WengerChapter-2

Discussion Leader: XiaomuZhou

Based on PaulResnick suggestions, I have made some changes on the first verstion. But I still keep Paul's comments.

Introduction

In Part I of the whole book (i.e. Introduction I to chapter 5 and Coda I), Wenger addresses the characteristics of practice in a special kind of community (i.e. community of practice). According to him, this kind of community involves more interactions and complex activities through cooperation. As Wenger says in Introduction I,

the “collective learning results in practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore to call these kinds of communities communities of practice.”

(although Paul suggested we read Intro.I after we finish other chapters, I think these several sentences from it could help us understand what kind of community his discussion focuses on, so I quote them here)

After discussing what the “negotiation of meaning” involves. as one of characteristics of community of practice in Chapter 1, this chapter further defines this special kind of community through three dimensions of communities of practice, which are 1) mutual engagement, 2) joint enterprise, and 3) a shared repertoire.

Key Points/Claims

Based on the groundwork of associating practice with the formation of community, Wenger describes three dimensions by which practice creates the coherence of a community, as summarized below:

<PaulResnick:> I found Wenger's language, which you paraphrase in the sentence above, very difficult to understand. I think it would help for us to try to rephrase it in some clearer way. One possibility is that "dimensions" are constituent parts. Under this interpretation, the way to use the framework is to go around looking for whether an entity has a joint enterprise, a shared repertoire, and mutual engagement. If so, it's a CofP. But whether something is a CofP doesn't seem like a very interesting question. Another interpretation, which I prefer, is that these three "dimensions" are (metaphorically) axes in space. Any particular community of practice occupies some point along each of the dimensions. We would not describe any particular community of practice by saying it has mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire, but by saying what it has along each of those dimensions. The problem with this interpretation is that Wenger doesn't really describe each of the "dimensions" as having alternative points that occupy different positions along that dimension. But I still think it's a more useful to interpret his notion of three dimensions. </end PaulResnick> [What then are the consequences of different degrees for these dimensions? Does a community that has a high level of engagement also have more rapid learning taking place? If a community has a very high level of shared repertoire, does that mean that they are less adaptable and have a high barrier to entry for new participants? If this is the case, then can there be interventions that can shift the community along these axes. Can we take advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of communities at different placements along the axes. ErikWJ] AnonymousCoward : I think that image does help clarify Wenger's intention. Thanks.

Although titled as “Community”, this chapter actually talks about the three dimensions of practice. Wenger develops his idea of practice as “community” through 1) how it functions (i.e. mutual engagement), 2) what is the result of this process (i.e. joint enterprise), and 3) what capability it has produced (i.e. shared repertoire).
[PaulResnick: This is a very interesting characterization of the three "dimensions." I'm not sure it works completely, though. Doesn't mutual engagement make use of the shared repertoire? Isn't the shared repertoire also produced, along with the joint enterprise?]

Mutual engagement
Mutual engagement explains how a community of practice functions to bind people together and facilitate healthy relationship and trust. It is realized through a membership mechanism in a community of practice, which actually defines the community.
[PaulResnick: I suggest replacing the sentence above with, "Mutual engagement exists when when people take actions whose meanings they negotiate with one another." I don't think trust and healthy relationships are required, as you note below.]

Joint enterprise
Joint enterprise is the result of a process through which people do things together toward a common goal.

Shared repertoire
Shared repertoire describes the common resources that have been produced or adopted throughout the history of a community’s development. It includes routines, words, tools, stories, norms, symbols, actions, concepts, etc. Members of the community use them to negotiate meanings.

(So my understanding from Wenger’s talking is that ambiguity should be celebrated because it is the fuel to make new forms of things to happen, such as culture, technology, concepts, etc.)


To connect the concepts of these three dimensions with the main discussion from chapter 1, Wenger states that 1) Participation and reification can be seamlessly interwoven through mutual engagement; 2) A joint enterprise can create relations of mutual accountability without ever being reified, discussed or stated; and 3) Shared history of engagements can become resources for members to negotiate meaning, which, according to him, is the constant process of the human experience.

Critique:

