Journal of Applied Psychology
2011, Vol. 96, No. 6, 1234 –1245
© 2011 American Psychological Association
0021-9010/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024198
Managing a New Collaborative Entity in Business Organizations:
Understanding Organizational Communities of Practice Effectiveness
Bradley L. Kirkman
John E. Mathieu
Texas A&M University
University of Connecticut
John L. Cordery
Benson Rosen
University of Western Australia
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Michael Kukenberger
University of Connecticut
Companies worldwide are turning to organizational communities of practice (OCoPs) as vehicles to
generate learning and enhance organizational performance. OCoPs are defined as groups of employees
who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic and who strengthen their knowledge
and expertise by interacting on a consistent basis. To date, OCoP research has drawn almost exclusively
from the community of practice (CoP) literature, even though the organizational form of CoPs shares
attributes of traditional CoPs and of organizational teams. Drawing on Lave and Wenger’s (1991)
original theory of legitimate peripheral participation, we integrate theory and research from CoPs and
organizational teams to develop and empirically examine a model of OCoP effectiveness that includes
constructs such as leadership, empowerment, the structure of tasks, and OCoP relevance to organizational
effectiveness. Using data from 32 OCoPs in a U.S.-based multinational mining and minerals processing
firm, we found that external community leaders play an important role in enhancing OCoP empowerment, particularly to the extent that task interdependence is high. Empowerment, in turn, was positively
related to OCoP effectiveness. We also found that OCoPs designated as “core” by the organization (e.g.,
working on critical issues) were more effective than those that were noncore. Task interdependence also
was positively related to OCoP effectiveness. We provide scholars and practitioners with insights on how
to effectively manage OCoPs in today’s organizations.
Keywords: organizational communities of practice, empowerment, leadership, task interdependence, core
status
Management of organizational knowledge is regarded as a vital
ingredient for success in the global, fast-paced, technology-driven
economy (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). Sharing of knowledge
that is not easily articulated or readily absorbed (i.e., tacit) can be
a daunting task. One response to the challenge of sharing less
formal knowledge is communities of practice (CoPs; Brown &
Duguid, 1991). Initially discussed as communities of midwives,
tailors, and meat cutters, CoPs have typically been defined as
an activity system about which participants share understandings
concerning what they are doing and what that means in their lives and
for their community . . . . They are united in both action and in the
meaning that action has, both for themselves and for the larger
collective. (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 98)
Scholarly understanding of CoPs stems from theories of social
participation in learning, which hold that learning occurs in the
context and as a consequence of experience and active participation in social communities (i.e., situated learning; Lave & Wenger,
1991; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).
In recent years, the CoP concept has been formally adopted by
organizations to enhance knowledge management and innovation
(Cox, 2005, p. 533, referred to this as the “commodification” of
CoPs). Wenger et al. (2002) defined organizational communities
of practice (OCoPs) as “groups of people who share a concern, a
set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their
knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing
basis” (p. 4). These forms of organizational collaboration are
deliberately designed to align strategic assets in terms of human
capital for competitive advantage in work organizations (Liedtka,
1999; Swan, Scarbrough, & Robertson, 2002). Particularly in lean
This article was published Online First June 20, 2011.
Bradley L. Kirkman, Department of Management, Mays Business
School, Texas A&M University; John E. Mathieu and Michael Kukenberger, School of Business, University of Connecticut; John L. Cordery,
School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia,
Crawley, Western Australia, Australia; Benson Rosen, Department of
Management, Kenan–Flagler Businesss School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bradley
L. Kirkman, Department of Management, Mays Business School, Texas
A&M University, 4221 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4221. E-mail:
brad.kirkman@tamu.edu
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MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
economic times, OCoPs can serve as a valuable resource for
knowledge sharing and coordination across organizational boundaries (McDermott & Archibald, 2010). Even though the number of
companies launching OCoPs initiatives is increasing rapidly (see
Majchrzak, Malhotra, Stamps, & Lipnack, 2004; Malhotra, Majchrzak, Carman, & Lott, 2001; McDermott & Archibald, 2010;
and Weinstein, 2007, for examples at Shell, Boeing–Rocketdyne,
ConocoPhillips, and IBM, respectively), we know little about how
they function in organizations or what determines their effectiveness.
The small body of existing empirical research consists mainly of
qualitative case studies of less formal, loosely coupled arrangements (e.g., Gherardi, Nicolini, & Odella, 1998; Kimble & Hildreth, 2005; Wenger, 1998). This is a significant theoretical limitation, as OCoPs typically share elements of loosely organized,
traditional CoPs and of more formal collaborative arrangements,
such as organizational teams (McDermott & Archibald, 2010;
Raven, 2003). Compounding this limitation, research on OCoPs
and teams has evolved separately, and thus there is little theoretical
integration across these different, yet related, collaborative entities.
Thus, our purpose is to integrate existing theory and research both
on CoPs and on organizational teams to develop and empirically
test a theoretical model of OCoP effectiveness, including constructs such as leadership, empowerment, the structure of tasks,
and OCoP relevance to organizational performance. In doing so,
we make three contributions to the existing literature.
First, in order to select various antecedents to OCoP effectiveness in a theory-driven manner, we integrate Lave and Wenger’s
(1991) theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) with
existing teams research. LPP theory includes three distinct but
related antecedents to CoP effectiveness: legitimacy (i.e., the extent to which members and users view their CoP as truly capable
of effective knowledge generation); peripherality (i.e., the degree
to which CoP members view themselves as fully integrated into
their communities); and participation (i.e., a common understanding of a community’s purpose and, as a result, active involvement
in it; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Extending LPP theory from CoPs to
OCoPs allowed us to select theory-driven, organizationally relevant antecedents to OCoP effectiveness associated with (a) legitimacy (i.e., driven by whether the OCoPs were viewed as core to
organizational operations); (b) peripherality (i.e., driven by task
interdependence); and (c) participation (i.e., driven by community
empowerment and by community-oriented external leadership). As
a result, our first contribution is to advance a better understanding
of OCoP effectiveness through the integration of the two dominant
streams of research underlying the OCoP construct, including
literature both on CoPs and on organizational teams.
Second, by examining aspects of OCoPs, such as community
empowerment and task interdependence, we attempt to resolve
some of the initial, mixed theoretical recommendations regarding
the internal structures and processes that are critical for maximizing OCoP effectiveness. For example, although some have argued
that OCoPs could benefit from a high level of empowerment
(Liedtka, 2000), others have argued that OCoPs will succeed only
when they are provided with specific targets, accountability, and
clear management oversight (in other words, delimited autonomy;
McDermott & Archibald, 2010). Similarly, with regard to task
interdependence, the original meaning of the term CoP implies that
connections between members are rather loose, membership is free
1235
flowing, and there is relatively little interdependence (Cox, 2005).
