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Communities of practice: control or autonomy?

Thibaut Bardon and Stefano Borzillo

Thibaut Bardon is Associate Professor of Strategy at Audencia Nantes School of Management, Nantes, France. Stefano Borzillo is Associate Professor of Strategy and Knowledge Management at SKEMA Business School, Paris, France.

Introduction

Communities of practice (CoPs) are groups of individuals who share a common interest in a specific topic and gain knowledge about such a topic by practicing long enough together (Wenger et al., 2002). More precisely, CoPs are informal and self-organized networks of peers with diverse skills and experience in an area of practice or a profession. Members of these informal networks are bound by a desire to share and develop knowledge together.

The autonomy that is left to members is necessary to explore innovative and groundbreaking directions which deviate from an organization’s conventional routines (Borzillo and Kaminska, 2011). In reality, CoPs participate in organizational learning and innovation because members share and develop knowledge and new practices together on a voluntary basis. CoPs can however not be left fully autonomous. They should be guided, or controlled, to a certain extent in order to keep the members active and stimulated by their knowledge-sharing activities (Kirkman et al., 2011).

The question of how to balance control and autonomy has not been resolved yet. If members perceive too much managerial control, the spontaneity of their knowledge exchanges is at risk (Thompson, 2005). At the same time, members need managerial guidance to provide them with knowledge goals to accomplish in the community (McDermott and Archibald, 2010).

This study therefore addresses how CoP members subjectively experience control and autonomy, and how this influences their motivation to develop knowledge in the community.

The research setting

This research investigates in situ experiences of middle managers in Custoprog, a large customer-oriented CoP set up by the top management of EuroAirport (an international airport in Western Europe). Custoprog fulfills a strategic purpose for EuroAirport, being part of a customer-oriented program initiated by the airport’s top management. Members of Custoprog have a mission of developing knowledge and new practices aimed at improving travelers’ satisfaction at different steps of their on-site experience at the airport. Concretely, the Custoprog CoP aims to develop new practices focused on improving travelers’ experiences in areas such as parking, display and atmosphere in the main hall, optimization of waiting lines, rapid access to travelers’ flight and transit information, cleanliness and sanitary facilities, luggage delivery and arrival, complaints and claims and hotel bookings. Approximately 130 middle managers are involved in Custoprog, both from EuroAirport and from companies operating on-site (airline companies, catering, customs, duty-free, handling, etc.). Officially, participation in Custoprog is voluntary. Custoprog is sponsored and strategically guided by a steering committee consisting of EuroAirport’s

DOI 10.1108/JBS-02-2015-0018 VOL. 37 NO. 1 2016, pp. 11-18, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0275-6668 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY PAGE 11

CEO, two senior managers and five “Custoprog coaches” (five managers), as well as three external consultants.

The official role of coaches and external consultants is to support Custoprog members in developing knowledge to elaborate and implement new practices at EuroAirport. In times when international airports are under increased pressure to improve travelers’ on-site experience, Custoprog appears to be a promising solution to achieve this strategic goal at EuroAirport.

Data collection

For this study, 22 semi-directive interviews were conducted over a period of eight months – 14 interviews with Custoprog members, and eight interviews with steering committee members (including EuroAirport’s CEO, two senior managers and five Custoprog coaches). Interviewees had between 8 and 32 years’ working experience at EuroAirport. They work in various departments, including communication, marketing, cargo, passengers, security and facilities. They are all EuroAirport middle managers who volunteered to become Custoprog members. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Nvivo10 software.

Findings

The data showed that members of the Custoprog CoP simultaneously experience autonomy and managerial control, positively as well as negatively. This affects their motivation to develop knowledge and new practices together, both positively and negatively. This is described next, through members’ personal accounts.

