Abstract
The overall purpose of this study is to explore the embeddedness of communities of practice within contexts of formal organizational hierarchy. More specifically, this study will inquire on how CoPs emerge, how they culturally interrelate with broader structures, and how formal leadership navigates this tension between emergent, self-organized CoPs and formal hierarchy. That is, the aim of this research involves theorizing about the cross-level dynamics and processes between the local context of a CoP and the broader trans-local context in which it evolves. To this end, I will employ inductive qualitative research methods to build data-grounded process theory on a CoP’s embeddedness.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Cameron 1963
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Notes
- 1.
The research team that conducted the project within the armed forces consisted of three PhD students (including myself) as well as our doctoral adviser. Therefore, I will employ the plural in the manuscript whenever I refer to activities and decisions that involved all of us.
- 2.
Historical examples of this innovation impeding tendencies can be found in the introduction of tanks within WW I which, at first, caused defensiveness among many generals due to their traditionally founded pictures of warfare with cavalries and infantry.
- 3.
The Janus character of military organizations originally refers to the different functional requirements of armed forces within “cold” and “hot” conditions. Cold phases refer to the bureaucratic rational administration of armed forces during peace time at home. Whereas hot conditions describe combat situations and war that in general require the quick and flexible reacting to altered situations (Elbe and Richter, 2012);. Janus was a Roman god who was portrayed as two-faced symbolizing numerous dualities of creation and destruction, light and darkness, future and past.
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Schulte, B. (2021). Research Setting and Methods. In: The Organizational Embeddedness of Communities of Practice. Forschungs-/Entwicklungs-/Innovations-Management. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31954-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31954-0_4
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