Noriko Hara 
Communities of Practice 
Fostering Peer-to-Peer Learning and Informal Knowledge Sharing in the Work Place

1.1 Introduction Each year corporations spend millions of dollars training and educating their – ployees. On average, these corporations spend approximately one thousand dollars 1 per employee each year. As businesses struggle to stay on the cutting-edge and to keep their employees educated and up-to-speed with professional trends as well as ever-changing information needs, it is easy to see why corporations are investing more time and money than ever in their efforts to support their employees’ prof- sional development. During the Industrial Age, companies strove to control natural resources. The more resources they controlled, the greater their competitive edge in the mark- place. Senge (1993) refers to this kind of organization as resource-based. In the Information Age, companies must create, disseminate, and effectively use kno- edge within their organization in order to maintain their market share. Senge – scribes this kind of organization as knowledge-based. Given that knowledge-based organizations willcontinuetobeadrivingforcebehindtheeconomy, itisimperative that corporations support the knowledge and information needs of their workers.

Table of Content

Theoretical Foundation.- Ethnographic Accounts of a Community of Practice in Square County.- Characteristics of a Community of Practice in Square County.- Communities of Practice and Information Technologies in the Circle County Public Defender’s Office.- Online Communities of Practice: Beyond Organizational Boundaries.- Toward an Understanding of Communities of Practice.