However, it has also been suggested that higher levels of task
interdependence can help members to produce breakthrough ideas
and innovations because they must interact frequently, engage in
extensive discourse, and exchange ideas to achieve community
goals (Kimble, Hildreth, & Wright, 2001). Thus, we attempted to
resolve some of these conflicting theoretical recommendations by
examining the nature of the relationship between both community
empowerment and task interdependence and OCoP effectiveness.
Finally, very little is known about the leadership behaviors that
are necessary for OCoPs to be maximally effective. For example,
must external leaders be actively involved in motivating these
entities (McDermott & Archibald, 2010), or, as some have argued
(Cox, 2005), should they take a hands-off approach to community
management? Also, if individuals are actively involved in leading
their OCoPs, which have elements of CoPs and of teams, what
types of leadership behaviors are relevant to motivating members
of OCoPs? Thus, we define a set of “community-oriented” external
leadership behaviors and assess their relationship to OCoP empowerment. In doing so, we answer calls for more research on the
relationship between the internal features of OCoPs and the context within which they operate (Cox, 2005).
Literature Review and Hypotheses
To date, research on OCoPs has drawn exclusively from theories
of traditional CoPs, which typically are loosely coupled collectives
existing outside formal organizational settings (Cox, 2005). Thus,
to our knowledge, there has been (a) no attempt to theoretically
integrate the literature on organizational teams and (b) no empirical attention to any constructs that have been linked to teams (e.g.,
empowerment, task interdependence). Indeed, much of the direction emanating from theory and practice has been that OCoPs
should be led and managed very similarly to traditional CoPs
without consideration of similarities and differences between
OCoPs and teams (McDermott & Archibald, 2010). We move
beyond this previous research by integrating the CoPs and teams
literatures to generate a more accurate set of OCoP effectiveness
predictors.
To differentiate traditional CoPs from teams, Raven (2003)
outlined seven dimensions on which collaboration can range from
more “CoP-like” to more “team-like.” For example, CoPs are
typically characterized by (a) task missions that are emergent
rather than mandated by the organization; (b) membership that is
voluntary rather than appointed; (c) leadership that is emergent and
dynamic rather than explicitly defined; (d) task interdependence
that is low rather than high; (e) structure that is emergent rather
than designed; (f) accountability flowing from internal, social
sanctions rather than external, formal sanctions; and (g) resources
coming from members rather than from the organization. In differentiating OCoPs from teams, McDermott and Archibald (2010)
recently identified four key factors characterizing OCoPs. These
include (a) longer, rather than shorter, time horizons that are
needed for developing a body of knowledge or a discipline over
the long term; (b) facilitative, rather than directive, leadership; (c)
permeable, rather than stable, membership boundaries; and (d)
knowledge sharing and codification of information rather than a
strict, problem-solving focus.
KIRKMAN ET AL.
1236
When one examines the organizational form of CoPs, it is
apparent that OCoPs share similarities with teams and with traditional CoPs. For example, in OCoPs, as in teams, the task mission
is often identified by the organization, members and leaders are
assigned, members work interdependently, the structure of the
communities is formal and designed, and resources are provided
by the organization (Wenger et al., 2002). However, in OCoPs
members must work around their day-to-day functional responsibilities to perform community duties (i.e., working in a community
is not a person’s full-time job), as they would in traditional CoPs,
and there are no concrete formal sanctions or punishments for the
failure of communities, as there would be in teams.
OCoP effectiveness has been defined as the extent to which an
OCoP both meets its intended business objectives (i.e., performance) and shares information relevant to community objectives
(i.e., knowledge sharing; Raven, 2003; Wenger et al., 2002).
Having defined OCoP effectiveness in this manner, we use the
three elements contained in LPP theory (i.e., legitimacy, peripherality, and participation; Lave & Wenger, 1991) as an overarching
theoretical framework to select predictors from both the OCoPs
and the teams literatures that we argue would be critical to that
effectiveness. The model we advance is shown in Figure 1. Taking
participation first, we discuss the potential role of community
empowerment in OCoP effectiveness.
OCoP Empowerment
Although empowerment has sometimes been considered a structural feature of organizations (Leach, Wall, & Jackson, 2003;
Menon, 2001), we conceptualize it as a constellation of experienced psychological states or cognitions consistent with the psychological view of empowerment (for a review, see Spreitzer,
2008). At the group level, this psychological perspective defines
empowerment as increased task motivation due to members’ collective, positive assessments of their tasks within an organizational
context (Kirkman & Rosen, 2000). The collective empowerment
construct consists of four dimensions: potency, the collective belief
of members that they can be effective; meaningfulness, the extent
to which members feel an intrinsic caring for their tasks and
activities; autonomy, the degree to which members believe that
they have freedom to make decisions; and impact, the extent to
which members feel that their tasks make significant contributions
(Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). As a motivational construct focused on
the collective, community empowerment is seen as being closely
aligned with the participation dimension of LPP theory, which
denotes the degree to which members absorb and are absorbed in
OCoP activities (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Some researchers have argued that empowerment could be
detrimental to community effectiveness (Misztal, 2002). We argue,
based on LPP theory, that community empowerment is a key
driver of effectiveness. First, because members have to complete
OCoP tasks in addition to their day-to-day functional responsibilities, the primacy of members’ functional roles combined with a
lack of external sanctions or rewards for OCoP failure or success
means that OCoP effectiveness would depend heavily on members’ intrinsic motivation engendered by empowerment. Members
view their community work as having meaning and significant
impact on the organization (e.g., reducing costs, increasing performance, improving safety). Second, OCoPs members’ performance and knowledge sharing will likely be enhanced to the extent
members perceive that they are collectively able (i.e., potent
enough) to generate value for their organization. Finally, as OCoP
members have to generate creative solutions and innovation, they
are more likely to achieve objectives from the autonomy and
freedom that are denoted by higher levels of community empowerment (cf. Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004).
Although we know of no empirical research examining the
effects of community empowerment on OCoP outcomes, Kirkman,
Rosen, Tesluk, and Gibson (2004) did find that empowerment was
particularly predictive of learning and innovation for teams that
were more loosely coupled and that interacted virtually. Due to the
unique characteristics of OCoPs (e.g., members splitting their
responsibilities and the lack of sanctions for poor performance),
we argue that empowerment might be even more important for
effectiveness in OCoPs than in traditional, organizational teams in
which members are formally dedicated. Thus, we predicted the
following:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): OCoP empowerment will be positively
related to OCoP effectiveness.
