Journal of Applied Psychology 2011, Vol. 96, No. 6, 1234 –1245

© 2011 American Psychological Association 0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024198

Managing a New Collaborative Entity in Business Organizations: Understanding Organizational Communities of Practice Effectiveness Bradley L. Kirkman

John E. Mathieu

Texas A&M University

University of Connecticut

John L. Cordery

Benson Rosen

University of Western Australia

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Michael Kukenberger University of Connecticut Companies worldwide are turning to organizational communities of practice (OCoPs) as vehicles to generate learning and enhance organizational performance. OCoPs are defined as groups of employees who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic and who strengthen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on a consistent basis. To date, OCoP research has drawn almost exclusively from the community of practice (CoP) literature, even though the organizational form of CoPs shares attributes of traditional CoPs and of organizational teams. Drawing on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) original theory of legitimate peripheral participation, we integrate theory and research from CoPs and organizational teams to develop and empirically examine a model of OCoP effectiveness that includes constructs such as leadership, empowerment, the structure of tasks, and OCoP relevance to organizational effectiveness. Using data from 32 OCoPs in a U.S.-based multinational mining and minerals processing firm, we found that external community leaders play an important role in enhancing OCoP empowerment, particularly to the extent that task interdependence is high. Empowerment, in turn, was positively related to OCoP effectiveness. We also found that OCoPs designated as “core” by the organization (e.g., working on critical issues) were more effective than those that were noncore. Task interdependence also was positively related to OCoP effectiveness. We provide scholars and practitioners with insights on how to effectively manage OCoPs in today’s organizations. Keywords: organizational communities of practice, empowerment, leadership, task interdependence, core status

Management of organizational knowledge is regarded as a vital ingredient for success in the global, fast-paced, technology-driven economy (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). Sharing of knowledge that is not easily articulated or readily absorbed (i.e., tacit) can be a daunting task. One response to the challenge of sharing less formal knowledge is communities of practice (CoPs; Brown & Duguid, 1991). Initially discussed as communities of midwives, tailors, and meat cutters, CoPs have typically been defined as

an activity system about which participants share understandings concerning what they are doing and what that means in their lives and for their community . . . . They are united in both action and in the meaning that action has, both for themselves and for the larger collective. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 98)

Scholarly understanding of CoPs stems from theories of social participation in learning, which hold that learning occurs in the context and as a consequence of experience and active participation in social communities (i.e., situated learning; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). In recent years, the CoP concept has been formally adopted by organizations to enhance knowledge management and innovation (Cox, 2005, p. 533, referred to this as the “commodification” of CoPs). Wenger et al. (2002) defined organizational communities of practice (OCoPs) as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (p. 4). These forms of organizational collaboration are deliberately designed to align strategic assets in terms of human capital for competitive advantage in work organizations (Liedtka, 1999; Swan, Scarbrough, & Robertson, 2002). Particularly in lean

This article was published Online First June 20, 2011. Bradley L. Kirkman, Department of Management, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University; John E. Mathieu and Michael Kukenberger, School of Business, University of Connecticut; John L. Cordery, School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia; Benson Rosen, Department of Management, Kenan–Flagler Businesss School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bradley L. Kirkman, Department of Management, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, 4221 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4221. E-mail: [email protected] 1234

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economic times, OCoPs can serve as a valuable resource for knowledge sharing and coordination across organizational boundaries (McDermott & Archibald, 2010). Even though the number of companies launching OCoPs initiatives is increasing rapidly (see Majchrzak, Malhotra, Stamps, & Lipnack, 2004; Malhotra, Majchrzak, Carman, & Lott, 2001; McDermott & Archibald, 2010; and Weinstein, 2007, for examples at Shell, Boeing–Rocketdyne, ConocoPhillips, and IBM, respectively), we know little about how they function in organizations or what determines their effectiveness. The small body of existing empirical research consists mainly of qualitative case studies of less formal, loosely coupled arrangements (e.g., Gherardi, Nicolini, & Odella, 1998; Kimble & Hildreth, 2005; Wenger, 1998). This is a significant theoretical limitation, as OCoPs typically share elements of loosely organized, traditional CoPs and of more formal collaborative arrangements, such as organizational teams (McDermott & Archibald, 2010; Raven, 2003). Compounding this limitation, research on OCoPs and teams has evolved separately, and thus there is little theoretical integration across these different, yet related, collaborative entities. Thus, our purpose is to integrate existing theory and research both on CoPs and on organizational teams to develop and empirically test a theoretical model of OCoP effectiveness, including constructs such as leadership, empowerment, the structure of tasks, and OCoP relevance to organizational performance. In doing so, we make three contributions to the existing literature. First, in order to select various antecedents to OCoP effectiveness in a theory-driven manner, we integrate Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) with existing teams research. LPP theory includes three distinct but related antecedents to CoP effectiveness: legitimacy (i.e., the extent to which members and users view their CoP as truly capable of effective knowledge generation); peripherality (i.e., the degree to which CoP members view themselves as fully integrated into their communities); and participation (i.e., a common understanding of a community’s purpose and, as a result, active involvement in it; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Extending LPP theory from CoPs to OCoPs allowed us to select theory-driven, organizationally relevant antecedents to OCoP effectiveness associated with (a) legitimacy (i.e., driven by whether the OCoPs were viewed as core to organizational operations); (b) peripherality (i.e., driven by task interdependence); and (c) participation (i.e., driven by community empowerment and by community-oriented external leadership). As a result, our first contribution is to advance a better understanding of OCoP effectiveness through the integration of the two dominant streams of research underlying the OCoP construct, including literature both on CoPs and on organizational teams. Second, by examining aspects of OCoPs, such as community empowerment and task interdependence, we attempt to resolve some of the initial, mixed theoretical recommendations regarding the internal structures and processes that are critical for maximizing OCoP effectiveness. For example, although some have argued that OCoPs could benefit from a high level of empowerment (Liedtka, 2000), others have argued that OCoPs will succeed only when they are provided with specific targets, accountability, and clear management oversight (in other words, delimited autonomy; McDermott & Archibald, 2010). Similarly, with regard to task interdependence, the original meaning of the term CoP implies that connections between members are rather loose, membership is free

