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CASE STUDY
GEDIFO: A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
GEDIFO: A Cross-Organizational Approach to
Learning in Communities of Practice
http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijac.v7i2.3613
Christina Merl1 and Ulrich Schönbauer2
1 TalkShop.cc, Vienna, Austria
2 Vienna Chamber of Labor
Abstract—This case study focuses on the situation of works
councils who in today’s globalized economy are challenged
to represent the interests of employees on the one hand and
to act as co-managers on the other. GEDIFO, a unique pilot
initiative by the Vienna Chamber of Labor and the educa-
tional body of the Austrian Trade Union, seeks to empower
and support works councils by promoting cross-
organizational learning and peer coaching in communities
of practice (CoP).
Index Terms—Community of Practice, Cross-
Organizational Learning, Peer Exchange, Peer Coaching,
Double-Loop Learning, Facilitation.
I. INTRODUCTION
In today’s globalized economy, organizations face in-
ternational competition, the need for technology-driven
innovation, inefficiencies due to bureaucracy, severe cost-
cutting, and frequently economic and social pressure as
well as a deterioration in working conditions as a result
thereof. Works councils are challenged to represent the
interests of employees and at the same time to act as co-
managers. In order to meet these challenges, they need to
acquire negotiation and communication skills, social
skills, ICT skills as well as legal knowledge and domain
skills. GEDIFO (short for “Gesellschaftspolitisches
Diskussionsforum” or socio-political discussion forum) is
a unique pilot initiative by the Vienna Chamber of Labor
(AK Wien) and the educational body of the Austrian
Trade Union (VOEGB) that promotes cross-
organizational learning for works councils of corporate
and public sector organizations. GEDIFO’s mission is to
identify new trends and challenges on the labor market
and to support works councils in acquiring the skills they
need for developing and implementing timely and ade-
quate measures aimed at promoting fair and sustainable
working conditions for employees.
Currently, GEDIFO’s focus is on six core areas (do-
mains): workplace health promotion; continuing training
of educationally disadvantaged employees; temporary
agency work; corporate social responsibility; political
campaigning; and age diversity in the workplace. These
domains have been identified and defined by GEDIFO
members (works councils) on the basis of their profes-
sional needs. GEDIFO membership is voluntary and free
of charge. Domain skills, mutual engagement and readi-
ness to take action in the organizational context are pre-
requisite for participation in GEDIFO. Facilitated meet-
ings take place at regular intervals and are closely moni-
tored by sponsors.
A. History of learning within GEDIFO
GEDIFO was founded 12 years ago under the label of
“literature club” by Uli Schönbauer, a sociologist and
systemic coach who is employed with the Vienna Cham-
ber of Labor. Back then, works councils, members of the
trade union, and external experts with an interest in socio-
political topics were regularly invited to reflect ongoing
trends and developments in society.
Over the years, and especially since the community of
practice (CoP) model was introduced in 2011, GEDIFO
has developed into a face-to-face platform where cross-
organizational “out-of-the-box” thinking and learning has
not only been “allowed” but fostered. Despite GEDIFO’s
non-hierarchical approach, the initiative is still quite
strongly influenced by a traditional trade unionist mindset
– such as strict hierarchical budgeting guidelines and a
rather traditional attitude towards learning, training, and
problem-solving. Against this background, “out-of-the-
box” thinking indicates that works councils are encour-
aged to think and act beyond organizational, political, and
hierarchical boundaries as well as to reflect their existing
values and beliefs while trying out new ways of problem-
solving to overcome the challenges they face in their or-
ganizations.
B. Paradigm shift
With the advent of the new technologies and the rise of
the network society, organizations and works councils
started to need more sustainable and self-organized learn-
ing processes. Accordingly, GEDIFO members have been
exploring a variety of innovative learning approaches and
participative techniques for effective and democratic deci-
sion-making, including the sociocracy model (see Buck
and Villines, 2007) and the method of “organizing” as a
strategy for political campaigning (see Shirky, 2009).
Three years ago, GEDIFO introduced the community of
practice (CoP) model as defined by Etienne Wenger and
Jean Lave (1991), aimed at providing more sustainable
learning within GEDIFO and at encouraging cross-
organizational and cross-party peer coaching and learning.
