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Although Communities of Practice have become a core concept in understanding how knowledge is managed within organizations, there have been few studies of the praxis of formation of Communities of Practice. In this article, we report on a Grounded Theory study of the members of a previously identified Community of Practice within the UK Higher Education Academy Psychology Network. In addition to providing data on the functioning of the community, the study also revealed a hitherto unrecognized form of community that exhibits all of the characteristics of CoPs yet has only a transient existence that seems to nucleate around an existing core community. Drawing on the metaphor of quantum behaviour, we termed these communities Quantum Communities of Practice. We describe a theory to explain this phenomenon that is grounded in the data from the study. We conclude by discussing the value and validity of our findings and methodology and indicating the next steps we will take in our research.

This paper presents a critical review of some of the claims made for CoPs. It will address questions such as "Are CoPs really suitable for use in a business setting?" and "Can a CoP ever be truly virtual?"

NGOs need to tackle the problems of effective communication that arise from their local-global nature. This paper examines Knowledge Management (KM) practices for use with portal technologies in order to promote Communities of Practice in both local and

Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators: Vol. 2 - contains links to authors and a full introductory chapter - deals with distributed CoPs

Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators: Vol. 1 - contains links to authors and a full introductory chapter - deals with co-located CoPs

Systemic reform often involves partnerships between multiple communities of practice (CoP). In order to understand the strengths and challenges of a partnership, it is necessary to examine the objectives and practices of the constituent communities and th

ELISA is a successful professional community in Edinburgh, but where does it go next? Wendy Ball suggests that the next stage of development for such groups involves defining your purpose and continuing to question motives.

The workshop focuses on current research trends in technology enhanced learning solutions that aim at addressing the multiplicity and complexity of needs of Communities of Practice all along their lifecycle.

This paper examines the nature of virtual teams and their place in the networked economy. Using the evidence from two recent sets of studies, it highlights some of the barriers to effective virtual team working and demonstrates the critical importance of

This paper provides an overview of virtual teams in the information age, focussing on the definition of virtual teams, their salient characteristics, the communication issues they face (including information overload, geographic and social distance), th

This Working Paper is the outcome of a short study commissioned by Intercooperation on existing communities of practice (CoPs) in the development sector in India.