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flowing, and there is relatively little interdependence (Cox, 2005). However, it has also been suggested that higher levels of task interdependence can help members to produce breakthrough ideas and innovations because they must interact frequently, engage in extensive discourse, and exchange ideas to achieve community goals (Kimble, Hildreth, & Wright, 2001). Thus, we attempted to resolve some of these conflicting theoretical recommendations by examining the nature of the relationship between both community empowerment and task interdependence and OCoP effectiveness. Finally, very little is known about the leadership behaviors that are necessary for OCoPs to be maximally effective. For example, must external leaders be actively involved in motivating these entities (McDermott & Archibald, 2010), or, as some have argued (Cox, 2005), should they take a hands-off approach to community management? Also, if individuals are actively involved in leading their OCoPs, which have elements of CoPs and of teams, what types of leadership behaviors are relevant to motivating members of OCoPs? Thus, we define a set of “community-oriented” external leadership behaviors and assess their relationship to OCoP empowerment. In doing so, we answer calls for more research on the relationship between the internal features of OCoPs and the context within which they operate (Cox, 2005).

Literature Review and Hypotheses To date, research on OCoPs has drawn exclusively from theories of traditional CoPs, which typically are loosely coupled collectives existing outside formal organizational settings (Cox, 2005). Thus, to our knowledge, there has been (a) no attempt to theoretically integrate the literature on organizational teams and (b) no empirical attention to any constructs that have been linked to teams (e.g., empowerment, task interdependence). Indeed, much of the direction emanating from theory and practice has been that OCoPs should be led and managed very similarly to traditional CoPs without consideration of similarities and differences between OCoPs and teams (McDermott & Archibald, 2010). We move beyond this previous research by integrating the CoPs and teams literatures to generate a more accurate set of OCoP effectiveness predictors. To differentiate traditional CoPs from teams, Raven (2003) outlined seven dimensions on which collaboration can range from more “CoP-like” to more “team-like.” For example, CoPs are typically characterized by (a) task missions that are emergent rather than mandated by the organization; (b) membership that is voluntary rather than appointed; (c) leadership that is emergent and dynamic rather than explicitly defined; (d) task interdependence that is low rather than high; (e) structure that is emergent rather than designed; (f) accountability flowing from internal, social sanctions rather than external, formal sanctions; and (g) resources coming from members rather than from the organization. In differentiating OCoPs from teams, McDermott and Archibald (2010) recently identified four key factors characterizing OCoPs. These include (a) longer, rather than shorter, time horizons that are needed for developing a body of knowledge or a discipline over the long term; (b) facilitative, rather than directive, leadership; (c) permeable, rather than stable, membership boundaries; and (d) knowledge sharing and codification of information rather than a strict, problem-solving focus.

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When one examines the organizational form of CoPs, it is apparent that OCoPs share similarities with teams and with traditional CoPs. For example, in OCoPs, as in teams, the task mission is often identified by the organization, members and leaders are assigned, members work interdependently, the structure of the communities is formal and designed, and resources are provided by the organization (Wenger et al., 2002). However, in OCoPs members must work around their day-to-day functional responsibilities to perform community duties (i.e., working in a community is not a person’s full-time job), as they would in traditional CoPs, and there are no concrete formal sanctions or punishments for the failure of communities, as there would be in teams. OCoP effectiveness has been defined as the extent to which an OCoP both meets its intended business objectives (i.e., performance) and shares information relevant to community objectives (i.e., knowledge sharing; Raven, 2003; Wenger et al., 2002). Having defined OCoP effectiveness in this manner, we use the three elements contained in LPP theory (i.e., legitimacy, peripherality, and participation; Lave & Wenger, 1991) as an overarching theoretical framework to select predictors from both the OCoPs and the teams literatures that we argue would be critical to that effectiveness. The model we advance is shown in Figure 1. Taking participation first, we discuss the potential role of community empowerment in OCoP effectiveness.

OCoP Empowerment Although empowerment has sometimes been considered a structural feature of organizations (Leach, Wall, & Jackson, 2003; Menon, 2001), we conceptualize it as a constellation of experienced psychological states or cognitions consistent with the psychological view of empowerment (for a review, see Spreitzer, 2008). At the group level, this psychological perspective defines empowerment as increased task motivation due to members’ collective, positive assessments of their tasks within an organizational context (Kirkman & Rosen, 2000). The collective empowerment construct consists of four dimensions: potency, the collective belief of members that they can be effective; meaningfulness, the extent to which members feel an intrinsic caring for their tasks and

activities; autonomy, the degree to which members believe that they have freedom to make decisions; and impact, the extent to which members feel that their tasks make significant contributions (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). As a motivational construct focused on the collective, community empowerment is seen as being closely aligned with the participation dimension of LPP theory, which denotes the degree to which members absorb and are absorbed in OCoP activities (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Some researchers have argued that empowerment could be detrimental to community effectiveness (Misztal, 2002). We argue, based on LPP theory, that community empowerment is a key driver of effectiveness. First, because members have to complete OCoP tasks in addition to their day-to-day functional responsibilities, the primacy of members’ functional roles combined with a lack of external sanctions or rewards for OCoP failure or success means that OCoP effectiveness would depend heavily on members’ intrinsic motivation engendered by empowerment. Members view their community work as having meaning and significant impact on the organization (e.g., reducing costs, increasing performance, improving safety). Second, OCoPs members’ performance and knowledge sharing will likely be enhanced to the extent members perceive that they are collectively able (i.e., potent enough) to generate value for their organization. Finally, as OCoP members have to generate creative solutions and innovation, they are more likely to achieve objectives from the autonomy and freedom that are denoted by higher levels of community empowerment (cf. Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). Although we know of no empirical research examining the effects of community empowerment on OCoP outcomes, Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) did find that empowerment was particularly predictive of learning and innovation for teams that were more loosely coupled and that interacted virtually. Due to the unique characteristics of OCoPs (e.g., members splitting their responsibilities and the lack of sanctions for poor performance), we argue that empowerment might be even more important for effectiveness in OCoPs than in traditional, organizational teams in which members are formally dedicated. Thus, we predicted the following: Hypothesis 1 (H1): OCoP empowerment will be positively related to OCoP effectiveness.

Leading OCoPs

Core OCoP H3 H4

External CommunityOriented Leadership

H1

H2

OCoP Effectiveness

Empowerment H7

H6

H8 H5

Task Interdependence

Figure 1. Results of hypothesized model. OCoP ⫽ organizational community of practice; H ⫽ hypothesis.

