Learning and Doing in Communities: Understanding Knowledge Management through the Lens of Activity Theory

In businesses, government departments and educational institutions, most innovative knowledge creation is achieved, not at the organisational or individual level, but in communities of people who have come together with a common interest. This paper describes a sequence of cases from a research project on the development of socio-technical systems, which support geographically dispersed communities, demonstrating that such communities are viable for both practice and learning, within and between organisations. The Cultural Historical Activity Theory concept of activity is used as the unit of analysis to explain what individuals or small groups of people do in a variety of contexts when supported by socio-technical systems in a flexible, multifaceted model of learning through practice in communities.