When CoP members experience autonomy positively

Providing autonomy to CoP members is beneficial for developing knowledge. Two main observations emerge from our data:

First, granting members autonomy and discretion over their participation and level of engagement has a positive effect in terms of knowledge development in the Custoprog CoP. Members are particularly motivated and pro-active in developing knowledge together because they volunteered to participate in the CoP and are aware of their purpose in the community. One of them said:

We all knew why we were here. I think that’s group spirit. We were all tightly connected and motivated to do the job because we knew why we were here. This is what made us move forward, and why everyone brought something to the group.

The second observation relates to the autonomy members experience during CoP activities. Members argue that the CoP gains efficacy because they can determine freely, without asking management for permission, which ideas deserve to be investigated further to improve customer satisfaction, the roles and responsibilities of each CoP member and who to include in the process of idea generation and practice development. For instance, a member mentioned how being able to interact freely with people beyond hierarchical barriers boosts the activity of the CoP:

Custoprog was a good initiative to make customer service progress and improve. It was interesting for us because it enabled us to establish contact with other services with which we hadn’t established a contact before. It made the communication between services more horizontal. We could now contact these services without having to go through management, who usually channels the info between services. It made things go faster, in fact.

When CoP members experience autonomy negatively

Autonomy also has a negative impact, or at best one that is not significant, on knowledge development in the Custoprog CoP.

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First, members are disappointed that people in the community can freely choose the knowledge area of the CoP in which they participate, even if they have no competence and expertise in any of the topics the Custoprog CoP covers. One of the members underlined the bad consequences – for knowledge development – of giving people too much autonomy regarding the knowledge area in which they could be involved in the community:

The problem I had with Custoprog is that there are people in here who have no clue of what they’re talking about. On the other hand, you also find people who worked on various topics and who are very motivated. These people worked a lot and they can think properly. However, I still find it frustrating for those people who get really involved. They invest a lot of time in here, and at the end of the day, nothing comes out of their work, because some of the people in here lack the understanding of the core concepts that we try and develop in this community. I find it unfortunate that we provide an opportunity for the motivated people in this community to develop ideas, to rack their brains, et cetera, without giving them a solid basis to develop their work and ideas further.

Second, it is problematic that members autonomously define their level of engagement and participation in the CoP. More precisely, members engage in sub-groups of the CoP, where each group focuses on a specific topic of customer satisfaction. The consequence of this lack of control on participation and engagement is that some members do not deliver their part of the work, which slows down knowledge development. As a member said:

In the group I was involved in, for example, we were five. But in fact, you end up working in pairs with one person, and the three others are excluded. Well, not exactly excluded, I would say, but slightly left out because they didn’t show availability or interest in the group work, as there’s no obligation to participate. So of course, in these conditions, we move on really slowly.

Third, more than being perceived negatively, autonomy is experienced as useless, as the Custoprog CoP is embedded in and constrained by the corporate environment of EuroAirport. A member’s account was quite revealing when he suggested that possibilities to propose innovative ideas to improve customer satisfaction were theoretically important to EuroAirport but practically limited to develop in the CoP:

Top managers at EuroAirport tell us that there is this area, or service, to improve, and that it’s up to us to improve it! But then when you dig into the details of the implications that these improvements may have, you realize you can’t always make things move along. So, sometimes, it’s a little frustrating!

Fourth, autonomy puts some CoP members in an insecure position because it takes them out of the comfort zone they are used to in the organization. One member perceived autonomy as an “unsettling” and “unusual” responsibility that pressurized him, rather than the empowering opportunity he initially expected:

Many of us like to have autonomy, but we also lose our landmarks. In fact, autonomy can be destabilizing for us. In our ordinary job, we are used to working around divisions. But, in this community it’s a bit different. We have to cope with things differently. It’s destabilizing. We’re responsible for leading topics to completion, and this is a true constraint. Plus, we don’t always have the means to do things on our own, and we depend on the collaboration with others. So, the constraint is that we cannot do everything on our own, as there is some teamwork that requires other competencies. So, I can tell you, this is not easy!