Another aspect of OCoPs that promotes participation (in line with LPP theory; Lave & Wenger, 1991) involves the role played by external community leaders. Previous theory and research have attested to the continued importance of external leaders for empowered collectives, albeit with a different set of behaviors than is typical for traditional, top-down-led entities (Burke et al., 2006; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). For example, if leaders are viewed as overly intrusive or controlling, collective performance will suffer; the net effect of close and directive leadership, as one might expect, is to reduce autonomy and experienced responsibility for outcomes and to undermine feelings of collective potency (Kirkman et al., 2004). Indeed, if an organization tries to manage too much of what an OCoP does, members might pretend to disperse but continue to function outside of the organization’s formal direction (Gongla & Rizzuto, 2004), with minimal organizational

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benefit resulting (Wenger et al., 2002). The absence of external leadership can be equally deleterious, resulting in group members feeling ignored or abandoned by their organizations (Manz & Sims, 1987). Research suggests that leaders who exercise certain types of leadership can enhance empowerment in collectives like OCoPs. For example, in discussing the leadership of parallel, global virtual collaboration (i.e., characteristic of many OCoPs), Cordery, Soo, Kirkman, Rosen, and Mathieu (2009) suggested that leaders should focus on behaviors such as (a) facilitating and encouraging members to manage their own task-related activities (i.e., taskoriented behaviors); (b) coaching and facilitating high-quality interpersonal exchanges (i.e., interpersonal processes); (c) aligning efforts with broader organizational goals (i.e., boundary spanning); and (d) securing valuable resources (i.e., resource acquisition). In the context of OCoPs, we refer to these leader-enabling behaviors as “community-oriented external leader behaviors,” because they are most likely to enhance, rather than diminish, community empowerment. All of these leadership facets should logically be associated with OCoP empowerment. For example, when leaders encourage members to jointly manage their own task-related and interpersonal activities by helping members establish performance goals, they are increasing members’ sense of autonomy (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999) and encouraging participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). When leaders behave in ways that align OCoP efforts with broader organizational goals and engage in boundary spanning (Marrone, 2010), members are likely to view their actions as more meaningful and impactful for the organization (Hackman, 1987). If leaders seek out and obtain valuable resources to help OCoPs be more effective, member potency beliefs and participation increase (Guzzo, Yost, Campbell, & Shea, 1993). Although we know of no existing empirical research examining any leadership behaviors in empowered OCoPs, Kirkman and Rosen (1999) did find support for the positive influence of facilitative external leadership both on team empowerment and on effectiveness. Similar results have been obtained by Arnold, Arad, Rhoades, and Drasgow (2000); Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, and Rosen (2007); de Jong, de Ruyter, and Wetzels (2005); Druskat and Wheeler (2003); and Srivastava, Bartol, and Locke (2006). McDermott and Archibald (2010) argued that active and involved community leaders are key for maximizing OCoP impact, one of the key dimensions of community empowerment. We argue that, because OCoP members perform their tasks in addition to full-time job responsibilities, the community leaders will play a central motivational role in producing empowerment beliefs among their members. Accordingly, we made the following prediction: Hypothesis 2 (H2): Community-oriented external leader behavior will relate positively to OCoP empowerment. Given the underlying logic pertaining to Hypotheses 1 and 2, we argue that OCoP empowerment fully mediates the influence of community-oriented external leader behavior on OCoP effectiveness. That is, external leaders do not exert an influence on OCoP effectiveness other than that which is conveyed through empowerment. Leaders’ influence is one of enabling and encouraging members to take ownership and control of their functioning, rather than driving results directly. In short, in collectives such as OCoPs,

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leaders truly need to exert their influence through their followers or members in order to be effective. We next discuss the OCoP core designation as an indication of legitimacy and task interdependence as an indicator of the peripherality dimension.

Core Status All formally sanctioned OCoPs can be considered legitimate, but some are likely to be viewed by members and organizational stakeholders as having enhanced legitimacy by virtue of their core status within the organization. Our sample OCoPs were designed and designated by management as “core” if they worked on issues particularly critical for attaining organizational objectives. This core/noncore distinction is not uncommon in the OCoPs literature (Cox, 2005) and reflects the relative importance of the OCoP vis-a`-vis the strategic core of the organization (cf. Barney, 1991; Delery & Shaw, 2001). In essence, an OCoP would be considered important to the strategic core if it has the potential for a disproportionately high impact on organizational performance; in our sample organization, core OCoPs tended to have at least some assigned members, explicit goals, timelines, and deliverables. Noncore OCoPs, by contrast, were more loosely designed than core ones. They tended to have fewer assigned members, and participants set their own agenda. Thus, noncore OCoPs were more structurally similar to traditional CoPs than to teams (Cordery et al., 2009; Cox, 2005). With regard to the legitimacy dimension of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) LPP theory, we argue that the core versus noncore OCoP designation would be instrumental in determining how effective and empowered OCoPs will be. First, core OCoP work will be more visible to the organization, increasing accountability and responsibility (Hall, Bowen, Ferris, Royle, & Fitzgibbons, 2007). Given OCoP members full-time job responsibilities, a core designation serves as an important signal to the collective to devote appropriate time and resources to accomplishing community objectives (cf. Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). Also, by sharing knowledge, core OCoP members will enhance their ability to generate the breakthrough innovations that are critical for OCoP effectiveness. McDermott and Archibald (2010) argued that the most effective and sustainable OCoPs tackle real problems and focus on important organizational issues. With regard to OCoP empowerment, being designated as core will likely lead members to view their OCoP tasks as more meaningful and impactful because core communities have a larger amount of demonstrable impact on bottom-line organizational performance (cf. Delery & Shaw, 1991). Core OCoPs will likely also experience greater autonomy than their noncore counterparts because of their proximity to the strategic core and the enhanced legitimacy this confers. This means that they will likely be given more discretion to make important decisions related to OCoP functioning. Finally, higher potency is likely also to be associated with core OCoPs, because members will be more likely to believe that their community activities have the potential to affect important, bottom-line organizational outcomes. Consequently, we predicted as follows: Hypothesis 3 (H3): OCoPs designated as core will be more effective than those designated as noncore.