Although this chapter gives reader richer discussions of communities of practice through these three dimension, I am still not clear what the logic is to use these three dimensions to define a community of practice and whether three dimensions cover all main characteristics of communities of practice. Along with JudeYew’s critique for chapter 1, I also feel Wenger is weak in discussing the relationship of the three dimensions and how they influence one another, which (I guess) is why I often feel the author likes to list what he thinks without strong arguments to support. Honestly, I do not appreciate his writing style. For instance, he develops this argument with a series of negative sentences which eventually still do not tell you explicitly what his points are (P74). It should be agreed that good authors do not make readers spend too much effort to understand the basic points of their arguments.
The last point is not necessarily true. Sometimes a good author will make the reader work to insure that 1) the reader gets it and 2) the reader takes it away as his own. Once we put the effort into negotiating a meaning with the text, we're much less likely to forget it. FrankLester: I would not necessarily go so far as to say that Wenger's negative sentences do not tell you what his points are. Sometimes stating a negative is a method of getting the reader to see a point by exposing the absence of the positive. The sentences on page 74, for example, tell us something about communities of practice simply by stating what they are not: they aren't merely social categories or identities of allegiance; they aren't merely networks of interpersonal relations; they aren't necessarily defined by geographical proximity. However, I would agree that Wenger's descriptions of what the three dimensions are could be more concrete. The comments on this page seem to establish that some of us have struggled with what exact meanings Wenger is trying to impart, as well as more basic questions such as what the dimensions of practice as the property of a community are meant to represent. Are they shifting points upon an axis? Are they circles on a Venn diagram that vary depending on their "size" (i.e., how much of each dimension a community possesses) within the specific community being talked about?

Connection to other readings, ideas etc

Wenger addresses that in a community of practice, mutual accountability plays a central role in defining the circumstances. A related reading regarding to the issue of accountability is that Nissenbaum (1997) warns that accountability is eroding in computerized societies. The problem of many hands, bugs, blaming the computer (when damage happens), and software ownership without liability are four barriers to accountability in computing systems. Although Nissenbaum’s recommendation to increase accountability is widely accepted, some researchers question the concept of accountability in open source software community where developing software collaboratively, licensing it openly, and distributing its source code freely leads to a different understanding of accountability than Nissenbaum’s.
BenjaminChiao: I agree that there's a connection and would add the following. Nissenbaum (1997) argues that liability should not be understood as a substitute for accountability. Appraisals of liability are grounded in the plight of a victim, whereas appraisals of accountability are grounded in the relationship of an agent to an outcome. And she goes so far as to promoting the use of strict liability for producers of computer systems and software. Since there is always a tradeoff point between accountability and liability, it calls for value judgment. [PaulResnick: I don't understand why there's a tradeoff.] Liability alone can be solved by cost-benefits analysis because it is victim-centered for compensation solution—so the deep-pocket solution (p. 59) can solve for example the problem of the many hand because a satisfactory compensation source (such as sharing the burden of the collective in order to lessen the burden of an individual). But if accountability is the only concern, each member of the collective group can in principle be equally held liability, without any thinning out. [PaulResnick: Is Nissenbaum's notion of accountability the same as that in Wenger? It seems like Wenger uses a conventional definition, but from what you've written perhaps Nissenbaum has a more specific notion in mind.]

XiaomuZhou: Wenger states that the shared repertoire remains inherent ambiguity. Karl Weick (1995, Sensemaking in Organization, chapter 4 – occasions for sensemaking) explains that ambiguity refers to an ongoing stream that supports several different interpretation at the same time. In the case of ambiguity, people engage in sensemaking because they are confused by too many interpretations. Weick addresses clearly why and how ambiguity occurs in an organization (P91~95)

Class Discussions

CathyLu : A few more points I would like to add to Xiaomu’s summary based upon WengerChapter2:
1. Mutual engagement is an essential component of any practice. According to Wenger, sustaining a community requires a lot of “maintenance” work and is often done by community members voluntarily. (Here Wenger gives the example of Roberta providing supply of snacks all the time and being unrecognized. I doubt about the altruistic explanation on this behavior but instead suspect this is also a way of building a harmonious relationship for her. She is definitely recognized because her coworkers all know who provides the candy and enjoy this treat. Wenger does not back up his argument but simply stresses her generosity and contribution to the community of practice.)

2. As a conclusion of the effect of the three dimensions of community of practice on the process of negotiating meaning. Wenger argues that communities of practice do not provide a privileged context for the latter. [KathyLee: I thought he was saying that they do provide a privileged context, but should not be romanticized. see below] They are not privileged nor intrinsically beneficial or harmful. Basically from his point of view, they exist as the neutral ground for the negotiation of meaning. (I again question the validity of this argument. At an individual level, communities of practice generally enhance personal learning through word of mouth and other mechanisms; at an organizational level, communities of practice form peer pressure, group expectation, and dynamic learning environments which generally improve the work efficiency of a collective group. I personally consider that the emergence of communities of practice was a result of their beneficial effect in terms of work efficiency and productivity. Because their intrinsic advantage over individual work units, they became the dominant form of working units.)

