Afraid of engagement? Towards an understanding of engagement in virtual communities of practice

ABSTRACT

Virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) foster learning and knowledge sharing between employees. However, many virtual communities of practice fail due to the lack of engagement of collaborators. Employees often claim that they do not have time for such communities. This paper investigates the determinants of engagement in virtual communities of practice. Based on a rare survey of members of VCoPs at Schneider Electric, a multinational company of 137 000 employees, this research highlights the relations between job engagement, the perceived value of virtual communities of practice by members, and engagement in VCoPs. As such, respondents report higher levels of engagement in virtual communities of practice as their engagement in their job increases. Further, the perceived value of VCoPs mediates partially the relation between job engagement and engagement in VCoPs. These results lead to solutions for managers to implement, to increase the engagement of collaborators in virtual communities of practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Communities of practice
• virtual communities of practice
• engagement
• multinational
• value of communities of practice

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Olivier Bertrand for his friendly review of this research, as well as the Knowledge Management team of Schneider Electric.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.