Leading OCoPs
Core
OCoP
H3
H4
External
CommunityOriented
Leadership
H1
H2
OCoP
Effectiveness
Empowerment
H7
H6
H8
H5
Task
Interdependence
Figure 1. Results of hypothesized model. OCoP ⫽ organizational community of practice; H ⫽ hypothesis.
Another aspect of OCoPs that promotes participation (in line
with LPP theory; Lave & Wenger, 1991) involves the role played
by external community leaders. Previous theory and research have
attested to the continued importance of external leaders for empowered collectives, albeit with a different set of behaviors than is
typical for traditional, top-down-led entities (Burke et al., 2006;
Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). For example, if leaders are viewed as
overly intrusive or controlling, collective performance will suffer;
the net effect of close and directive leadership, as one might
expect, is to reduce autonomy and experienced responsibility for
outcomes and to undermine feelings of collective potency (Kirkman et al., 2004). Indeed, if an organization tries to manage too
much of what an OCoP does, members might pretend to disperse
but continue to function outside of the organization’s formal
direction (Gongla & Rizzuto, 2004), with minimal organizational
MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
benefit resulting (Wenger et al., 2002). The absence of external
leadership can be equally deleterious, resulting in group members
feeling ignored or abandoned by their organizations (Manz &
Sims, 1987).
Research suggests that leaders who exercise certain types of
leadership can enhance empowerment in collectives like OCoPs.
For example, in discussing the leadership of parallel, global virtual
collaboration (i.e., characteristic of many OCoPs), Cordery, Soo,
Kirkman, Rosen, and Mathieu (2009) suggested that leaders
should focus on behaviors such as (a) facilitating and encouraging
members to manage their own task-related activities (i.e., taskoriented behaviors); (b) coaching and facilitating high-quality interpersonal exchanges (i.e., interpersonal processes); (c) aligning
efforts with broader organizational goals (i.e., boundary spanning);
and (d) securing valuable resources (i.e., resource acquisition). In
the context of OCoPs, we refer to these leader-enabling behaviors
as “community-oriented external leader behaviors,” because they
are most likely to enhance, rather than diminish, community empowerment. All of these leadership facets should logically be
associated with OCoP empowerment.
For example, when leaders encourage members to jointly manage their own task-related and interpersonal activities by helping
members establish performance goals, they are increasing members’ sense of autonomy (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999) and encouraging participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). When leaders behave
in ways that align OCoP efforts with broader organizational goals
and engage in boundary spanning (Marrone, 2010), members are
likely to view their actions as more meaningful and impactful for
the organization (Hackman, 1987). If leaders seek out and obtain
valuable resources to help OCoPs be more effective, member
potency beliefs and participation increase (Guzzo, Yost, Campbell,
& Shea, 1993).
Although we know of no existing empirical research examining
any leadership behaviors in empowered OCoPs, Kirkman and
Rosen (1999) did find support for the positive influence of facilitative external leadership both on team empowerment and on
effectiveness. Similar results have been obtained by Arnold, Arad,
Rhoades, and Drasgow (2000); Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, and
Rosen (2007); de Jong, de Ruyter, and Wetzels (2005); Druskat
and Wheeler (2003); and Srivastava, Bartol, and Locke (2006).
McDermott and Archibald (2010) argued that active and involved
community leaders are key for maximizing OCoP impact, one of
the key dimensions of community empowerment. We argue that,
because OCoP members perform their tasks in addition to full-time
job responsibilities, the community leaders will play a central
motivational role in producing empowerment beliefs among their
members. Accordingly, we made the following prediction:
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Community-oriented external leader behavior will relate positively to OCoP empowerment.
Given the underlying logic pertaining to Hypotheses 1 and 2, we
argue that OCoP empowerment fully mediates the influence of
community-oriented external leader behavior on OCoP effectiveness. That is, external leaders do not exert an influence on OCoP
effectiveness other than that which is conveyed through empowerment. Leaders’ influence is one of enabling and encouraging
members to take ownership and control of their functioning, rather
than driving results directly. In short, in collectives such as OCoPs,
1237
leaders truly need to exert their influence through their followers
or members in order to be effective. We next discuss the OCoP
core designation as an indication of legitimacy and task interdependence as an indicator of the peripherality dimension.
Core Status
All formally sanctioned OCoPs can be considered legitimate,
but some are likely to be viewed by members and organizational
stakeholders as having enhanced legitimacy by virtue of their core
status within the organization. Our sample OCoPs were designed
and designated by management as “core” if they worked on issues
particularly critical for attaining organizational objectives. This
core/noncore distinction is not uncommon in the OCoPs literature
(Cox, 2005) and reflects the relative importance of the OCoP
vis-à-vis the strategic core of the organization (cf. Barney, 1991;
Delery & Shaw, 2001). In essence, an OCoP would be considered
important to the strategic core if it has the potential for a disproportionately high impact on organizational performance; in our
sample organization, core OCoPs tended to have at least some
assigned members, explicit goals, timelines, and deliverables.
Noncore OCoPs, by contrast, were more loosely designed than
core ones. They tended to have fewer assigned members, and
participants set their own agenda. Thus, noncore OCoPs were
more structurally similar to traditional CoPs than to teams (Cordery et al., 2009; Cox, 2005).
With regard to the legitimacy dimension of Lave and Wenger’s
(1991) LPP theory, we argue that the core versus noncore OCoP
designation would be instrumental in determining how effective
and empowered OCoPs will be. First, core OCoP work will be
more visible to the organization, increasing accountability and
responsibility (Hall, Bowen, Ferris, Royle, & Fitzgibbons, 2007).
Given OCoP members full-time job responsibilities, a core designation serves as an important signal to the collective to devote
appropriate time and resources to accomplishing community objectives (cf. Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). Also, by sharing knowledge, core OCoP members will enhance their ability to generate
the breakthrough innovations that are critical for OCoP effectiveness. McDermott and Archibald (2010) argued that the most effective and sustainable OCoPs tackle real problems and focus on
important organizational issues.
With regard to OCoP empowerment, being designated as core
will likely lead members to view their OCoP tasks as more
meaningful and impactful because core communities have a larger
amount of demonstrable impact on bottom-line organizational
performance (cf. Delery & Shaw, 1991). Core OCoPs will likely
also experience greater autonomy than their noncore counterparts
because of their proximity to the strategic core and the enhanced
legitimacy this confers. This means that they will likely be given
more discretion to make important decisions related to OCoP
functioning. Finally, higher potency is likely also to be associated
with core OCoPs, because members will be more likely to believe
that their community activities have the potential to affect important, bottom-line organizational outcomes. Consequently, we predicted as follows:
Hypothesis 3 (H3): OCoPs designated as core will be more
effective than those designated as noncore.
