William M. Snyder

• Ph.D
• Founder at Civic Stewardship Initiative

Although communities of practice develop organically, a carefully crafted design can drive their evolution. In this excerpt from a new book, the authors detail seven design principles. The payoff? Knowledge management that works. Seven principles for cultivating communities of practice In Silicon Valley, a community of circuit designers meets for a...

We live in a small world, where a rural Chinese butcher who contracts a new type of deadly flu virus can infect a visiting international traveller, who later infects attendees at a conference in a Hong Kong hotel, who within weeks spread the disease to Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, and Ireland. Fortunately, the virulence of the Severe Acute Respirato...

The population served by Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) has lower levels of cancer screening compared with the general population and suffers a disproportionate cancer burden. To address these disparities, 3 federal agencies and a primary care association established and tested the feasibility of a Regional Cancer Collaborative (RCC) in...

Creating a Learning Culture features insightful essays from industry observers and revealing case studies of prominent corporations. Each chapter revolves around creating an environment where learning takes place each day, all day - fundamentally changing the way we think about how, what, and when we learn, and how we can apply learning to practice...

We believe there are three fundamental design criteria that help specify essential characteristics of a world learning system capable of addressing the scope and scale of the global challenges we face today. Problems such as overpopulation, world hunger, poverty, illiteracy, armed conflict, inequity, disease, and environmental degradation are inext...

This article defines communities of practice as an approach for cross-organizational collaboration, highlights several success stories, and provides guidelines on how to cultivate communities of practice to improve performance outcomes. The complexity of today’s challenges and associated performance expectations—in public, private, and non-profit...

Government today faces unprecedented challenges, from rising citizen expectations to an expanding breadth and complexity of problems to address. These challenges require an increased capability for learning and innovation as well as a scope of coordination that are not afforded by current structures. Creating large consolidated departments such as...

Government today faces unprecedented challenges, from rising citizen expectations to an expanding breadth and complexity of problems to address. These challenges require an increased capability for learning and innovation as well as a scope of coordination that are not afforded by current structures. Creating large consolidated departments such as...

That is, the crucial challenges ahead are less about the “whether” of broader engagement than about the when and how. This report describes how collaborative action-learning networks—here called “communities of practice”—can combine disciplines, interests, and capabilities across boundaries to take on national priorities. Though much of the action...

Government today faces unprecedented challenges, from rising citizen expectations to an expanding breadth and complexity of problems to address. These challenges require an increased capability for learning and innovation as well as a scope of coordination that are not afforded by current structures. Creating large consolidated departments such as...

The purpose of the Chicago study was to learn more about the challenge of organizing cross-sector civic groups for economic development in cities. Cities have a distinctive advantage as engines of economic growth. They provide a dense, dynamic context for connecting diverse people who have complementary needs, interests, and capabilities; and who s...

Propuesta administrativa inscrita dentro la corriente de la administración del conocimiento, consistente en la formación de lo que los autores llaman comunidades de práctica, para la creación de una verdadera organización de conocimiento. Aunque las comunidades en general tienen un proceso de formación "natural", las compañías han de ser más proact...

Today’s economy runs on knowledge, and most companies work assiduously to capitalize on that fact. They use cross-functional teams, customer- or product-focused business units, and work groups—to name just a few organizational forms—to capture and spread ideas and know-how. In many cases, these ways of organizing are very effective, and no one woul...

This paper presents a conceptual model that proposes how organization learning disorders influence organization performance. The model suggests that organization knowledge mediates the relationship between learning disorders and performance. Specific organization learning disorders are identified for each of the four phases of organization learning...

This paper presents a conceptual model that proposes how organization learning disorders influence organization performance. The model suggests that organization knowledge mediates the relationship between learning disorders and performance. Specific organization learning disorders are identified for each of the four phases of organization learning...

Organization learning (OL) and organization knowledge (OK) are popular topics in both the academic and practitioner literature. Yet, neither term has been clearly defined, and there is little theoretical or empirical work that explores their interrelationships--or the processes by which OL and OK influence organization performance (OP). This disser...