Digital Commons Network^™

This paper outlines a typology for use in the qualitative assessment of communities of practice (COPs). COPs

are groups of people who meet together to share knowledge and solve problems around a similar interest, and they are essential to intellectual capital development within organizations. This paper types COPs along two dimensions: trust and risk. These dimensions are used to analyze a COPs capacity for learning and collaboration outcomes. Trust requires an environment that fosters openness toward good and bad ideas, mistakes and accomplishments, and a structure that it is negotiated and agreed upon by the self-initiated membership. Productive inquiry provides …