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Hypothesis 4 (H4): OCoPs designated as core will be more empowered than those designated as noncore. Given the underlying logic of Hypotheses 3 and 4, we argue that OCoP empowerment partially mediates the influence of the OCoP core designation on OCoP effectiveness. Not only will the core status prompt greater member motivation and ownership of their actions, but it may well activate other mechanisms related to effectiveness and therefore exhibit a direct influence in our model.

OCoP Task Interdependence In theory, Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of peripherality means that to the extent that OCoP members view themselves as more integrated into their OCoPs, the more likely it is that the OCoPs will be successful. We argue that OCoPs will be more effective and more empowered to the extent that they are higher, rather than lower, in task interdependence. With regard to effectiveness, the optimal performance of any collective will result when there is an appropriate match between the demands of the task and the level of task interdependence of the collective (Thompson, 1967). Task interdependence can range from lower levels (i.e., pooled interdependence, or minimal communication and coordination required between group members to accomplish tasks) to higher levels (i.e., reciprocal interdependence, or maximum communication and coordination required between group members to accomplish tasks). For reciprocally interdependent tasks, members typically have to take into account one another’s needs when dividing up work, scheduling, and making adjustments. They must work together, pool their collective expertise, occasionally challenge and critique one another on assumptions (Wenger et al., 2002), and they must brainstorm, problem solve, back one another up, and work on projects collectively to contribute to the organization’s overall effectiveness (Cordery et al., 2009). In contrast, less interdependent OCoPs have functional experts who share knowledge with one another in response to queries from other community members and occasionally bring new information based on scientific breakthroughs or best practices to the attention of others (Cox, 2005; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Knowledge sharing can be accomplished without members being dependent on one another, as such information is typically pooled into a single location, such as a knowledge repository or database (Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003). As a result, we argue, OCoPs with lower task interdependence are not likely to share as much information with one another or to perform as effectively as do OCoPs with higher task interdependence. Whether imposed by task demands or enacted by members, OCoP task interdependence should also lead to higher levels of collective empowerment. For example, in order for OCoPs members to experience the collective belief that they can be successful (i.e., potency), they will need to have sufficient experience working in a coordinated fashion to ascertain how effective the OCoP can be. Similarly, OCoPs members will likely find their tasks more meaningful and experience more impact if all OCoP members work collectively to accomplish more ambitious goals than could be accomplished by simply pooling information (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Finally, in our sample, OCoP members had to orchestrate their actions through virtual mechanisms, across time zones and cultural differences, and also had other formal job

obligations to complete. Thus, to work interdependently in light of these challenges, OCoP members likely exhibit higher autonomy rather than rely more on OCoP leaders to overcome these barriers to communication and coordination (cf. Kirkman et al., 2004). Empirical investigations have demonstrated the positive, direct influence of task interdependence on a variety of group-level outcomes (e.g., Janz, Colquitt, & Noe, 1997; Saavedra, Earley, & Van Dyne, 1993; Shea & Guzzo, 1987; Steiner, 1972; Stewart & Barrick, 2000; Wageman, 1995). For example, Mathieu, Maynard, Taylor, Gilson, and Ruddy (2007) found positive relationships between task interdependence, processes, and performance in service teams. In addition, Gilson and Shalley (2004) found that more creative teams were those whose members perceived high levels of task interdependence. We made the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 5 (H5): Task interdependence will be positively related to OCoP effectiveness. Hypothesis 6 (H6): Task interdependence will be positively related to OCoP empowerment. Given the underlying logic pertaining to Hypotheses 5 and 6, we argue that OCoP empowerment partially mediates the influence of task interdependence on OCoP effectiveness. Here again, not only should interdependence motivate OCoP members to take ownership and control of their activities, such designs should also enable them to more efficiently align their collective efforts toward goal accomplishment. Thus, we anticipated that interdependence would exhibit both direct and indirect influences on OCoP effectiveness.

The Moderating Role of OCoP Task Interdependence Rather than proposing only that task interdependence has direct effects on OCoP empowerment and effectiveness, we also argue that task interdependence will have moderating effects. In particular, the influence of community-oriented external leadership on OCoP empowerment will be stronger when OCoPs have greater, rather than less, task interdependence. In a meta-analysis of team leadership, Burke et al. (2006) concluded that team leadership is more important for team performance when task interdependence is higher, rather than lower. Extending Burke et al.’s meta-analytic findings to the OCoPs literature, we argue that community-oriented external leadership should be more strongly related to community empowerment when task interdependence is higher, rather than lower. The basic logic underlying our argument is that because community-oriented external leader behaviors are directed toward the OCoP as a whole, these leader behaviors will have less impact on the formation of community empowerment beliefs if members do not work interdependently in carrying community tasks. In other words, there will be a mismatch between the target of these leader behaviors and how the community members actually work together. Similarly, because OCoP empowerment beliefs relate to the whole community, rather than beliefs about individual competence or impact, we also argue that OCoP empowerment will be more strongly related to OCoP effectiveness when task interdependence is higher, rather than lower. Thus, the importance of the community feeling empowered, as it relates to effectiveness, will be much greater when community members depend on one another for accomplishing community tasks.

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Chen et al. (2007) found that leaders’ empowering behaviors were more positively related to team empowerment in teams with higher, rather than lower, task interdependence, and that team empowerment was positively related to team performance in more interdependent teams but was unrelated in less interdependent teams. Similarly, Barrick, Bradley, and Colbert (2007) found that top management team mediating mechanisms related positively to performance when they were highly task interdependent, but there was no relationship among relatively non-task-interdependent teams. Accordingly, we predicted as follows: Hypothesis 7 (H7): Task interdependence will moderate the positive relationship between external leaders’ communityoriented behaviors and OCoP empowerment, such that the relationship will be stronger when the OCoP is more, rather than less, task interdependent. Hypothesis 7 advances a mediated moderation effect, whereby the interaction between community-oriented external leader behavior and task interdependence, as related to OCoP effectiveness, is mediated by OCoP empowerment. Hypothesis 8 (H8): Task interdependence will moderate the positive relationship between OCoP empowerment and OCoP effectiveness such that the relationship will be stronger when the OCoP is more, rather than less, task interdependent.