What differentiates this new approach to learning from
former learning formats (such as project-based learning
groups) is that individual problem-solving approaches are
being looked at from a systemic theory point of view (see
Königswieser & Exner, 1998) and supported by systemic-
constructivist coaching methods (see Fischer et al, 2013).
In other words, works councils are encouraged and em-
powered to reflect their existing values and beliefs, to try
out new ways of problem-solving in their organizational
context, and to share and reflect their learning with peers.
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CASE STUDY
GEDIFO: A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
As far as the authors of this case study know, GEDIFO
is currently the only such cross-organizational, cross-
hierarchical, cross-party initiative in Austria that promotes
peer coaching and peer learning among works councils
and trade union members in a CoP setting.
II. LEARNING IN COPS
A. Introducing a new approach to learning
In January 2011, GEDIFO introduced the concept of
CoP as defined by Etienne Wenger (1998). “Communities
of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a
passion for something they do and learn how to do it bet-
ter as they interact regularly.”
A CoP consists of three components – domain, com-
munity, practice (ibid). Domain stands for shared interest
in a topic and means that membership implies both mutual
engagement and domain skills. Community refers to the
fact that members of a CoP – practitioners - interact regu-
larly to pursue their shared goals, thus building a social
relationship and learning together. This aspect differenti-
ates a CoP from a loose community of interest and a pro-
ject-based working group or task force. Practice implies
the shared repertoire of resources that are produced by
members as a result of their learning, including experienc-
es, stories, tools, and ways of addressing recurring prob-
lems in their work field.
In the case of GEDIFO, establishing the six CoPs has
taken a considerable amount of time and sustained interac-
tion as well as tailored coaching by facilitators and exter-
nal experts. The facilitation team consists of GEDIFO
founder and host Uli Schönbauer and of Christina Merl, a
social learning expert and CoP consultant. Initiating and
nourishing these CoPs despite the hierarchical structures
and traditional mindset of sponsoring organizations as
well as making CoP members aware that hands-on solu-
tions must come from them on the basis of their expertise
and practical experience have been the major challenges
for the facilitation team. Actually, facilitators have put a
considerable amount of time and effort to empower and
encourage GEDIFO members to reflect their existing
values and beliefs; to co-develop hands-on solutions to
problems they face in daily work; to take action in their
real-life organizational context; and to reflect their learn-
ing together with peers.
CoP meetings take place at regular intervals; the focus
of these meetings is on developing practice-oriented steps
and activities. It should be mentioned that GEDIFO host
Uli Schönbauer has to report to sponsors at regular inter-
vals and to justify why it makes sense to continue spon-
soring the CoP approach.
B. Double-loop learning
Frequently, works councils may face resistance as a re-
sult of deeply rooted political traditions, strict hierarchical
structures, and last but not least as a result of neoliberal
tendencies that increasingly dominate their work context.
They have to represent the interests of employees and at
the same time to act as co-managers. GEDIFO’s approach
to learning differs from traditional learning formats in that
it provides systemic coaching interventions that make
works councils realize that they may need to change their
underlying values and beliefs as well as to reframe their
goals in order to achieve satisfactory results in their organ-
izational context.
For example, in the field of workplace health promo-
tion, two works councils in Vienna and Lower Austria
experience major troubles in their hospitals. The hospitals
need to cut costs, which leads to an increase in burnout
cases and a decrease in staff performance. The works
councils face major resistance at the political level and
feel helpless. Against this background, GEDIFO facilita-
tors organized a “systemic constellation” meeting. This
coaching intervention helped the two affected works
councils to understand specific processes and political
positions better and also to reframe their own thinking and
approach. In addition, they got valuable feedback and
advice from peers who work in different organizations. As
a result, the two works councils felt empowered and start-
ed to build alliances and to develop an action plan that
should help them improve the situation in their hospitals.
This process of reconsidering existing assumptions and
re-assessing fixed values and goals may be compared to
double-loop learning as defined by Argyris & Schön
(1996). There, individuals and/or organizations are able to
modify or even reject their goals in the light of practical
experience (see Fig. 1).
