Creating intellectual capital: a Habermasian community of practice (CoP) introduction

O�Donnell, David; Porter, Gayle; McGuire, David; Garavan, Thomas N.; Heffernan, Margaret; Cleary, Peter

Abstract

John Seely Brown notes that context must be added to data and information to produce meaning. To move forward, Brown suggests, we must not merely look ahead but we must also learn to “look around” because learning occurs when members of a community of practice (CoP) socially construct and share their understanding of some text, issue or event. We draw explicitly here on the structural components of a Habermasian lifeworld in order to identify some dynamic processes through which a specific intellectual capital creating context, CoP, may be theoretically positioned. Rejecting the individualistic “Cogito, ergo sum” of the Cartesians, we move in line with Brown’s “we participate, therefore we are” to arrive within a Habermasian community of practice: we communicate, ergo, we create.

Citation

O’Donnell, D., Porter, G., McGuire, D., Garavan, T. N., Heffernan, M., & Cleary, P. (2003). Creating intellectual capital: a Habermasian community of practice (CoP) introduction. Journal of European industrial training, 27(2/3/4), 80-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590310468903

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2003-03
• Deposit Date: Aug 3, 2016
• Journal: Journal of European Industrial Training
• Print ISSN: 0309-0590
• Electronic ISSN: 0309-0590
• Publisher: Emerald
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 2/3/4
• Pages: 80-87
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590310468903
• Keywords: Communities of practice, Intellectual capital, workplace learning,
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/323791