ORGANISATION vs COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE(cop)

ORGANISATION

Its an social arrangement which deals with collective goals,controls its performance and has a boundary which seperates from its environment.


ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE:


Any organisation is made up of more than one person working in a particular organised structure. Consider a company as an organisation it is owned by the shareholders that choose directors to look after their interests, and the directors appoint managers and other staff to run the company on a day to day basis.

The managing director takes responsibility of the company like targets of the company, keeping an eye on all the departments of the company etc. So in a organisation like a manufacturing company there are many departments and each depatment is taken care of carefully, for example production department is supervised by production manager, so all the respective departments mangers give their respective reports to the managing director and according to the report the managing director calls for the decision. By this we can say that in
any organisations all the decisions or the day to day work are done in an organised way where the time factor plays an important role.


Other organisations have structures for example some organisations have marketing department for market research and market planning.Many manufacturing organisations are divided up on functional lines, production department is most important department in most of the organisations. So we can say that in any organisation to achieve their main goal all the things are to be done in an organised manner like dispatching the goods in time or else there will be loss to the company and also to the public.


COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE(COP)

Its a social learning process that occurs and shared socialcultural practices which can emerge and evolve when the people have the common goals interact as they reach towards those goals.


A community of practice is a group of people sharing common interest to achieve a common goal . They possess knowledge, which is the key role for the success of the organisation, the main objective is to get knowledge assets.


WHAT IS DONE IN A COP ?


1. Sharing the knowledge to grow your own knowledge and the group.

2. Develop knowledge assets.

3. Measure the value they add to the organisation.

4. Ensures continuous improvement and innovation.



ROLES IN A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE



SPONSOR:


The sponsor might be a senior manager who can link to the COP to specific organisations programs and projects, which builds the road for the community success. He believes in the value of sharing of knowledge and promotes participation in COP activities. More than one person may share sponsorship, this may be important if community membership spams multiple organisations.



Sponsors related responsibilities:

1. Manage official relationships.

2. Makes community participation a prioroty for its members.

3. Promote the COP



MEMBERS


Members are those people who populate COP, they might be connected by their interests in a business process or might be similar professions, this activities include:

1. Sharing knowledge and their personal experiences.

2. Participating in discussions, raising issues, questions and concerns regarding the common area of practice.


The members might be expects on the subject matter or those who are eager to learn and develop within COP.

In any COP its not compulsory to do the things in a proper way or organised way, its totally different from organisation, here decisions and the work can be flexible and it doesnt effect the people when the decisions are made late or after the tne required time.


MY VIEW


In any organisation like a manufacturing company all the work and all the decisions like production or goods or dispatching of goods or marketing strategies all the important decisions must be done in an organised way wherein the time factor plays a vital role. For example in a manufacturing company if the goods are not dispatched in time then the company would be in loss and also loss to the public.


In community of practice all the meetings or the decisions in the meetings are flexible here the time factor is not so important and also does'nt effect the public much. For example Orkut which is a social network sometimes it is not active due to some technical problems, it simple says to try later which doesnt make much difference to the public . So in my view i say that community of practice has a upper hand(advantage) than organisation (company).



REFERENCES


1. JUDI SUNDROCK, 2001, BUILDING AND SUSTAINING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE.

2. MC DERMOTT, R. (2001). CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT.

3. SCHEIN, E.H.(1993). ON DIALOGUE, CULTURE AND ORGANISATIONS LEARNING, ORGANISATIONAL DYNAMICS, 22(2), 40-51.(WWW.THE TIMES 100).

4. KIM, D.H.(1993, FALL). THE LINK BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING SLOAN.(WWW.THE TIMES 100).