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KIRKMAN ET AL.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): OCoPs designated as core will be more
empowered than those designated as noncore.
Given the underlying logic of Hypotheses 3 and 4, we argue that
OCoP empowerment partially mediates the influence of the OCoP
core designation on OCoP effectiveness. Not only will the core
status prompt greater member motivation and ownership of their
actions, but it may well activate other mechanisms related to
effectiveness and therefore exhibit a direct influence in our model.
OCoP Task Interdependence
In theory, Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of peripherality
means that to the extent that OCoP members view themselves as
more integrated into their OCoPs, the more likely it is that the
OCoPs will be successful. We argue that OCoPs will be more
effective and more empowered to the extent that they are higher,
rather than lower, in task interdependence. With regard to effectiveness, the optimal performance of any collective will result
when there is an appropriate match between the demands of the
task and the level of task interdependence of the collective
(Thompson, 1967). Task interdependence can range from lower
levels (i.e., pooled interdependence, or minimal communication
and coordination required between group members to accomplish
tasks) to higher levels (i.e., reciprocal interdependence, or maximum communication and coordination required between group
members to accomplish tasks).
For reciprocally interdependent tasks, members typically have
to take into account one another’s needs when dividing up work,
scheduling, and making adjustments. They must work together,
pool their collective expertise, occasionally challenge and critique
one another on assumptions (Wenger et al., 2002), and they must
brainstorm, problem solve, back one another up, and work on
projects collectively to contribute to the organization’s overall
effectiveness (Cordery et al., 2009). In contrast, less interdependent OCoPs have functional experts who share knowledge with
one another in response to queries from other community members
and occasionally bring new information based on scientific breakthroughs or best practices to the attention of others (Cox, 2005;
Lave & Wenger, 1991). Knowledge sharing can be accomplished
without members being dependent on one another, as such information is typically pooled into a single location, such as a knowledge repository or database (Griffith, Sawyer, & Neale, 2003). As
a result, we argue, OCoPs with lower task interdependence are not
likely to share as much information with one another or to perform
as effectively as do OCoPs with higher task interdependence.
Whether imposed by task demands or enacted by members,
OCoP task interdependence should also lead to higher levels of
collective empowerment. For example, in order for OCoPs members to experience the collective belief that they can be successful
(i.e., potency), they will need to have sufficient experience working in a coordinated fashion to ascertain how effective the OCoP
can be. Similarly, OCoPs members will likely find their tasks more
meaningful and experience more impact if all OCoP members
work collectively to accomplish more ambitious goals than could
be accomplished by simply pooling information (Kirkman &
Rosen, 1999). Finally, in our sample, OCoP members had to
orchestrate their actions through virtual mechanisms, across time
zones and cultural differences, and also had other formal job
obligations to complete. Thus, to work interdependently in light of
these challenges, OCoP members likely exhibit higher autonomy
rather than rely more on OCoP leaders to overcome these barriers
to communication and coordination (cf. Kirkman et al., 2004).
Empirical investigations have demonstrated the positive, direct
influence of task interdependence on a variety of group-level
outcomes (e.g., Janz, Colquitt, & Noe, 1997; Saavedra, Earley, &
Van Dyne, 1993; Shea & Guzzo, 1987; Steiner, 1972; Stewart &
Barrick, 2000; Wageman, 1995). For example, Mathieu, Maynard,
Taylor, Gilson, and Ruddy (2007) found positive relationships
between task interdependence, processes, and performance in service teams. In addition, Gilson and Shalley (2004) found that more
creative teams were those whose members perceived high levels of
task interdependence. We made the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 5 (H5): Task interdependence will be positively
related to OCoP effectiveness.
Hypothesis 6 (H6): Task interdependence will be positively
related to OCoP empowerment.
Given the underlying logic pertaining to Hypotheses 5 and 6, we
argue that OCoP empowerment partially mediates the influence of
task interdependence on OCoP effectiveness. Here again, not only
should interdependence motivate OCoP members to take ownership and control of their activities, such designs should also enable
them to more efficiently align their collective efforts toward goal
accomplishment. Thus, we anticipated that interdependence would
exhibit both direct and indirect influences on OCoP effectiveness.
The Moderating Role of OCoP Task Interdependence
Rather than proposing only that task interdependence has direct
effects on OCoP empowerment and effectiveness, we also argue
that task interdependence will have moderating effects. In particular, the influence of community-oriented external leadership on
OCoP empowerment will be stronger when OCoPs have greater,
rather than less, task interdependence.
In a meta-analysis of team leadership, Burke et al. (2006)
concluded that team leadership is more important for team performance when task interdependence is higher, rather than lower.
Extending Burke et al.’s meta-analytic findings to the OCoPs
literature, we argue that community-oriented external leadership
should be more strongly related to community empowerment when
task interdependence is higher, rather than lower. The basic logic
underlying our argument is that because community-oriented external leader behaviors are directed toward the OCoP as a whole,
these leader behaviors will have less impact on the formation of
community empowerment beliefs if members do not work interdependently in carrying community tasks. In other words, there
will be a mismatch between the target of these leader behaviors
and how the community members actually work together. Similarly, because OCoP empowerment beliefs relate to the whole
community, rather than beliefs about individual competence or
impact, we also argue that OCoP empowerment will be more
strongly related to OCoP effectiveness when task interdependence
is higher, rather than lower. Thus, the importance of the community feeling empowered, as it relates to effectiveness, will be much
greater when community members depend on one another for
accomplishing community tasks.
MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Chen et al. (2007) found that leaders’ empowering behaviors
were more positively related to team empowerment in teams with
higher, rather than lower, task interdependence, and that team
empowerment was positively related to team performance in more
interdependent teams but was unrelated in less interdependent
teams. Similarly, Barrick, Bradley, and Colbert (2007) found that
top management team mediating mechanisms related positively to
performance when they were highly task interdependent, but there
was no relationship among relatively non-task-interdependent
teams. Accordingly, we predicted as follows:
Hypothesis 7 (H7): Task interdependence will moderate the
positive relationship between external leaders’ communityoriented behaviors and OCoP empowerment, such that the
relationship will be stronger when the OCoP is more, rather
than less, task interdependent.
Hypothesis 7 advances a mediated moderation effect, whereby the
interaction between community-oriented external leader behavior
and task interdependence, as related to OCoP effectiveness, is
mediated by OCoP empowerment.
Hypothesis 8 (H8): Task interdependence will moderate the
positive relationship between OCoP empowerment and OCoP
effectiveness such that the relationship will be stronger when
the OCoP is more, rather than less, task interdependent.
