Experienced Community of Practice and Knowledge Transfer in a Science/Technology Company

Capturing what an organization knows and effectively managing the flow of knowledge across an organization is a challenge. One promising method used to facilitate knowledge transfer is the creation and development of Communities of Practice (COP) within the organization. This paper will focus on the relationship between organizational practices and technology tools for the development and support of "experienced" COP - the level and type of community experienced by the individual members. We present the results from survey measures and company archival data of Technical Account Representatives (TARs) at a Fortune 500 company. Results demonstrate support of our arguments for differential relationships between subcomponents of a model of COP and how these subcomponents differentially relate to tacit and explicit knowledge. We discuss how these results provide value to the flow of knowledge and organizations\´ ability to support the development of knowledge.