Method Sample We studied a U.S.-based multinational mining and minerals processing firm, with over 300 operations in 44 countries, that had implemented OCoPs within the past 4 years. In addition to their OCoP work, members had formal job responsibilities within their respective functions. The OCoPs were functionally based (rather than cross-functional) and were charged with generating breakthrough innovations designed to improve productivity and reduce costs throughout the company worldwide. For example, one OCoP in our sample was tasked with the development of a risk assessment tool for operating valves being used globally and another was tasked with an improved air feed valve that increased the capacity of a core technical process. Both leaders and designated members were formally assigned to communities, although volunteers were welcome to join and participate in most of the OCoPs. We contacted all designated OCoP members via an e-mail explaining the survey purpose and logistics and included a website link to an online survey. Respondents were assured of confidentiality, and surveys were administered in English, given that all OCoP activities were conducted in English. A total of 202 out of 430 designated members of 32 OCoPs responded to an online survey, representing an individual response rate of 47%. This sample was 78% male, had an average age of 41 (SD ⫽ 9.6) years, and had been with the company an average of 13 (SD ⫽ 9.3) years. The average educational level was a bachelor’s degree. OCoPs ranged in size from 5 to 36 members (average size was 14 members). Approximately two months after the member survey data were collected, we gathered data from the leaders of these OCoPs (N ⫽ 32) using a different online survey with a

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response rate of 100%. The leader sample was 90% male, had an average age of 44 (SD ⫽ 7.7) years, and had been with the company an average of 17 (SD ⫽ 7.3) years. The average educational level was a master’s degree.

Measures Core designation. The organization began implementing the OCoP program approximately three years prior to this investigation. It established a dedicated unit to (a) help identify the need for different types of OCoPs; (b) guide their establishment and design; and (c) support OCoPs’ ongoing activities. The decision to establish an OCoP as core was made by this unit at the formation stage according to whether the community’s primary focus was on technical processes within the operating core of the organization (e.g., mining, calcination, engineering, reliability). A noncore classification meant that the OCoP’s primary focus was on operations and activities outside the operating core (e.g., commercial, training, laboratory support). Of the 32 OCoPs sampled, 14 were considered core (coded 1 for analysis), and the remaining 18 were considered noncore (coded 0 for analysis). We met with directors of the support unit, who confirmed that OCoPs had been designed and continued to operate in the manner coded. Leadership and empowerment. OCoP members rated their leader’s behavior on four scales along with four subscales of empowerment. All ratings were made on 7-point agreement scales, with higher values representing more positive behaviors and empowerment. We aggregated members’ responses to align them with the OCoP level of analysis. Aggregating individuals’ responses must be justified from both substantive and psychometric bases (Rousseau, 1985). From a substantive standpoint, all items referred to average community-oriented external leadership behaviors or OCoP empowerment rather than individuals’ perceptions. From a psychometric standpoint, aggregating individuals’ responses requires sufficient within-team agreement. James, Demaree, and Wolf (1993) advanced an rwg index for evaluating member agreement. Although there is no absolute cutoff value for rwg (Lance, Butts, & Michels, 2006), median values (⬎.70) are generally considered sufficient to justify aggregation. In addition, we report aggregate level alphas and intraclass correlations (ICCs). ICC(1) represents the percentage of members’ level variance that is attributable to OCoP membership, whereas ICC(2) represents a reliability index of mean scores (Bliese, 2000). Due to the lack of existing measures of community-oriented external OCoP leader behavior and the limited applicability of traditional leadership constructs to an OCoP context, we developed four scales to assess community-oriented external leadership, each with five items, for this population using both the work of Cordery et al. (2009) and input from company subject matter experts (SMEs). The items addressed dimensions of valuable external leader behavior noted by Burke et al. (2006). We assessed taskoriented behaviors (e.g., “In general, our community leader helps us establish our performance goals”); interpersonal processes (e.g., “In general, our community leader facilitates open and honest discussions among community members”); resource acquisition (e.g., “In general, our community leader gets us whatever we need to do our job effectively”); and external boundary spanning (e.g., “In general, our community leader ensures that our efforts are aligned with the organizational mission or initiatives”). Psy-

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chometric properties were as follows: task-oriented behaviors (median rwg ⫽ .88; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .25; ␣ ⫽ .92), interpersonal processes (rwg ⫽ .88; ICC1 ⫽ .06; ICC2 ⫽ .28; ␣ ⫽ .93), resource acquisition (rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .27; ␣ ⫽ .92), and external boundary spanning (rwg ⫽ .89; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .28; ␣ ⫽ .97). Notably, although the agreement indices were uniformly high, justifying aggregation, the ICCs suggest that there is relatively little variance in OCoP leader behavior to be modeled for the hypotheses. OCoP empowerment was assessed with an adaptation (i.e., changing the word team to community) of the 12-item measure described by Kirkman et al. (2004). This measure includes three items each for the four empowerment dimensions, including potency (e.g., “My Community can get a lot done when it works hard”); meaningfulness (e.g., “My Community believes that its projects are significant”); autonomy (e.g., “My Community makes its own choices without being told by management”); and impact (e.g., “My Community performs tasks that matter to this company”). Psychometric properties were as follows: potency (median rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .07; ICC2 ⫽ .34; ␣ ⫽ .88), meaningfulness (median rwg ⫽ .90; ICC1 ⫽ .08; ICC2 ⫽ .35; ␣ ⫽ .98), autonomy (median rwg ⫽ .90; ICC1 ⫽ .06; ICC2 ⫽ .30; ␣ ⫽ .78), and impact (median rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .07; ICC2 ⫽ .31; ␣ ⫽ .95). Again, the agreement indices were uniformly high, justifying aggregation, yet the ICCs were modest, suggesting that the between-OCoP variance in empowerment might be somewhat constrained. Given that both the leadership and empowerment measures were collected from OCoP members, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using Mplus 5.2 (Muthe´n & Muthe´n, 2007) to evaluate their discriminant validity. For this analysis, we used the four substantive subscales for each construct as indicators of their respective latent variable. To gauge model fit, we report the standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) and the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990). We also report chi-square values that provide a statistical basis for comparing the relative fit of nested models. There is some debate regarding what constitutes adequate fit in SEM models (Marsh, Hau, & Wen, 2004). Therefore, we adopted the following guidelines advocated by Mathieu and Taylor (2006): Models with CFI values ⬍.90 and SRMR values ⬎.10 are deficient, those with CFI ⱖ.90 to ⬍.95 and SRMR ⬎.08 to ⱕ.10 are acceptable, and those with CFI ⱖ.95 and SRMR ⱕ.08 are excellent. The two-factor CFA model yielded excellent fit indices, ␹2(19) ⫽ 33.27, p ⬍ .05, CFI ⫽ .95; SRMR ⫽ .05. All subscales had significant (p ⬍ .05) relationships with their intended latent variable. Moreover, the two-factor CFA model fit significantly better, ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 88.91, p ⬍ .001, than did a single-factor model, ␹2(20) ⫽ 122.18, p ⬍ .001, CFI ⫽ .65, SRMR ⫽ .14, lending additional evidence of discriminant validity. Thus, we averaged the four respective subscales per construct to yield overall indices of external OCoP leadership (␣ ⫽ .98) and empowerment (␣ ⫽ .96). Task interdependence. We asked each OCoP’s external leader to rate the task interdependence of the OCoP using an adaptation (i.e., changing the word team to community) of Campion, Medsker, and Higgs’ (1993) three-item scale (␣ ⫽ .84). An example item is “Community members cannot accomplish their tasks without information or materials from other members of the