Method
Sample
We studied a U.S.-based multinational mining and minerals
processing firm, with over 300 operations in 44 countries, that had
implemented OCoPs within the past 4 years. In addition to their
OCoP work, members had formal job responsibilities within their
respective functions. The OCoPs were functionally based (rather
than cross-functional) and were charged with generating breakthrough innovations designed to improve productivity and reduce
costs throughout the company worldwide. For example, one OCoP
in our sample was tasked with the development of a risk assessment tool for operating valves being used globally and another was
tasked with an improved air feed valve that increased the capacity
of a core technical process. Both leaders and designated members
were formally assigned to communities, although volunteers were
welcome to join and participate in most of the OCoPs. We contacted all designated OCoP members via an e-mail explaining the
survey purpose and logistics and included a website link to an
online survey. Respondents were assured of confidentiality, and
surveys were administered in English, given that all OCoP activities were conducted in English.
A total of 202 out of 430 designated members of 32 OCoPs
responded to an online survey, representing an individual response
rate of 47%. This sample was 78% male, had an average age of 41
(SD ⫽ 9.6) years, and had been with the company an average of 13
(SD ⫽ 9.3) years. The average educational level was a bachelor’s
degree. OCoPs ranged in size from 5 to 36 members (average size
was 14 members). Approximately two months after the member
survey data were collected, we gathered data from the leaders of
these OCoPs (N ⫽ 32) using a different online survey with a
1239
response rate of 100%. The leader sample was 90% male, had an
average age of 44 (SD ⫽ 7.7) years, and had been with the
company an average of 17 (SD ⫽ 7.3) years. The average educational level was a master’s degree.
Measures
Core designation. The organization began implementing the
OCoP program approximately three years prior to this investigation. It established a dedicated unit to (a) help identify the need for
different types of OCoPs; (b) guide their establishment and design;
and (c) support OCoPs’ ongoing activities. The decision to establish an OCoP as core was made by this unit at the formation stage
according to whether the community’s primary focus was on
technical processes within the operating core of the organization
(e.g., mining, calcination, engineering, reliability). A noncore classification meant that the OCoP’s primary focus was on operations
and activities outside the operating core (e.g., commercial, training, laboratory support). Of the 32 OCoPs sampled, 14 were
considered core (coded 1 for analysis), and the remaining 18 were
considered noncore (coded 0 for analysis). We met with directors
of the support unit, who confirmed that OCoPs had been designed
and continued to operate in the manner coded.
Leadership and empowerment. OCoP members rated their
leader’s behavior on four scales along with four subscales of
empowerment. All ratings were made on 7-point agreement scales,
with higher values representing more positive behaviors and empowerment. We aggregated members’ responses to align them
with the OCoP level of analysis. Aggregating individuals’ responses must be justified from both substantive and psychometric
bases (Rousseau, 1985). From a substantive standpoint, all items
referred to average community-oriented external leadership behaviors or OCoP empowerment rather than individuals’ perceptions.
From a psychometric standpoint, aggregating individuals’ responses requires sufficient within-team agreement. James, Demaree, and Wolf (1993) advanced an rwg index for evaluating member agreement. Although there is no absolute cutoff value for rwg
(Lance, Butts, & Michels, 2006), median values (⬎.70) are generally considered sufficient to justify aggregation. In addition, we
report aggregate level alphas and intraclass correlations (ICCs).
ICC(1) represents the percentage of members’ level variance that
is attributable to OCoP membership, whereas ICC(2) represents a
reliability index of mean scores (Bliese, 2000).
Due to the lack of existing measures of community-oriented
external OCoP leader behavior and the limited applicability of
traditional leadership constructs to an OCoP context, we developed
four scales to assess community-oriented external leadership, each
with five items, for this population using both the work of Cordery
et al. (2009) and input from company subject matter experts
(SMEs). The items addressed dimensions of valuable external
leader behavior noted by Burke et al. (2006). We assessed taskoriented behaviors (e.g., “In general, our community leader helps
us establish our performance goals”); interpersonal processes
(e.g., “In general, our community leader facilitates open and honest discussions among community members”); resource acquisition (e.g., “In general, our community leader gets us whatever we
need to do our job effectively”); and external boundary spanning
(e.g., “In general, our community leader ensures that our efforts
are aligned with the organizational mission or initiatives”). Psy-
1240
KIRKMAN ET AL.
chometric properties were as follows: task-oriented behaviors (median rwg ⫽ .88; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .25; ␣ ⫽ .92), interpersonal
processes (rwg ⫽ .88; ICC1 ⫽ .06; ICC2 ⫽ .28; ␣ ⫽ .93), resource
acquisition (rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .27; ␣ ⫽ .92), and
external boundary spanning (rwg ⫽ .89; ICC1 ⫽ .05; ICC2 ⫽ .28;
␣ ⫽ .97). Notably, although the agreement indices were uniformly
high, justifying aggregation, the ICCs suggest that there is relatively little variance in OCoP leader behavior to be modeled for the
hypotheses.
OCoP empowerment was assessed with an adaptation (i.e.,
changing the word team to community) of the 12-item measure
described by Kirkman et al. (2004). This measure includes three
items each for the four empowerment dimensions, including potency (e.g., “My Community can get a lot done when it works
hard”); meaningfulness (e.g., “My Community believes that its
projects are significant”); autonomy (e.g., “My Community makes
its own choices without being told by management”); and impact
(e.g., “My Community performs tasks that matter to this company”). Psychometric properties were as follows: potency (median
rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .07; ICC2 ⫽ .34; ␣ ⫽ .88), meaningfulness
(median rwg ⫽ .90; ICC1 ⫽ .08; ICC2 ⫽ .35; ␣ ⫽ .98), autonomy
(median rwg ⫽ .90; ICC1 ⫽ .06; ICC2 ⫽ .30; ␣ ⫽ .78), and
impact (median rwg ⫽ .87; ICC1 ⫽ .07; ICC2 ⫽ .31; ␣ ⫽ .95).
Again, the agreement indices were uniformly high, justifying
aggregation, yet the ICCs were modest, suggesting that the
between-OCoP variance in empowerment might be somewhat
constrained.
Given that both the leadership and empowerment measures were
collected from OCoP members, we conducted a confirmatory
factor analysis (CFA) using Mplus 5.2 (Muthén & Muthén, 2007)
to evaluate their discriminant validity. For this analysis, we used
the four substantive subscales for each construct as indicators of
their respective latent variable. To gauge model fit, we report the
standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) and the comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990). We also report chi-square
values that provide a statistical basis for comparing the relative fit
of nested models. There is some debate regarding what constitutes
adequate fit in SEM models (Marsh, Hau, & Wen, 2004). Therefore, we adopted the following guidelines advocated by Mathieu
and Taylor (2006): Models with CFI values ⬍.90 and SRMR
values ⬎.10 are deficient, those with CFI ⱖ.90 to ⬍.95 and SRMR
⬎.08 to ⱕ.10 are acceptable, and those with CFI ⱖ.95 and
SRMR ⱕ.08 are excellent.
