Abstract:

Recognized as crucial instruments for intertwining work, learning, and innovation within organizations, developing learning communities are a strategic choice within Dutch Top Sector programs. This national initiative invests in nine key industry sectors where the Netherlands currently globally leads in solving (societal and business) problems and aims to maintain its leadership position (Topsectoren, 2016).

A learning community is a group of individuals who collaboratively exchange knowledge and experiences centered around specific themes. Community members join forces and engage in shared learning to enhance their ability to address (individually or collectively experienced) practical problems and challenges (Coenders, 2015; Wenger, Trayner, & De Laat, 2011). They use each other's practical experiences and connections as a source for learning to quickly solve problems, share knowledge, and make new connections. Learning communities are complex and take various forms, manifest themselves in diverse constellations of individuals and organizations, and evolve through different states. However, unfortunately they do not inherently 'grow and flourish' on their own.

To gain insight into how the design, facilitation, and configuration of learning communities impact their potential effectiveness to intertwine (individual and collective) work, innovation and learning processes, we conducted a cross-case study within the logistics and transport sector. Given this sector’s unique challenges, such as the need to proactively manage workers’ sustainable employability amidst the prospects of increasing robotization and automation, we selected and thoroughly examined nine cases from a pool of twenty broader learning communities. Our research approach involved collecting relevant documents through desk research and conducting semi-structured interviews with project leaders of the learning communities. The analysis of each case, rooted in Wenger’s work on learning communities/communities of practice, aimed to identify both the design and facilitating factors of learning communities that were taken to foster intertwining work, learning and innovation.

The results of this cross-case analysis reveal distinct variations in facilitation styles and the degree of structured design across different learning communities. Moreover, attention given to specific design factors varies amongst cases. Additionally, we found that commonly identified facilitating and stimulating conditions known from existing research on learning communities are, in most instances, not systematically implemented. Consequently, theory-based guidelines to foster learning communities’ effectiveness to intertwine work, innovation, and learning and enhance their sustainability over time often remain unexploited in practice. We conclude that learning communities effectiveness in practice might, to some extent, be contingent on the structured and systematic consideration of design factors and guidelines. This will be the focal point of a forthcoming study, in which we will delve deeper into the (perceived) effectiveness of communities to intertwine work, innovation and learning, as experienced by both facilitators and participants.

Keywords:

Learning communities, communities of practice, workplace learning, collaborative learning, professional development, innovation, lifelong learning.