Figure 1. double loop learning
GEDIFO provides a space where works councils can
reflect their practical experience with peers. They get
feedback from peers and experts and thus can further
develop their practice, re-define or even reject their cur-
rent goals and try out new ways of problem-solving.
While single-loop learning (see Argyris & Schön,
1978) involves trying out different strategies and modify-
ing actions to achieve different outcomes, double-loop
learning requires a deeper assessment of existing values,
assumptions and policies that led to the actions in the first
place, and modifying those. In the context of GEDIFO,
works councils are encouraged to assess their situation,
values, and strategies at a deeper level. Together, they find
out how they need to reframe their values and objectives
in order to obtain satisfactory results. Double loop learn-
ing has proven very necessary and valuable for GEDIFO
members. After all, they have confirmed that their regular
CoP meetings do not only provide one of their main
sources of knowledge and know-how but also a valuable
space for reflection about their practice and learning. A
member of GEDIFO, a works council of a semi-privatized
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CASE STUDY
GEDIFO: A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Vienna-based social care organization, describes her
learning experience as follows:
“GEDIFO has opened up a new world to us. A world
where we can exchange our thoughts and experiences,
learn with and from each other and pursue common goals
across political and organizational boundaries. What is
more, we do not only discuss things on a theoretical level
but look behind the scenes and take action. We develop
concrete solutions and strategies together and implement
them in our work fields. GEDIFO provides a platform
where we can discuss our practice and get feedback and
advice from peers and experts. It therefore stands for
knowledge transfer, awareness-building, networking,
collaboration, and finally for taking action and imple-
menting measures. This is what makes GEDIFO success-
ful: Members learn from and with each other and benefit
as a group as well as individually.”(Doris B.)
C. The facilitation process
The past three years have been characterized by culti-
vating and nurturing the six CoPs (workplace health pro-
motion; continuing training of educationally disadvan-
taged employees; temporary agency work; corporate so-
cial responsibility; political campaigning; and more re-
cently, age diversity in the workplace.)
The individual CoPs comprise between 7 and 20 mem-
bers; facilitated meetings take place at regular intervals;
the role of facilitators has been to initiate the CoPs as well
as to encourage members to define and develop the three
elements – domain, community, practice – in parallel. For
this, various methods and coaching interventions have
been used, including expert round tables, world café
(Brown and Isaacs, 2005), the fishbowl format (Keck-
McNulty, 2004), and especially the systemic-
constructivist methodology of coaching (see Fischer et al,
2013) that has been transformed into a specific peer
coaching design to serve GEDIFO purposes.
Artefacts have been produced by CoP members, includ-
ing mission statements, a little GEDIFO booklet, GEDIFO
badges, video statements, etc. Furthermore, topic-related
events and workshops have been organized by the indi-
vidual CoPs at regular intervals with the aim to push their
subject and to raise awareness among works councils.
The facilitation process cannot be put into a clear-cut
recipe as the dynamics of the individual CoPs are very
different and unpredictable. For example, facilitators
thought of closing down the CoP for temporary agency
work and discussed that option with core members two
years ago. All of a sudden, the interest in the topic grew,
and the number of members increased. The CoP started to
flourish and meanwhile counts over 20 members. It is
hard to predict the life span and dynamics of a CoP as it
depends a lot on the overall social and political interest in
the domain, on the motivation of members, their mutual
engagement, commitment as well as time resources.
Facilitators have learned that they need to be very flexi-
ble and constantly adapt the facilitation process to the
needs of CoP members. One major difficulty is to remain
flexible within the strict hierarchical structures of the
sponsoring organizations. One key to success may be the
clear focus on concrete outcomes. Facilitators demand
from CoP members that they are clear on which activities
they want to take in their real life organizational context.
This is how members stay focused and the CoPs are pre-
vented from developing into a pure discussion club. Once
works councils have become familiar with the CoP ap-
proach and once they have started to see the impact of
their activities in real life, they have become more active
and committed.
