A Process-Oriented and Technology-Based Model of Virtual Communities of Practices: Evidence from a Case Study in Higher Education

In this paper we hypothesize that community of practices are valuable to Business Schools and Universities because they contribute to the knowledge management cycle for organisational learning. Drawing upon our experience at the e-Business Management Section of Scuola Superiore ISUFIUniversity of Lecce (Italy), we‘ll present a process-oriented model of a Virtual Community of Practices (VCoPs), called “Virtual eBMS”, together with the description of the integrated e-learning and Knowledge Management platform, along with the description of the services supporting the creation and the development of the community. Finally, some preliminary results and value created through the use of the “Virtual eBMS” will be presented.