community.” We averaged the three ratings to index task interdependence. OCoP effectiveness. We conducted several semistructured interviews with company OCoP SMEs to determine what constituted effectiveness in this context. Given the diversity of the OCoP purposes, a wide variety of topics was mentioned. However, two consistent themes that applied to all were performance and knowledge sharing. Accordingly, we developed four-item, behaviorally oriented measures of each theme, vetted them with company SMEs, and then had external leaders rate their OCoPs on the eight items. We also collected the same ratings from a company SME whose job it was to facilitate and manage the entire OCoP initiative. In this fashion, we gathered outcome data both from leaders who were intimately aware of their OCoP’s functioning and from an SME who had a comprehensive perspective on OCoP operations. All items began with “This OCoP . . .” and were rated on 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) response scales. The four performance items were (a) achieves its milestones/deadlines regularly; (b) responds quickly and effectively when problems occur; (c) delivers products that are valued by internal and/or external customers; and (d) meets its business objectives. The four knowledge-sharing items were (a) calls to members’ attention new ideas and/or best practices; (b) answers questions for fellow members; (c) serves as a sounding board for members with off-the-wall ideas; and (d) provides networking and contact information outside of the OCoP’s membership. Although conceptually distinguishable, the two scales were very highly correlated (r ⫽ .90, p ⬍ .001), so we averaged them to yield an overall OCoP effectiveness criterion. This overall scale exhibited a high reliability (␣ ⫽ .94), and the leaders’ and SME’s ratings were significantly correlated (r ⫽ .54, p ⬍ .01). Therefore, we averaged the ratings from the leaders and the SME to yield the OCoP effectiveness criterion used in the analyses.

Analysis Overview We tested our hypotheses with structural equation modeling in MPlus (Muthe´n & Muthe´n, 2007). Given the limited sample size, we specified relationships (i.e., lambdas) between the latent variables and observed scale scores as equal to the square root of their corresponding reliabilities. Similarly, the measurement errors (i.e., thetas) were set equal to (1 ⫺ rxx) times the variance of the observed scores. We treated the OCoP core designation as an observed score with no measurement error. We first fit a linear effects structural model to the data, excluding the two interactions (i.e., H7 and H8). Second, we introduced the two interaction terms to the model to test their incremental validity and the hypothesized model. Mplus employs a maximum likelihood estimation approach for testing interactions (cf. Klein & Moosebrugger, 2000).

Results Table 1 contains correlations and descriptive statistics for all study variables. The fit of the linear SEM model was excellent, ␹2(1) ⫽ 2.48, ns, CFI ⫽ .963; SRMR ⫽ .028. Figure 2 shows the parameter estimates for the model. In support of H1, OCoP empowerment exhibited a significant direct relationship with OCoP effectiveness (H1; ␤ ⫽ .42, p ⬍ .05). H2 was supported, as

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Table 1 Correlations and Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables Variable

1

2

3

4

5

1. OCoP core 2. OCoP external leadership 3. Task interdependence 4. OCoP empowerment 5. OCoP effectiveness M SD

1.0 .19 .26 .08 .48ⴱⴱ 0.44 0.50

0.98 ⫺.10 .69ⴱⴱ .42ⴱⴱ 4.81 0.77

0.84 ⫺.35ⴱ .41ⴱⴱ 4.80 1.52

0.96 .20 5.31 0.73

0.96 4.65 1.61

Note. N ⫽ 32. Values on diagonal are aggregate alphas. OCoP ⫽ organizational communities of practice; SD ⫽ standard deviation. ⴱ p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.

community-oriented external leadership evidenced a significant direct effect with OCoP empowerment (H2; ␤ ⫽ .68, p ⬍ .05). The indirect effect of external leadership on OCoP effectiveness, as mediated by empowerment, was significant (.283), bootstrapped 95% CI [.02, .55], and leadership had no significant incremental direct relationship with effectiveness. These findings are consistent with an inference of full mediation, as anticipated. In support of H3, core OCoP status exhibited a significant direct relationship with OCoP effectiveness (H3; ␤ ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .05). There was no such relationship with empowerment (H4; ␤ ⫽ .04, ns), failing to support H4. Consequently, the indirect effect was not significant (.035), bootstrapped 95% CI [⫺.29, .36] rejecting the hypothesized partial mediational relationship in lieu of a direct effect inference (Mathieu & Taylor, 2006). In support of H5, task interdependence evidenced a significant direct relationship with OCoP effectiveness (H5; ␤ ⫽ .55, p ⬍ .05). However, contrary to our expectation, the linear relationship with empowerment was negative (H6; ␤ ⫽ ⫺.35, p ⬍ .05). Therefore, H6 was not supported, nor was the inference of partial mediation between task interdependence and effectiveness (indirect ⫽ ⫺.145), bootstrapped 95% CI [ ⫺.56, .27]. Collectively, the linear relationships accounted for 50% of the observed variance in OCoP effectiveness and 63% of the variance in OCoP empowerment.