D. Out-of-the-box thinking
It has taken a major effort by facilitators to “channel”
the expertise and creativity of CoP members and to en-
courage them to think “out of the box”. As most GEDIFO
members come from very hierarchical organizational and
traditional political backgrounds, they were used to hierar-
chical settings and traditional learning groups with fixed
objectives, such as project teams, learning groups, instruc-
tional trainings, and traditional seminars. It took facilita-
tors quite some time to make members aware that they
themselves are the experts who can change things for the
better in their organizational context and that hands-on
solutions must come from them. This learning process has
demanded a lot of flexibility, creativity, and vision on the
part of facilitators. Their role has been to empower mem-
bers; to push them towards re-assessing their existing
values and beliefs; and also to provide the setting where
they can reflect together with peers on the effectiveness of
their individual activities. As a matter of fact, “out-of-the-
box thinking” is an important aspect of the peer-coaching
approach as applied in the GEDIFO context. Members are
invited to dig deeper, assess their existing assumptions,
reframe their thinking and co-develop new ways of prob-
lem-solving.
E. Definition of roles
A major challenge in the community building process
has been the definition of roles within the individual
CoPs. Each CoP consists of a number of core members
and also peripheral members who contribute on an irregu-
lar basis. In the beginning, facilitators have taken the lead-
ing role. In some CoPs, individual members started to take
an active role out of their own initiative. For example, two
members have taken a leading role in the work health
promotion CoP, meaning they have started to co-organize
meetings and agendas. The same happened in the tempo-
rary agency work CoP. Also, several task forces have
formed within the various CoPs that work on solutions for
specific problems that are relevant to all members. In the
meantime, experts from the sponsoring organizations have
started to join CoP meetings as they can benefit from
practitioners’ experiences and points of view for their
daily work; further, their role is to support CoP members
with regard to legal and political questions.
It can be said that a flourishing CoP needs a visionary
leader - someone who has a clear vision, takes the initia-
tive and is able to motivate the others and to share their
experiences and develop hands-on solutions.
F. Meta CoP: cross-CoP learning and networking
Three or four times per year, core members of the indi-
vidual CoPs meet to exchange important insights and to
make strategic decisions that are relevant for all CoPs.
This cross-CoP meeting format is called “Meta CoP” and
gives CoP members the opportunity to connect and ex-
change valuable insights, information, and practical expe-
rience. More recently, a growing number of practitioners
have demanded increased cross-CoP learning and net-
working even if they have limited time resources. Their
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CASE STUDY
GEDIFO: A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
wish for more cross-CoP exchange seems to imply that
they benefit from cross-topical, cross-organizational,
cross-party peer exchange and learning.
G. Technology-driven learning
Originally, GEDIFO sponsors planned to install online
CoPs when the new approach was taken up in 2011. The
learning should take place within a Moodle supported
setting where online discussion spaces had been created
for members of the individual CoPs. At least, some fruit-
ful discussions took place in the online environment.
However, the enormous need for online facilitation posed
a budgetary challenge. What’s more, members were clear-
ly in favor of face-to-face interaction for several reasons.
For example, some core members simply lack the neces-
sary technological and social media skills. They say it is
because of their age (some of them are over 50 and do not
need social media skills in their job). Many of them seem
to lack the time and motivation to engage in online discus-
sion and learning out of office hours. Also, members are
clearly reluctant to discuss delicate legal issues in an
online environment. They prefer face-to-face settings and
personal conversation for this. In order to not lose the
dynamics of the overall process, facilitators agreed to
replace the online platform by face-to-face meetings and
to move in the direction of online discussions at a later
point. Social media skills trainings were provided without
big success. As GEDIFO is a rather small initiative with
limited budget, the initial wish to install online discussion
forums has been postponed.
At least, an official GEDIFO blog (www.gedifo.at) and
a Facebook site as well as a Twitter account have been
installed. Facilitators and sponsoring organizations would
clearly like to see more learning and activities to take
place online as they think the GEDIFO spirit could be
well transmitted online and reach a wider target group.
For this purpose, an online media team was recently set
up. This team consists of a member of each CoP and will
strive to find a more systematic and motivating approach
towards spreading the GEDIFO spirit online and also to
encourage other members to join in online discussions and
learning. However, members are still reluctant to discuss
their topics in a social media setting as they fear a lack of
data security and of giving confidential information that
might be used against them at some point. At the moment,
it seems that works councils prefer to discuss delicate
matters and strategies in a face-to-face setting.