NoorAliHasan: To add to Cathy's point about Roberta's maintenance work, I think Wenger contradicts himself when he discusses Roberta's motives for supplying the candy. Throughout this chapter, Wenger stresses that the claims processing unit is a community in a sense that is greater than simply being a department in a company. The claims processors have to follow prescribed company rules but they know when and how to break or bend those rules (i.e. the various shortcuts they take). Nonetheless, when describing Roberta's reasons for keeping the candy supply, he almost seems dumbfounded and doesn't really offer an explanation (top of pg 75 - "But she never got a bonus for her tireless dedication."). I would argue that Roberta isn't keeping the candy supply to maintain the community or to receive recognition from the company. She's keeping the candy to establish herself in the community as an elder or leader. Perhaps, she likes the social interactions she has with her co-workers when they stop by her desk for candy. In any case, the motives for her actions are really rather subconscious. I found it rather odd that Wenger relies on traditional organizational standards to explain her actions. Moreover, I think the birthday celebration at the end of the meeting is probably a better example of maintenance. Clearly, celebrating employees' birthdays with cake is probably not an ordained company policy. However, the manager recognizes that celebrating those types of occasions helps foster a sense of community and individual identification within a community. It helps build morale in an extremely tedious and monotonous job. It helps make their jobs more than just a paycheck, which in turn reduces employee turnover and helps maintain the department (and the community).

YongKim: In response to NoorAliHasan’s interpretation on Wenger’s comment on Roberta’s motives, I first agree with Noor that Roberta supplies candies simply to make the work atmosphere friendly and more bearable without expectation for official recognition from the company. I do not think, however, Wenger describes Roberta’s motives differently. Rather, he uses Roberta’s story in the highlight of her role in contributing to “what it takes for a community of practice to cohere enough to function” (p. 74). He argues that Roberta’s unrecognized dedication helps creating an atmosphere in which the processors feel belonging and motivated to promote their mutual engagement. Therefore, Wenger does not rely on traditional organizational standards to explain her actions. His main point was that enabling mutual engagement is a prerequisite for building a community of practice and it requires constant effort, in various forms, to maintain the community.
[NoorAliHasan: But are her efforts really unrecognized? They're formally unrecognized (from a corporate perspective - she's not getting a bonus) but they are still recognized by the other processors. It seems to me that her candy bowl might elevate her status and/or popularity in the CofP.]

AycaObekci: 'Community maintenance' efforts undertaken by the company or any higher authority are not as helpful as the volunteer efforts of the community members. Although birthday parties organized by the office assistant based on Outlook calendar and to do list refreshes the work atmosphere a bit, everybody knows that the party was organized because it was an office tradition (although not a company policy). It doesn't help the birthday guy to feel special or loved. Similarly, free coke at the office may help the employers enjoy the office, but it would mean more if it was supplied by a peer voluntarily, to create a connection with the community for whatever reason. Spontaneous and unconscious 'maintenance efforts' are more useful for increasing the connections among individuals and create a sense of 'community'.

CaRichardson
Back to the questions about Roberta's role in the community: The idea that communities require maintenance" was interesting, not because it is a new or novel idea but because I did not expect it to show up in this text. The concept of the hard work required to maintain communities (of practice) is well developed in feminist arguments. Wenger seems to me to have a pretty strong connection to feminist literature and it would be interesting to know if he has contributed to this literature or if he has simply been exposed to it in his training. In general, feminist analysis focuses on how the work of maintaining the community is a critical function, a gendered function usually assigned to the women in a group, and a marginalized and invisible function that the women are not usually given appropriate credit for. A final argument commonly made is that women who do not do their fair share of maintenance get in trouble and are considered difficult to work with whereas men who do not contribute to maintenance are often given elevated status and are rarely criticized. Thus while Roberta's providing snacks might be self-serving, it is also in some ways expected or even demanded and invisible.

FrankLester
Caroline, I appreciated your points about the gendered distinction between contributions to a community of practice; they illuminated the chapter in a way that I had not thought about.

Like others here, I found myself somewhat puzzled by the way Wenger characterized Roberta's role in providing candy and snacks to her co-workers, or to be more accurate, her making the food available. The vignette described Roberta's snacks as both a temptation for her co-workers and as a source of possible resentment: "And Roberta, a level 8, has taken it upon herself to be the snack provider for the whole unit. She keeps a stock of goods, from candy bars to chewing gum, even Band-Aids. She says that processors are kids and need to be kept happy." (Emphasis mine.) There is an interesting interplay between the ostensible beneficence of Roberta's commissary role and the fact that she uses the role as a way of reminding the processors of the nature of her relationship to them: she's a snack provider, but she's also a supervisor; they are processors, but they are also "kids" and they need to be "kept happy" (even though in some cases it appears that the processors are not unambiguously happy that snacks are around as a constant temptation). But Wenger does not seem to address this ambiguity, particularly the sense that Roberta is not necessarily simply being generous, in his discussion in Chapter 2; he simply says that "Roberta helped make daily work more bearable for everyone by providing an endless supply of snacks," a "tireless" and dedicated role that helped keep the community going and for which she got "no bonus." Maybe her role is partly a function of the gender distinction in community maintenance that Caroline speaks of.