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We next fit additional models that introduced interactions to test H7 and H8. First, adding an interaction between communityoriented external leadership and interdependence to the equation predicting empowerment produced a significant model improvement (H7), ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 6.82, ␤ ⫽ .43, p ⬍ .05, accounting for 8% additional variance. Second, adding an interaction between OCoP empowerment and task interdependence to the equation predicting OCoP effectiveness failed to yield a significant model improvement (H8), ⌬␹2(1) ⫽ 1.80; ␤ ⫽ .18, ns. Therefore, H7 was supported but H8 was not. We plotted the Leadership ⫻ Task Interdependence interaction using standard practices for moderated regression analyses (Aiken & West, 1991; see Figure 3). Generally speaking, the relationship between community-oriented external leadership and OCoP empowerment changed from nonsignificant to positive as OCoPs exhibited relatively higher, as compared to lower, task interdependence. These findings are consistent with the anticipated mediated moderation relationship, whereby the interactive effects between external leadership and task interdependence, as related to OCoP effectiveness, are mediated by OCoP empowerment (Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, 2007). The greatest levels of empowerment were reported by OCoPs that (a) were relatively low on task interdependence and led by individuals who were not collectively oriented and (b) were highly interdependent and had communityoriented external leaders. Thus, although the overall form of this relationship was consistent with H7, the high levels of empowerment in OCoPs with relatively low interdependence and low external OCoP leadership were not anticipated. In effect, this suggests that external leadership behaviors are relatively unimportant for OCoPs that have little task interdependence.

Discussion Despite the increasing prevalence of OCoPs worldwide (McDermott & Archibald, 2010), a key challenge to fully under-

High

Core OCoP

.29

.30*

.50 .04

CommunityOriented External Leadership

.68*

.42* Empowerment p

.43*

-.35*

Em mpowerment

Low Interdependence

Moderate Interdependence

OCoP Effectiveness

.18 .55*

Task Interdependence

High Interdependence

Low Low

High

Community-Oriented External Leadership Figure 2. Results of hypothesized model. OCoP ⫽ organizational community of practice. ⴱ p ⬍ .05.

Figure 3. Community-Oriented External Leadership ⫻ Task Interdependence interaction.

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standing OCoP effectiveness has been the lack of theoretical integration across the two literatures—CoPs and teams—that are necessary to understand the organizational form of CoPs. In an attempt to provide such a theoretical integration, we drew on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) LPP theory to identify relevant constructs that should be especially predictive of OCoP effectiveness. Adapting these constructs to the community–team hybrid form of an OCoP, we identified proxies for legitimacy (i.e., core status), peripherality (i.e., task interdependence), and participation (i.e., empowerment and external leadership). Our findings revealed a complex interplay between these four elements as they relate to OCoP effectiveness.

Theoretical Implications Our primary theoretical contribution concerns the hybrid nature of today’s OCoPs and how this shapes their functioning. OCoPs are typically a blend of traditional CoPs and organizational teams (McDermott & Archibald, 2010; Raven, 2003). To reflect these blended characteristics, we synthesized elements from the literatures relating to both in order to develop a model of key determinants of OCoP effectiveness. For example, using the participation dimension of LPP theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991), we identified community empowerment as an important predictor of OCoP effectiveness. We argued that because OCoP members carry out their community-related tasks in addition to their full-time job responsibilities, empowerment will be critical in order for them to operate effectively. As a motivational construct, empowerment suggests that OCoP members will direct attention and persistence toward OCoP tasks, even when there are competing demands placed upon them by their formal job responsibilities and when there are no formal sanctions for the success or failure of their OCoPs. In that light, members’ OCoP tasks could be viewed as extrarole behavior that is facilitated by empowerment. Our findings also inform the growing nomological net for empowerment (Spreitzer, 2008), particularly with regard to the group level of analysis (Chen et al., 2007). In addition, our findings support Kirkman et al.’s (2004) research showing that empowerment is a particularly strong predictor of virtual collaboration and suggest that empowerment is a consistent predictor of performance across a variety of collaborative organizational entities. Another theoretical contribution of our research is the identification of community-oriented external leader behaviors as an important precursor for community empowerment. We argued, due again, in part, to the split responsibilities of OCoP members and the lack of formal sanctions for the success or failure of OCoPs, that an external leader would play an important role in helping OCoP members to become more focused and motivated and to experience a sense of community empowerment. In particular, we predicted that leaders who facilitate and encourage members to jointly manage their own task-related activities (i.e., taskoriented behaviors), coach and facilitate high-quality interpersonal exchanges (i.e., interpersonal processes), align the collective’s efforts with broader organizational goals (i.e., boundary spanning), and secure valuable resources (i.e., resource acquisition) would be associated with more empowered and effective OCoPs. In support of our contention, community-oriented external leadership did influence OCoP effectiveness indirectly through its effect on empowerment. Our findings extend previous research that has shown

linkages between external team leader behavior and team empowerment (Arnold et al., 2000; Burke et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2007; de Jong et al., 2005; Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Srivastava et al., 2006) to OCoPs. Using the legitimacy dimension of LPP theory, we also argued that OCoPs that were designated as core by the organization (i.e., especially important for bottom-line outcomes) would have members who report higher levels of OCoP empowerment and be more effective than would noncore OCoPs. The core versus noncore distinction suggests that units designated as important to an organization’s strategic core will be supported and protected to a greater extent than units viewed as less important (cf. Barney, 1991; Delery & Shaw, 2001). Although there was no relationship with empowerment, we did find a positive relationship between the core designation and OCoP effectiveness. Thus, how an organization views an OCoP is critical for greater OCoP effectiveness, irrespective of empowerment. This finding is important because it again highlights the need to integrate theory from both the CoPs and the teams literatures. Finally, using the peripherality dimension of LPP theory, we argued that task interdependence should both directly promote OCoP empowerment and effectiveness and indirectly influence the extent to which community-oriented external leader behavior is related to empowerment and empowerment, in turn, is related to OCoP effectiveness. In partial support of our theoretical arguments, we found that task interdependence was directly positively associated with OCoP effectiveness. This finding underscores the theoretical contention that communities in organizations will be more effective to the extent that they have teamlike interdependencies. Contrary to our prediction, task interdependence exhibited a direct negative relationship with community empowerment. This relationship must, however, be considered in the context of the significant interaction with community-oriented external leadership. External community leadership evidenced the strongest positive relationship with empowerment in highly task interdependent OCoPs, but there was no relationship in less interdependent ones. This pattern suggests that OCoP members see themselves as empowered if they (a) need to cooperate and have a communityoriented external leader or (b) can work relatively independently and their leader does not promote teamwork and cooperation. In other words, if their external leader behavior matches OCoP interdependence, members feel more empowered. This finding could be explained by functional leadership theory (McGrath, 1962; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001), which suggests that the role of leaders is to provide whatever a collective needs that is not currently being provided by the members themselves (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010). In less interdependent, loosely structured collectives, OCoP members do not need their leaders to exhibit the behaviors we have argued are associated with community-oriented external leadership in order to develop a sense of empowerment with respect to their collective tasks. These findings also shed light on the contrasting views about the value of external leadership for OCoP effectiveness (cf. Cox, 2005; McDermott & Archibald, 2010). Our findings suggest that external team-oriented leadership is valuable for OCoP empowerment, and thereby effectiveness, in instances where the community has high task interdependence. However, those same leader behaviors are not valuable for OCoPs that have low task interdependence.

