The emergence of learning communities: a conceptual analysis

A central issue in theories of organizational learning concerns the relation between knowledge of individuals and knowledge at the level of an organization. ‘Communities’ form a crucial intermediate level, in which knowledge links between individuals are achieved, and which then somehow form the basis for organizational learning. Hence the importance of the study of such communities. The focus of this paper is on communities for exploration rather than exploitation. Exploration requires diversity of knowledge and skill, but there must be sufficient mutual understanding and commitment to utilize the opportunities of diversity. This paper focuses on the question how that can be achieved, in terms of a shared system of meanings.