Youni Shabah’s scientific contributions

Managing Inter-Organizational Communities of Practice Inter-organizational communities of practice allow many organizations to share best practices and knowledge among themselves while facilitating coordination between different actors in a given industry sector. Members of a community agree to combine their efforts in order to communicate their knowledge, to help solve problems identified by their peers, the organization and the community itself, and to innovate when new avenues are needed for progress to take place. After addressing the benefits of inter-organizational communities of practice, this article presents the different phases of implementation, including: ensure leadership and a shared vision; ensure a conducive organizational culture and adopt a shared governance approach; plan exchanges in order to facilitate communication between human resources; develop a shared technological platform that fosters collaboration, and, finally; guide the community toward collaboration. We then provide two actual examples of inter-organizational communities of practice. Finally, we emphasize two key success factors for these communities: on the one hand, facilitating agreement between organizations and recognizing their value added, and, on the other hand, advocating respectful leadership for these communities.