An Exploration of Cultural Factors Affecting Use of Communities of Practice

On-line communities of practice are potentially powerful social learning networks that can improve organizational performance. Unfortunately, administrators of on-line communities of practice report that community members do not take full advantage of this potential. This study used Shaw and Tuggle's (2003) factors of knowledge management (KM) culture affecting organizational acceptance of a knowledge management initiative to explore this issue. It was hypothesized that respondents whose communities of practice possessed higher average community use per member would rate KM culture variables higher than respondents whose communities possessed a lower average community use. An analysis of survey data collected from Air Force Knowledge Now communities of practice identified two KM culture variables with a significant relationship between how individuals rated their community on each KM culture variable and use.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH School of Engineering and Management is the author of 'An Exploration of Cultural Factors Affecting Use of Communities of Practice' with ISBN 9781423518075 and ISBN 1423518071.