Fifth, autonomy can put CoP members in an insecure position vis-à-vis collaborators in the organization because it challenges existing ways of functioning at EuroAirport. One of the members revealed this situation when he explained how his new autonomy in the CoP puts him in a difficult situation vis-à-vis his hierarchical manager at EuroAirport, and how this affects his initiative to develop knowledge in the CoP:

It isn’t very easy for me, because above me there is someone higher in the hierarchy. It’s Mr X., who is the head of my department. You need to understand that in this community, there are a lot of things that considerably affect the formal service at EuroAirport, and almost only the service. And myself, not being head of service, and hearing someone in the community telling

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me “Come on, do it yourself, you’re free to develop what you want,” is a little awkward for me because the head of my department isn’t aware of it.

When CoP members experience control positively

Control over the CoP also has a positive impact on knowledge development.

First, some members consider Custoprog coaches not so much as people in charge of controlling their CoP but as useful resources to help initiate, plan, stimulate and structure the CoP’s activities. A member mentioned how beneficial coaches were in boosting knowledge development in the CoP:

The coaches are here just to verify that we stay on the right track, or to make sure that we understand the Custoprog concept well. The concept is to combine different ways of functioning. So, the coaches are here to monitor that it works well. In fact, they’re here to make things happen in the community, to increase our rhythm of work, to support us when necessary, to redirect us when we’re not sure where we are heading and if we’re a little lost, and then making sure that all of their support leads us to produce something concrete.

Second, some members regard Custoprog coaches as an opportunity – a direct link to EuroAirport’s top management. CoP members then use coaches as channels to convey information and influence decision-making at top management level, which affects the nature of the innovative ideas that should be developed in the CoP. A member’s account shows how he experienced what others in the CoP perceived as a form of control instead as an opportunity to stimulate the CoP’s activities around generating new ideas:

Let’s take the case of Didier, for example, who was in charge of the follow up for us. Didier was directly connected to the top management team, and this enabled us to move forward on issues. He could actually contribute to something, not just put us under pressure, but also make topics move forward. He had a leverage effect internally to make decisions happen.

When CoP members experience control negatively

Control also has negative consequences for the Custoprog CoP’s activities in terms of knowledge development. Specifically, two forms of control were experienced as decreasing the innovative potential of the CoP.

First, some members recounted that Custoprog coaches did not support CoP members as initially announced, but instead pressurized them to deliver faster. Several members argued that such control over productivity negatively affects the innovative potential of the CoP because it pushes members to prefer simple and quick ideas to more complex and relevant innovations that would have taken more time to develop, but would really have increased customer satisfaction. One of the members said:

After a few weeks, a Custoprog coach was doing some checking on our community. It was essential for him that we show ideas and results, like a sign on the toilet door, for example, that says “push, pull”. But what the heck, that’s not what our community is all about! It sucks! But it was essential for the coach that we show results. In reality, there were things that seemed much more important to me than the toilet doors, you know. And then, there also was the initiative about taxis, which could have been a good idea. But, it became a bad idea, because the coach required that we implement it fast. So, as a result, the taxi initiative was implemented too fast, just because there was this absolute need to implement something. Just to show that things were working in our community. And then, EuroAirport top managers got back to the taxi initiative, and this caused me to receive some claims from them. All of this impatience from coaches is the negative side of this story.

Second, some members complained about the control the steering committee (composed of senior managers) exerted over them. The committee is in charge of deciding which ideas, in fine, should be implemented at EuroAirport. Some members experienced such control as a form of censorship that demotivates their initiative to

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develop new knowledge and consequently kills the CoP’s innovative potential. A member recalled:

We made proposals, and even proposals that could have turned out to be very innovative, because we were told that we were free to propose what we wanted. As a result, we made proposals to the steering committee. After that, the committee said “yes” or “no” to our proposals. If the committee said “yes”, we went ahead. If it said “no”, the proposal was abandoned. The truth is, we had not been given explicit limitations for the development of our ideas. No one had explicitly set us limits. However, after the final decision was made from the committee, whether to accept or reject our proposal, we quickly realized that in fact there were very clear limits that the committee had been hiding from us.

