Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2017-04-15T12:05:15Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2007 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The creation of a knowledge-sharing corporation—one that discourages knowledge hoarding but encourages sharing across internal and external divisions—is a goal which many organizations strive to achieve through explicit policies and procedures. Formal communities is a key design strategy that organizational architects often use to promote knowledge sharing and interaction. An 11-month ethnographic investigation with 10 informants was conducted in an organization in the nascent stages of implementing formal communities of practice. Each informant was shadowed for three and a half days. Contrary to the common characterization of communities of practice in the workplace as the dominant social arrangement through which work is accomplished, our data revealed that there exists a range of identifiable and distinct connectors, commonalities or affinities, that facilitate the formation of diverse groups in an organization. The seven major types of connectors we found were: work home, company, common work role, formal community, professional, private and social. Each connector provides a purposeful way for workers to not only accomplish their work tasks more effectively, but to legitimately cultivate social constructs such as communities. | |
| dc.identifier.doi | 16.1007/978-1-84628-905-7 | |
| dc.identifier.isbn | 978-1-4471-6239-1 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Springer London, Dordrecht Amsterdam | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | Communities and Technologies 2007: Proceedings of the Third Communities and Technologies Conference | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Communities and Technologies | |
| dc.title | Workplace Connectors as Facilitators for Work | |
| dc.type | Text | |
| gi.citation.endPage | 150 | |
| gi.citation.startPage | 131 | |
| gi.conference.location | Michigan State University, USA | |
| gi.conference.sessiontitle | Full Papers |