The two-factor CFA model yielded excellent fit indices,
2(19) ⫽ 33.27, p ⬍ .05, CFI ⫽ .95; SRMR ⫽ .05. All subscales
had significant (p ⬍ .05) relationships with their intended latent
variable. Moreover, the two-factor CFA model fit significantly
better, ⌬2(1) ⫽ 88.91, p ⬍ .001, than did a single-factor model,
2(20) ⫽ 122.18, p ⬍ .001, CFI ⫽ .65, SRMR ⫽ .14, lending
additional evidence of discriminant validity. Thus, we averaged
the four respective subscales per construct to yield overall indices
of external OCoP leadership (␣ ⫽ .98) and empowerment (␣ ⫽
.96).
Task interdependence.
We asked each OCoP’s external
leader to rate the task interdependence of the OCoP using an
adaptation (i.e., changing the word team to community) of Campion, Medsker, and Higgs’ (1993) three-item scale (␣ ⫽ .84). An
example item is “Community members cannot accomplish their
tasks without information or materials from other members of the
community.” We averaged the three ratings to index task interdependence.
OCoP effectiveness. We conducted several semistructured
interviews with company OCoP SMEs to determine what constituted effectiveness in this context. Given the diversity of the OCoP
purposes, a wide variety of topics was mentioned. However, two
consistent themes that applied to all were performance and knowledge sharing. Accordingly, we developed four-item, behaviorally
oriented measures of each theme, vetted them with company
SMEs, and then had external leaders rate their OCoPs on the eight
items. We also collected the same ratings from a company SME
whose job it was to facilitate and manage the entire OCoP initiative. In this fashion, we gathered outcome data both from leaders
who were intimately aware of their OCoP’s functioning and from
an SME who had a comprehensive perspective on OCoP operations.
All items began with “This OCoP . . .” and were rated on 1
(Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) response scales. The
four performance items were (a) achieves its milestones/deadlines
regularly; (b) responds quickly and effectively when problems
occur; (c) delivers products that are valued by internal and/or
external customers; and (d) meets its business objectives. The four
knowledge-sharing items were (a) calls to members’ attention new
ideas and/or best practices; (b) answers questions for fellow members; (c) serves as a sounding board for members with off-the-wall
ideas; and (d) provides networking and contact information outside
of the OCoP’s membership. Although conceptually distinguishable, the two scales were very highly correlated (r ⫽ .90, p ⬍
.001), so we averaged them to yield an overall OCoP effectiveness
criterion. This overall scale exhibited a high reliability (␣ ⫽ .94),
and the leaders’ and SME’s ratings were significantly correlated
(r ⫽ .54, p ⬍ .01). Therefore, we averaged the ratings from the
leaders and the SME to yield the OCoP effectiveness criterion used
in the analyses.
Analysis Overview
We tested our hypotheses with structural equation modeling in
MPlus (Muthén & Muthén, 2007). Given the limited sample size,
we specified relationships (i.e., lambdas) between the latent variables and observed scale scores as equal to the square root of their
corresponding reliabilities. Similarly, the measurement errors (i.e.,
thetas) were set equal to (1 ⫺ rxx) times the variance of the
observed scores. We treated the OCoP core designation as an
observed score with no measurement error. We first fit a linear
effects structural model to the data, excluding the two interactions
(i.e., H7 and H8). Second, we introduced the two interaction terms
to the model to test their incremental validity and the hypothesized
model. Mplus employs a maximum likelihood estimation approach
for testing interactions (cf. Klein & Moosebrugger, 2000).
Results
Table 1 contains correlations and descriptive statistics for all
study variables. The fit of the linear SEM model was excellent,
2(1) ⫽ 2.48, ns, CFI ⫽ .963; SRMR ⫽ .028. Figure 2 shows the
parameter estimates for the model. In support of H1, OCoP empowerment exhibited a significant direct relationship with OCoP
effectiveness (H1;  ⫽ .42, p ⬍ .05). H2 was supported, as
MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Table 1
Correlations and Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables
Variable
1
2
3
4
5
1. OCoP core
2. OCoP external leadership
3. Task interdependence
4. OCoP empowerment
5. OCoP effectiveness
M
SD
1.0
.19
.26
.08
.48ⴱⴱ
0.44
0.50
0.98
⫺.10
.69ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
4.81
0.77
0.84
⫺.35ⴱ
.41ⴱⴱ
4.80
1.52
0.96
.20
5.31
0.73
0.96
4.65
1.61
Note. N ⫽ 32. Values on diagonal are aggregate alphas. OCoP ⫽ organizational communities of practice; SD ⫽ standard deviation.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01.
community-oriented external leadership evidenced a significant
direct effect with OCoP empowerment (H2;  ⫽ .68, p ⬍ .05). The
indirect effect of external leadership on OCoP effectiveness, as
mediated by empowerment, was significant (.283), bootstrapped
95% CI [.02, .55], and leadership had no significant incremental
direct relationship with effectiveness. These findings are consistent
with an inference of full mediation, as anticipated.
In support of H3, core OCoP status exhibited a significant direct
relationship with OCoP effectiveness (H3;  ⫽ .30, p ⬍ .05).
There was no such relationship with empowerment (H4;  ⫽ .04,
ns), failing to support H4. Consequently, the indirect effect was not
significant (.035), bootstrapped 95% CI [⫺.29, .36] rejecting the
hypothesized partial mediational relationship in lieu of a direct
effect inference (Mathieu & Taylor, 2006). In support of H5, task
interdependence evidenced a significant direct relationship with
OCoP effectiveness (H5;  ⫽ .55, p ⬍ .05). However, contrary to
our expectation, the linear relationship with empowerment was
negative (H6;  ⫽ ⫺.35, p ⬍ .05). Therefore, H6 was not supported, nor was the inference of partial mediation between task
interdependence and effectiveness (indirect ⫽ ⫺.145), bootstrapped 95% CI [ ⫺.56, .27]. Collectively, the linear relationships
accounted for 50% of the observed variance in OCoP effectiveness
and 63% of the variance in OCoP empowerment.