Managerial implications

Two key ideas stem from the results of this study. First, autonomy can be perceived as a form of “insidious control”: CoP members are naturally driven to work for the success of the CoP because they are given full empowerment. Second, autonomy may not always suit all members of a CoP: some individuals feel a sense of insecurity, have difficulties in making decisions or do not know how to act, when they are suddenly given substantial leeway of action.

From these two ambivalent consequences of autonomy, it is clear that CoP members need to be subtly guided in their effort to learn how to become self-reliant and deal with the responsibilities autonomy brings, rather than being given full autonomy and no strategic direction right away. We therefore suggest five guidance mechanisms that help provide a sense of direction (control) to CoP members while giving them sufficient autonomy in their degree of involvement in the CoP.

Next, we explain how each mechanism has a positive impact on the development of practices in the CoP.

Set strategic objectives for the CoP

The CoP leader(s) should formulate objectives that are aligned with the organization’s corporate strategy. Objectives give CoP members a concrete direction to follow when developing practices. Such objectives should be related to certain metrics that a practice should achieve: cost reduction, revenue increase, time reduction, increased customer satisfaction, etc. Setting these metrics clarifies the strategic relevance of their CoP to the members. As a result, members get involved more actively in the process of practice development, as they recognize and understand the financial impact and operational benefits of using such practices in the organization.

Classify objectives into sub-topics

The CoP leader(s) should structure these objectives around sub-topics to clarify the different areas in which the members should develop practices to them. Mapping out the objectives explicitly presents and details a range of CoP sub-topics into which members are invited to invest their knowledge to develop practices with other members.

This principle can be applied to the Custoprog CoP, with the overall objective of developing practices that improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency at EuroAirport (Table I).

Structuring objectives into sub-topics clarifies to the CoP members the precise fields in which they are encouraged to develop and improve practices. It is an illustrative way of detailing the realization of these objectives in a structured way. It should therefore lead to a more targeted development and improvement of practices among members, who will know exactly which outputs are expected from their CoP.

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Revise objectives in an ongoing and participative way

The CoP leader(s) should set the CoP’s objectives ongoingly. Suggestions from members must be considered seriously, and objectives should be “refreshed” accordingly. If members know that their personal objectives are taken into consideration and understand why and how these objectives were formulated, they will feel more involved in the CoP’s activity of practice development.

Revising objectives ongoingly keeps the CoP responsive to the evolving environment in its area of activity. It supports creativity and innovativeness by stimulating members to come up with fresh ideas. Objectives should also be revised in a participative way, as this inevitably leads to group discussions about problems and potential improvements related to practices. Such discussions contribute to increasing members’ conviction regarding the usefulness of the CoP’s practices for their daily operational activities. This “democratic” participative way of building objectives stimulates members to participate in the process of developing practices with their peers with a higher sense of belonging, and greater interest.

Designate one or several self-developing-oriented CoP leader(s)

Depending on the CoP’s size, it is advisable to designate one or several CoP leader(s) whose engagement in the CoP is driven by the need to fill their own knowledge gaps related to problem-solving and practices in their daily operations.

The idea is that it makes full sense for CoP leader(s) to drive a community in which they know that they can benefit from the other members’ knowledge in solving their own operational problems. This deepens their knowledge of the range of practices that are developed in the CoP. The leader(s) should create a stimulus between the members and themselves, with practices being developed via active and ongoing knowledge contributions from both sides. This stimulus can be created in the group if the CoP leader openly presents unsolved problems and asks members for practical solutions or recommendations. This should contribute to creating an open debate among members, during which fresh ideas and knowledge will end up as a solution (in the form of a practice) to solve the initial problem. By instigating the debate this way, the leader activates the sharing of new ideas and knowledge among members, until the most appropriate practice to solve the initial problem is agreed upon by members, and voted the “best” practice.