H. The added value of professional facilitation
Last but not least, it should be pointed out that profes-
sional facilitation of CoP meetings is pre-requisite to suc-
cessful meeting outcomes. Without professional facilita-
tion, members tend to discuss their challenges without
considering concrete solutions and taking concrete steps.
The role of facilitators has therefore been to identify cur-
rent trends, define strategies, and smoothly guide CoP
members in “the right direction” in order to get good
meeting outcomes. Adequate coaching interventions have
been used, such as peer coaching, expert round tables,
world cafés, portrait painting, creating artefacts, etc. The
overall goal of facilitators is to nourish the self-organizing
spirit among CoP members and to inspire and empower
individual members to take more and more of a leading
role.
III. LEARNING WITH CONCRETE PRACTICAL OUTPUT
Learning within GEDIFO has to be result-oriented.
Sponsors want to see concrete outcome of CoP meetings
and they want to use results to improve their own pro-
grams as well as to promote their (political) interests. It
should be pointed out that sponsors expect fast results
despite severe budget restrictions. Experience has shown
that CoPs need time to develop and that they need to be
nourished continuously. This takes a lot of time, patience,
vision, flexibility and especially communication and em-
pathy from the facilitators. CoP members have very lim-
ited time resources and need to be encouraged and em-
powered by facilitators quite a lot. It can be said that CoPs
do not just sprout up organically but that they have to be
created and nourished via “artificial insemination”. Once
members are on board, however, they feel the energy and
dynamics that inspires them to contribute and share their
know-how and co-develop hands-on solutions to improve
the situation in their organizations.
Even if GEDIFO is seen as a laboratory of trial and er-
ror, it is quite strongly influenced by a traditional trade
unionist mindset, meaning, among other things, that strict
(budgetary and decision-making) guidelines have to be
followed. It takes a lot of effort to convince sponsors that
relevant knowledge nowadays resides in networks and that
most relevant workplace learning today is experiential,
unplanned, social, and informal. As the dynamics of the
individual CoPs is hard to predict, facilitators are chal-
lenged to guide learning processes within GEDIFO with
utmost flexibility. At the same time, they have to operate
within strict hierarchical structures as set by sponsoring
organizations.
GEDIFO seeks to embrace and foster social networking
and learning across organizational, hierarchical, and polit-
ical boundaries with the aim to provide sustainable sup-
port for practitioners who struggle with the increasing
complexity, unpredictability, and uncertainty in their or-
ganizational contexts.
After all, some knowledge transfer from the individual
CoPs to the sponsoring organizations has been achieved.
Experts of the sponsoring organizations started to partici-
pate in the CoP meetings as they can gain inspiration and
interesting contributions for their own work while feeding
CoP members with important legal and other know-how.
For example, a press conference was organized by spon-
soring organizations where the results of the CoP on tem-
porary agency work were presented to a large number of
Austrian newspapers and other media. Further, some im-
portant cross-organizational alliances have been built in
the field of health promotion. Last but not least, experts
from the sponsoring organizations can get valuable in-
sights into the corporate world through the CoPs. It seems
that cross-organizational, informal, and social learning in
CoPs is a key to works councils achievements in today’s
business climate.
REFERENCES
[1] M. Castells, “The Rise of the Network Society (The Information
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[2] E. Wenger, J. Lave, “Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Participation”, September 1991, ISBN: 9780521423748
[3] E. Wenger, “Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and
Identity”, Cambridge University Press, 1998
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iJAC ‒ Volume 7, Issue 2, 2014
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CASE STUDY
GEDIFO: A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
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AUTHORS
Christina Merl is the owner of TalkShop.cc and works
as a CoP consultant, language and social learning profes-
sional from Vienna (e-mail cmerl@talkshop.cc)
Ulrich Schönbauer is a sociologist and systemic coach
and is employed by the Vienna Chamber of Labor (e-mail:
ulrich.schoenbauer@akwien.at)
Submitted on 01 June 2014. Published as re-submitted by the authors
08 June 2014.
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