1241
We next fit additional models that introduced interactions to test
H7 and H8. First, adding an interaction between communityoriented external leadership and interdependence to the equation
predicting empowerment produced a significant model improvement (H7), ⌬2(1) ⫽ 6.82,  ⫽ .43, p ⬍ .05, accounting for 8%
additional variance. Second, adding an interaction between OCoP
empowerment and task interdependence to the equation predicting
OCoP effectiveness failed to yield a significant model improvement (H8), ⌬2(1) ⫽ 1.80;  ⫽ .18, ns. Therefore, H7 was
supported but H8 was not.
We plotted the Leadership ⫻ Task Interdependence interaction
using standard practices for moderated regression analyses (Aiken
& West, 1991; see Figure 3). Generally speaking, the relationship
between community-oriented external leadership and OCoP empowerment changed from nonsignificant to positive as OCoPs
exhibited relatively higher, as compared to lower, task interdependence. These findings are consistent with the anticipated mediated
moderation relationship, whereby the interactive effects between
external leadership and task interdependence, as related to OCoP
effectiveness, are mediated by OCoP empowerment (Preacher,
Rucker, & Hayes, 2007). The greatest levels of empowerment
were reported by OCoPs that (a) were relatively low on task
interdependence and led by individuals who were not collectively
oriented and (b) were highly interdependent and had communityoriented external leaders. Thus, although the overall form of this
relationship was consistent with H7, the high levels of empowerment in OCoPs with relatively low interdependence and low
external OCoP leadership were not anticipated. In effect, this
suggests that external leadership behaviors are relatively unimportant for OCoPs that have little task interdependence.
Discussion
Despite the increasing prevalence of OCoPs worldwide
(McDermott & Archibald, 2010), a key challenge to fully under-
High
Core
OCoP
.29
.30*
.50
.04
CommunityOriented
External
Leadership
.68*
.42*
Empowerment
p
.43*
-.35*
Em
mpowerment
Low
Interdependence
Moderate
Interdependence
OCoP
Effectiveness
.18
.55*
Task
Interdependence
High
Interdependence
Low
Low
High
Community-Oriented External Leadership
Figure 2. Results of hypothesized model. OCoP ⫽ organizational community of practice. ⴱ p ⬍ .05.
Figure 3. Community-Oriented External Leadership ⫻ Task Interdependence interaction.
1242
KIRKMAN ET AL.
standing OCoP effectiveness has been the lack of theoretical
integration across the two literatures—CoPs and teams—that are
necessary to understand the organizational form of CoPs. In an
attempt to provide such a theoretical integration, we drew on Lave
and Wenger’s (1991) LPP theory to identify relevant constructs
that should be especially predictive of OCoP effectiveness. Adapting these constructs to the community–team hybrid form of an
OCoP, we identified proxies for legitimacy (i.e., core status),
peripherality (i.e., task interdependence), and participation (i.e.,
empowerment and external leadership). Our findings revealed a
complex interplay between these four elements as they relate to
OCoP effectiveness.
Theoretical Implications
Our primary theoretical contribution concerns the hybrid nature
of today’s OCoPs and how this shapes their functioning. OCoPs
are typically a blend of traditional CoPs and organizational teams
(McDermott & Archibald, 2010; Raven, 2003). To reflect these
blended characteristics, we synthesized elements from the literatures relating to both in order to develop a model of key determinants of OCoP effectiveness. For example, using the participation
dimension of LPP theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991), we identified
community empowerment as an important predictor of OCoP
effectiveness. We argued that because OCoP members carry out
their community-related tasks in addition to their full-time job
responsibilities, empowerment will be critical in order for them to
operate effectively. As a motivational construct, empowerment
suggests that OCoP members will direct attention and persistence
toward OCoP tasks, even when there are competing demands
placed upon them by their formal job responsibilities and when
there are no formal sanctions for the success or failure of their
OCoPs. In that light, members’ OCoP tasks could be viewed as
extrarole behavior that is facilitated by empowerment. Our findings also inform the growing nomological net for empowerment
(Spreitzer, 2008), particularly with regard to the group level of
analysis (Chen et al., 2007). In addition, our findings support
Kirkman et al.’s (2004) research showing that empowerment is a
particularly strong predictor of virtual collaboration and suggest
that empowerment is a consistent predictor of performance across
a variety of collaborative organizational entities.
Another theoretical contribution of our research is the identification of community-oriented external leader behaviors as an
important precursor for community empowerment. We argued,
due again, in part, to the split responsibilities of OCoP members
and the lack of formal sanctions for the success or failure of
OCoPs, that an external leader would play an important role in
helping OCoP members to become more focused and motivated
and to experience a sense of community empowerment. In particular, we predicted that leaders who facilitate and encourage members to jointly manage their own task-related activities (i.e., taskoriented behaviors), coach and facilitate high-quality interpersonal
exchanges (i.e., interpersonal processes), align the collective’s
efforts with broader organizational goals (i.e., boundary spanning),
and secure valuable resources (i.e., resource acquisition) would be
associated with more empowered and effective OCoPs. In support
of our contention, community-oriented external leadership did
influence OCoP effectiveness indirectly through its effect on empowerment. Our findings extend previous research that has shown
linkages between external team leader behavior and team empowerment (Arnold et al., 2000; Burke et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2007;
de Jong et al., 2005; Druskat & Wheeler, 2003; Kirkman & Rosen,
1999; Srivastava et al., 2006) to OCoPs.
Using the legitimacy dimension of LPP theory, we also argued
that OCoPs that were designated as core by the organization (i.e.,
especially important for bottom-line outcomes) would have members who report higher levels of OCoP empowerment and be more
effective than would noncore OCoPs. The core versus noncore
distinction suggests that units designated as important to an organization’s strategic core will be supported and protected to a
greater extent than units viewed as less important (cf. Barney,
1991; Delery & Shaw, 2001). Although there was no relationship
with empowerment, we did find a positive relationship between the
core designation and OCoP effectiveness. Thus, how an organization views an OCoP is critical for greater OCoP effectiveness,
irrespective of empowerment. This finding is important because it
again highlights the need to integrate theory from both the CoPs
and the teams literatures.
Finally, using the peripherality dimension of LPP theory, we
argued that task interdependence should both directly promote
OCoP empowerment and effectiveness and indirectly influence the
extent to which community-oriented external leader behavior is
related to empowerment and empowerment, in turn, is related to
OCoP effectiveness. In partial support of our theoretical arguments, we found that task interdependence was directly positively
associated with OCoP effectiveness. This finding underscores the
theoretical contention that communities in organizations will be
more effective to the extent that they have teamlike interdependencies.
Contrary to our prediction, task interdependence exhibited a
direct negative relationship with community empowerment. This
relationship must, however, be considered in the context of the
significant interaction with community-oriented external leadership. External community leadership evidenced the strongest positive relationship with empowerment in highly task interdependent
OCoPs, but there was no relationship in less interdependent ones.