Segment the CoP into sub-CoPs

The leader should make the CoP attractive for members (and potential members) by dividing it into sub-CoPs, with each sub-CoP indexing good practices relative to a specific area of the CoP’s general practice. Clustering the CoP in this way enables members to enter different “hubs” each time they seek for a good practice related to a specific CoP knowledge area. They can then implement it more easily in a particular field in their daily operations.

A member looking for a solution to a problem related to a specific part of the CoP’s practice will be able to identify the right “hub” where he/she will find the type of practice

Table I Classifying objectives into sub-topics: examples from Custoprog

Sub-topics Objectives (develop practices that fulfill the following requirements)

Rapid access to flight and transit information

Instant and ubiquitous information for travelers Simplified portal for information display

Luggage delivery and arrival Build more integrated logistic processes Build processes that minimize delivery time

Complaints and claims Reduce and simplify claim-related process steps Build and record lessons learned from complaints

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he/she is looking for. Simultaneously, a member who holds a good practice that could reduce cost and time or increase quality in a specific working context, knows precisely in which sub-CoP to post it so that the other members can access it. The good practices should be posted in sub-CoPs in well-written, illustrated and classified documents.

Chances are that members will perceive these sub-divisions of the CoP as very convenient. Consequently, they may be more inclined to visit “hubs” regularly in search of good practices, as this is a quicker and easier solution. Good practice sharing might therefore be stimulated because of members being more willing to access practices from a platform that clearly states what it offers. At the same time, members might be more willing to post and share good practices on a platform where they know their contributions will match other members’ demand.

Members should nurture ongoing interactions and share good practices with one another in sub-CoPs. Group discussions often improve the practices that are shared and contribute to developing them until they become even better. Finally, specific practices should also be developed from scratch in each “hub”, in order to solve a problem common to all CoP members.

Conclusion

CoP objectives must be aligned with the organization’s activity (exert control) and adaptable to members’ specific needs (provide autonomy) regarding changes in their organizational units. This is the fundamental starting point of how CoPs achieve a delicate balance between control and autonomy.

CoPs should evolve in an organizational context in which members enjoy total freedom with network collaboration across their respective units. In such a context, management must encourage intra-organizational collaboration, while avoiding the temptation to exert tight control over these networks of practitioners toward producing results. Ideally, knowledge exchanges among members must take place at a pace and rhythm these practitioners choose.

Last but not least, guiding CoPs to develop practices essentially requires a strong coordinating leader who is able to keep abreast of other network members’ competencies in order to coordinate them better. The leader should drive members to develop practices that contribute to increased organizational performance (quality, customer satisfaction and cost and time reduction). However, any form of tight control that members perceive as similar to the control they are submitted to in their formal organizational unit or project team, will disturb the spontaneous nature of these CoPs and will probably kill the sense of enthusiasm and self-reliant professional development that should prevail in CoPs.

References

Borzillo, S. and Kaminska-Labbé, R. (2011), “Unraveling the dynamics of knowledge creation in communities of practice through complexity theory lenses”, Knowledge Management Research and Practice, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 353-366.

Kirkman, B.L., Cordery, J.L., Mathieu, J.E., Rosen, B. and Kukenberger, M. (2011), “Managing a new collaborative entity in business organizations: understanding organizational communities of practice effectiveness”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 96 No. 6, pp. 1234-1245.

McDermott, R. and Archibald, D. (2010), “Harnessing your staff’s informal networks”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 88 No. 3, pp. 1-7.

Thompson, M. (2005), “Structural and epistemic parameters in communities of practice”, Organization Science, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 51-64.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Keywords: Customer satisfaction, Community of practice, Innovation, Autonomy, Best practices, Managerial control

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About the authors

Thibaut Bardon is an Associate Professor of Strategy at Audencia Business School in Nantes, France. His domains of expertise are Strategic Management, Organization Theory, Mergers and Acquisitions, Knowledge Management and Project Management. Thibaut Bardon is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Stefano Borzillo is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Knowledge Management at SKEMA Business School in Paris, France. His domains of expertise are Strategic Management, Organizational Behavior, Organization Theory and Knowledge Management.

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