RebeccaTremaglio: I think the distinction between what the company wants for the community and what the community wants for itself is interesting here. The company may not even think of the claims processors as a community at all. The company basically wants an accurate, efficient staff whose successful activity makes the company money. It may be that the claims processors do not think of themselves as a community either, but their actions demonstrate this in the ways they succeed in influencing the culture of their workplace. Roberta's method of engagement does not further the company's wants directly, but further her own aims and mark her engagement in the community. Perhaps she does enjoy being seen as an elder of the group. Perhaps she feels like she is bringing something to the workplace that is important to her that allows her a small way to connect with her coworkers. The manager endorsing the birthday parties is likely doing the same thing, in that the manager has made the decision to allow the parties to take place to somehow personally engage with the rest of the office, even if only for the reasons that Noor has posed. However, this has got me thinking about another tack. It is not hard to imagine a large insurance company like Alinsu having more than one office. Thus, it may well be that while the Alinsu employees at this office hold birthday parties, employees at other Alinsu locations do not. Perhaps these other offices have developed different methods of responding to company initiatives designed to monitor phone usage, for example. These other offices may have developed their own shortcuts, work-arounds, and routines even while doing the "same" work as Ariel's office. So then, are these two offices part of the same community of practice? If one employee were relocated from one office to the other, would the ways in which mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire manifest in the same ways? Would the employee feel it was easy or difficult to engage with their new coworkers? Would the methods of participation and reification seem familiar or foreign? The point that Wenger makes about how communities of practice are influenced by and react to outside influences (the company, for example) but retain their own sense of joint enterprise as a way of mediating these outside influences (p 80) is interesting here. If workers at both offices feel the same sense of marginalization from the company, do their responses to it link them as parts of the same community or define them as separate communities?
PaulResnick: I think Wenger would say another office within Alinsu is not the same community of practice. In particular, they don't have mutual engagement. They have parallel engagements with the same kinds of work, and in the same institutional context, so they have much in common. There will be some discussion of this when we get to inter-group relations.

Utility v. Beneficence in CofPs

"Communities of practice are not intrinsically beneficial or harmful" (p. 85). I don't think that Wenger was questioning the utility of CofPs as an organizational form (as Cathy points out, that would be a tough argument), but perhaps the value of their individual enterprises and the nature of mutual engagement one can observe in context of those. As an extreme example, KKK was a community of practice from which its members (and some others) unfortunately derived utility, but its causes were maleficent to yet larger populations of others and society at large. Also, within the community itself, they could have been the most united in cause--unanimity being the norm for all decisions--but again, towards the wrong causes. [KathyLee]

LaurieBuis:
In response to Jude's comments on Wenger's discussion of partiality, I think Jude is right on track. I like Wenger's assessment on pg. 76 that "Because they belong to a community of practice where people help each other, it is more important to know how to give and receive help than to try to know everything yourself." I think that this applies in many more settings than just communities of practice.
One thing that I struggled to understand through chapter 2 was how the three dimensions of mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire apply strictly to communities of practice as opposed to all communities. It seems to me that these are dimensions that any community could fit on. While I guess Wenger never specifically stated that these dimensions can only be found in communities of practice, I assumed that this would be the stance he would take.

I have to agree that it was difficult to see what makes CofP different from any other community, since as LaurieBuis notes, any community could be viewed along these dimensions. I don't think it hurts to apply Wenger's ideas at a more general level than he implies by limiting his example to a single group. The question is really only what the group practices. You could probably find a way to make any group fit the framework.

AycaObekci: Even a whole nation can fit into this framework. Belonging to different social and economic levels, having different occupations and beliefs, the citizens of a country are in a mutual engagement. Not at the individual level, but at a higher level, they negotiate whether to continue traditions or not, change the language very slowly, create new customs and new values, produce economic outputs- total imports and exports of the country. Their mutual engagement is shaped by their shared repertoire, which is composed of their language, culture, successes or failures in the history, the regime etc. They are in a joint enterprise, affected by a broader system of government and institutions such as laws and citizenship duties. They are also affected by the political, cultural and economic conditions of their country; being born in the US brings different affordances than being born in Iran. However, still affected by these limitations, individuals find local ways to shape their lives, break the rules or traditions, become richer than the average citizen or migrate to another country.
PaulResnick: I think Wenger would probably not want to consider an entire nation a community of practice. He will discuss different "modes of belonging" in a later chapter, and distinguish between belonging to a nation and belonging to a community of practice.
AycaObekci: I don't claim that a nation is a 'community of practice' in Wenger's terms. I gave the example just to show that as noted above, it's possible to make analogies to CofP's by getting help from the same framework even for the largest and the most diverse groups.
FrankLester: How about micronations∞? Might some of these be considered communities of practice (i.e., if they are not geographically or politically delineated as actual "nation states")? Something to consider.