This pattern suggests that OCoP members see themselves as empowered if they (a) need to cooperate and have a communityoriented external leader or (b) can work relatively independently
and their leader does not promote teamwork and cooperation. In
other words, if their external leader behavior matches OCoP interdependence, members feel more empowered. This finding could
be explained by functional leadership theory (McGrath, 1962;
Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001), which suggests that the role of
leaders is to provide whatever a collective needs that is not
currently being provided by the members themselves (Morgeson,
DeRue, & Karam, 2010). In less interdependent, loosely structured
collectives, OCoP members do not need their leaders to exhibit the
behaviors we have argued are associated with community-oriented
external leadership in order to develop a sense of empowerment
with respect to their collective tasks. These findings also shed light
on the contrasting views about the value of external leadership for
OCoP effectiveness (cf. Cox, 2005; McDermott & Archibald,
2010). Our findings suggest that external team-oriented leadership
is valuable for OCoP empowerment, and thereby effectiveness, in
instances where the community has high task interdependence.
However, those same leader behaviors are not valuable for OCoPs
that have low task interdependence.
MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Managerial Implications
The hybrid nature of today’s OCoPs means that enhancing their
effectiveness requires organizational leaders to operate levers related to both CoPs and teams, a unique challenge in the modernday workplace. Such a balancing act yields several implications.
First, because empowerment is critical to OCoP effectiveness,
leaders should focus on increasing members’ sense of potency,
meaning, autonomy, and impact (for a detailed guide on how to
increase collective empowerment, see Kirkman & Rosen, 2000). In
OCoPs, specifically, leaders can enhance empowerment by using
behaviors that are task oriented (e.g., helping members establish
performance goals), interpersonal oriented (e.g., facilitating open
and honest discussions among community members), resource
acquisition oriented (e.g., ensuring that the community is adequately staffed for their projects), and external boundary spanning
oriented (e.g., ensuring that community efforts are aligned with the
larger organizational mission or initiatives).
Second, leaders should consider how to lead their OCoPs on the
basis of the interdependencies that have developed within the
community. In light of our findings, external leaders should foster
collective action and teamwork when OCoPs are more interdependent but adopt more individualistic-oriented behaviors when
OCoPs are less interdependent. In other words, leaders should not
force teamwork when the situation does not call for it.
Finally, and unique to OCoPs, our findings related to the core
versus noncore distinction reveals that OCoPs come in a variety of
forms, and they should not all be managed in the same way. Core
designed and designated OCoPs appear to be more effective
through mechanisms other than empowerment. Perhaps members
are willing to devote more time and attention to OCoP activities if
they are deemed to be core to the business function. Yet, OCoP
empowerment is also an important separate driver of OCoP effectiveness. Whereas managers have little influence on the core
feature of OCoPs, they do have the opportunity to enhance OCoP
empowerment, particularly in instances of high task interdependence.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
Although we sampled a large international corporation with
operations around the globe, the sample size at the OCoP level was
modest, raising issues of power. We also observed relatively small
ICCs for members’ ratings of OCoP external leader behaviors and
empowerment. Given the high agreement indices, these findings
suggest a limited range across OCoPs on these variables. In other
words, our findings may be attenuated by some range restriction,
given that our sample came from a single organization. However,
the fact that we obtained significant linear and interactive effects
using the aggregated variables in this investigation was encouraging. In addition, the variable distributions confirmed that our
findings were not overly influenced by statistical outliers or abnormal variable distributions.
The fact that both external leadership and OCoP empowerment
were measured via aggregated members’ perceptions raises an
issue about the potential influence of same source effects. However, any such method effects would have to be consistent across
members to be evident at the aggregate level of analysis. Moreover, whereas any common method effects could have inflated the
1243
magnitude of linear effects between these two variables, they could
not have produced the critical interaction in this study. Evans
(1985) conducted an extensive Monte Carlo study regarding
whether method variance might generate artifactual interactions
and concluded, “The results are clear-cut. Artifactual interactions
cannot be created; true interactions can be attenuated” (p. 305).
Even though our confirmatory factor analysis supported the representation of external leadership and empowerment as distinguishable latent variables, the correlation between these variables
was .69, suggesting a moderately high degree of overlap and an
additional limitation of our research. Also, due to sample size
constraints, we were unable to examine potential unique effects for
the separate dimensions of empowerment, and we encourage future researchers to undertake such a research strategy.
With the above caveats acknowledged, these results certainly
warrant replication and extension in future research. For example,
as we noted in our literature review, very little research has
attempted to systematically examine the drivers of OCoP effectiveness. Compounding this lack of understanding is confusion
over how CoPs are adapted by organizations to help benefit
bottom-line outcomes. Like teams, OCoPs could feasibly take
many different forms varying in terms of duration, life cycle,
boundary permeability, membership fluidity, and voluntariness.
Perhaps the time is right for the development of a taxonomy of
OCoPs. This might help both scholars and practitioners to understand that not all OCoPs are created alike and, thus, that drivers of
their effectiveness are likely to differ across circumstances.
In addition, today’s OCoPs are likely to interact primarily virtually and to use a large variety of electronic communication
(Kimble et al., 2001). Research is needed on how OCoP members
use different technologies to accomplish different tasks, particularly for those who have full-time job responsibilities. Future
research should also explore the influence of OCoP composition,
member interaction processes including psychological safety, and
temporal relationships. The temporal or developmental dynamics
are especially intriguing, as, like teams, OCoPs could be expected
to exhibit a life cycle and to be subject to different influences at
various stages of development (see Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, &
Gilson, 2008; Wenger et al., 2002). Another avenue for future
inquiry would be to investigate the impact of OCoP participation
on member’s personal development. If members value their experience, receive new material and learning opportunities, and are
willing to participate in future OCoP (or other) activities, enhanced
organizational human capital may be the ultimate criterion. Accordingly, future research should examine the influence of OCoPs
functioning on members’ self-development and willingness to
contribute to the organization in the future along with the value of
those contributions.
In conclusion, modern-day organizations are characterized by
amorphous and fluid organizational arrangements. OCoPs represent a popular feature of such designs and are a hybrid of CoPs and
organizational teams. These collectives offer a potentially valuable
source of competitive advantage, yet they must be actively managed and supported in order to be sustainable and effective
(McDermott & Archibald, 2010). We hope this investigation
serves as a catalyst for greater attention being placed on these and
other nontraditional collaborative entities in the future. We look
forward to continued developments along these lines.
KIRKMAN ET AL.
1244
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Received November 17, 2009
Revision received April 21, 2011
Accepted April 29, 2011 䡲