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Managerial Implications The hybrid nature of today’s OCoPs means that enhancing their effectiveness requires organizational leaders to operate levers related to both CoPs and teams, a unique challenge in the modernday workplace. Such a balancing act yields several implications. First, because empowerment is critical to OCoP effectiveness, leaders should focus on increasing members’ sense of potency, meaning, autonomy, and impact (for a detailed guide on how to increase collective empowerment, see Kirkman & Rosen, 2000). In OCoPs, specifically, leaders can enhance empowerment by using behaviors that are task oriented (e.g., helping members establish performance goals), interpersonal oriented (e.g., facilitating open and honest discussions among community members), resource acquisition oriented (e.g., ensuring that the community is adequately staffed for their projects), and external boundary spanning oriented (e.g., ensuring that community efforts are aligned with the larger organizational mission or initiatives). Second, leaders should consider how to lead their OCoPs on the basis of the interdependencies that have developed within the community. In light of our findings, external leaders should foster collective action and teamwork when OCoPs are more interdependent but adopt more individualistic-oriented behaviors when OCoPs are less interdependent. In other words, leaders should not force teamwork when the situation does not call for it. Finally, and unique to OCoPs, our findings related to the core versus noncore distinction reveals that OCoPs come in a variety of forms, and they should not all be managed in the same way. Core designed and designated OCoPs appear to be more effective through mechanisms other than empowerment. Perhaps members are willing to devote more time and attention to OCoP activities if they are deemed to be core to the business function. Yet, OCoP empowerment is also an important separate driver of OCoP effectiveness. Whereas managers have little influence on the core feature of OCoPs, they do have the opportunity to enhance OCoP empowerment, particularly in instances of high task interdependence.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research Although we sampled a large international corporation with operations around the globe, the sample size at the OCoP level was modest, raising issues of power. We also observed relatively small ICCs for members’ ratings of OCoP external leader behaviors and empowerment. Given the high agreement indices, these findings suggest a limited range across OCoPs on these variables. In other words, our findings may be attenuated by some range restriction, given that our sample came from a single organization. However, the fact that we obtained significant linear and interactive effects using the aggregated variables in this investigation was encouraging. In addition, the variable distributions confirmed that our findings were not overly influenced by statistical outliers or abnormal variable distributions. The fact that both external leadership and OCoP empowerment were measured via aggregated members’ perceptions raises an issue about the potential influence of same source effects. However, any such method effects would have to be consistent across members to be evident at the aggregate level of analysis. Moreover, whereas any common method effects could have inflated the

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magnitude of linear effects between these two variables, they could not have produced the critical interaction in this study. Evans (1985) conducted an extensive Monte Carlo study regarding whether method variance might generate artifactual interactions and concluded, “The results are clear-cut. Artifactual interactions cannot be created; true interactions can be attenuated” (p. 305). Even though our confirmatory factor analysis supported the representation of external leadership and empowerment as distinguishable latent variables, the correlation between these variables was .69, suggesting a moderately high degree of overlap and an additional limitation of our research. Also, due to sample size constraints, we were unable to examine potential unique effects for the separate dimensions of empowerment, and we encourage future researchers to undertake such a research strategy. With the above caveats acknowledged, these results certainly warrant replication and extension in future research. For example, as we noted in our literature review, very little research has attempted to systematically examine the drivers of OCoP effectiveness. Compounding this lack of understanding is confusion over how CoPs are adapted by organizations to help benefit bottom-line outcomes. Like teams, OCoPs could feasibly take many different forms varying in terms of duration, life cycle, boundary permeability, membership fluidity, and voluntariness. Perhaps the time is right for the development of a taxonomy of OCoPs. This might help both scholars and practitioners to understand that not all OCoPs are created alike and, thus, that drivers of their effectiveness are likely to differ across circumstances. In addition, today’s OCoPs are likely to interact primarily virtually and to use a large variety of electronic communication (Kimble et al., 2001). Research is needed on how OCoP members use different technologies to accomplish different tasks, particularly for those who have full-time job responsibilities. Future research should also explore the influence of OCoP composition, member interaction processes including psychological safety, and temporal relationships. The temporal or developmental dynamics are especially intriguing, as, like teams, OCoPs could be expected to exhibit a life cycle and to be subject to different influences at various stages of development (see Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008; Wenger et al., 2002). Another avenue for future inquiry would be to investigate the impact of OCoP participation on member’s personal development. If members value their experience, receive new material and learning opportunities, and are willing to participate in future OCoP (or other) activities, enhanced organizational human capital may be the ultimate criterion. Accordingly, future research should examine the influence of OCoPs functioning on members’ self-development and willingness to contribute to the organization in the future along with the value of those contributions. In conclusion, modern-day organizations are characterized by amorphous and fluid organizational arrangements. OCoPs represent a popular feature of such designs and are a hybrid of CoPs and organizational teams. These collectives offer a potentially valuable source of competitive advantage, yet they must be actively managed and supported in order to be sustainable and effective (McDermott & Archibald, 2010). We hope this investigation serves as a catalyst for greater attention being placed on these and other nontraditional collaborative entities in the future. We look forward to continued developments along these lines.

KIRKMAN ET AL.

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Received November 17, 2009 Revision received April 21, 2011 Accepted April 29, 2011 䡲