E-Magazine
Nicholas Theodorakopoulos
Relatively recently situated learning /Communities-of-practice (CoPs) theory has attracted the attention of academics, policy makers, business support providers and practitioners. Simply put, the theory highlights the significance of learning in situ, within communities whose members interact to promote their practice, driven by a common purpose. Advocates of this theory claim that entrepreneurs should not only nurture CoPs within their organisations but also facilitate the participation of their employees in CoPs that span different organisations, operating in different countries. The diversity and quality of the trajectories and interfaces of their employees with employees of other organisations, in conjunction with the quality of their organisational CoP, determine a firm’s social capital, its ability to learn, innovate and internationalise its activities.
Whilst the former enables entrepreneurial firms to access different perspectives and explore new knowledge, the latter helps them assess such new perspectives, anchoring them in their strategic context. This in turn enables entrepreneurial firms to internalise new knowledge and competences that underpin the successful exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities in domestic and international markets. For instance, in projects where different suppliers providing complementary products work together (e.g. software systems), members of CoPs (e.g. software engineers) based in different companies and countries interact closely over a period of time. Often, it is this interaction and sharing of perspectives that stimulates innovative thinking relating to solutions that are marketable internationally. When they take these new ideas back to their home base, their organisational CoPs need to be capable of assessing their entrepreneurial potential and act upon such opportunities .
The theory offers some guidance to those concerned with entrepreneurship education, support provision, practice and research. It emphasises the importance of the micro learning processes taking place in entrepreneurial small firms, as people work together within a constellation of CoPs, which cut across national boundaries. In so doing, it stresses the need to re-evaluate the concept of training deficit as a need for more formal /classroom-based training. Under CoPs theory, entrepreneurship education and training appear to be a matter of learning to participate in jointly constructed social activities, taking place within interrelated CoPs, rather than merely transmission of abstracted, de-contextualised knowledge by formal instructing. Accepting the argument that learning and cognition are situated, approaches that embed learning in practice and make deliberate use of the social and physical contexts may be more important than conventional small business training provision and formal education. Learning must be ongoing, hands on, with initiatives that encourage owner-managers’ and key employees’ generative learning in international contexts, throughout their careers.
Therefore, educational and training experiences which foster reflection and collaborative thinking skills on an international basis would appear to be more relevant to the promotion of learning, innovation and entrepreneurship than small business management courses in their own right. Currently there is a tendency to put too much weight on formal training and qualifications. Arguably, emphasis should be placed not only on learning about (e.g. business planning), but also, more importantly, on how to learn by learning to be. The latter relates to acquiring and transforming the entrepreneur’s disposition and identity to make sense of and adopt new perspectives through participation in international CoPs. It follows that educators and small business training providers should develop programmes that strike a balance between these two elements. Otherwise, prescribed generic solutions by one-size-fits-all consultancy and education services are bound to remain of limited utility.
With regard to programmes developed to promote the uptake of ICT in small firms, such endeavours are certainly worthwhile. Yet, it is necessary that business support provision is not confined to diffusing the use of ICT systems. Competitive advantage does not come merely from technology but from people – their experience, skills and competencies. Formal systems in place, including ICT systems, should not aim to substitute but rather complement and support participation, social interaction and informality where possible. In this respect, educational technologies such as computer-based collaborative learning can be used to (re)create experiences in rich context, helping owner-managers and key employees better participate in CoPs with international membership. This opens up new possibilities for international entrepreneurship.
Moreover, according to the CoPs theory, mentoring and apprenticeship approaches hold a great promise. Mentors, especially those with international experience, can show owner-managers how to reflect from experience, introduce them to new/international networks and importantly influence their identity and ability to make sense of international market needs, opportunities and innovative activities. Schemes promoting the interface of practitioners with academia such as Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), if designed properly, could be potent vehicles for generative interfaces between academics and small business practitioners. Such interfaces can help enhance knowledge exchange between these two CoPs. Again, this helps gear knowledge production, dissemination and use towards competent practice, which often transcends national boundaries.
To forge successful partnerships it is crucial to make apprenticeship-type and mentoring schemes more appealing to practitioners. A way to go about it could be offering some recognition. For example, entrepreneurs participating in mentoring schemes or KTP programmes of this kind could be offered more favourable terms when accessing business support and funding.
For entrepreneurs and key employees concerned with building learning capabilities for identifying and exploiting opportunities, emphasis should be placed on the fact that a small firm approximates the notion of CoP, operating within a social learning system. Therefore they should assess the potential of their business as a CoP or a set of sub-CoPs, as well as their relative position within the constellation of CoPs they operate. Thus, entrepreneurs and key employees concerned with identifying and exploiting opportunities should be intra-communally and inter-communally competent.
It follows that design considerations that promote intra- and inter-communal learning should receive more attention. Community design should aim to promote the receptiveness of the firm’s CoP to new ideas that stem from interaction with actors embedded in CoPs that span national boundaries. Equally important, it should aim at enhancing the firm’s CoP capability to shape these ideas into new products and services in order to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities, whether domestic or international. On this point, social structures within small firms and their CoPs should be assessed as to whether they facilitate or inhibit learning related to identifying and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities successfully.
Finally and crucially, academics need to focus on the complexity of the learning processes underlying entrepreneurship. Concentrating on just the positive aspects of CoPs would be an uncritical, simplistic approach, which can be dangerous when applied indiscriminately. Indeed, the rhetoric of CoPs can serve as an instrument for approximating the learning organisation ideal. Notably though, in some firms it could also serve as a device for disempowering employees, exercising insidious control, manufacturing consensus and maintain stability in social structures that preserve unhealthy power relations. Most likely, this would have adverse effects on a firm’s ability to identify and exploit successfully entrepreneurial opportunities in domestic and international markets.
Dr Nicholas Theodorakopoulos, Director, MSc Strategic Human Resource Management for Human Resource Professionals, Aston Business School