Logo PTI Logo FedCSIS

Position Papers of the 21st Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems, Volume 48

Implementing Communities of Practice with Social CRM

,

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15439/2026F9749

Citation: Cristina Alejandra Barahona Cabrera,

Full text

Abstract. Communities of practice (CoPs) promote knowledge exchange, learning, and collaboration among actors from a common practice. In these communities, digital tools are used for communication, engagement monitoring, knowledge creation and management. This article examines the potential of Social CRM to support the development and implementation of CoPs. The study combines a literature review, qualitative document analysis, action research in a European Union project, and a TAM applicability evaluation. The literature review differentiates three implementation scenarios: in-person, virtual, and hybrid CoPs. The document analysis matches the Communities of Practice Playbook with an integrated Social CRM model to derive possible application fields for CoPs, which are then applied to a real-world scenario. Key results include Social CRM application fields and their added value for CoP implementation.

References

  1. S. Barnett, S. C. Jones, S. Bennett, D. Iverson, and A. Bonney, “General practice training and virtual communities of practice - a review of the literature,” BMC Fam. Pract., vol. 13, no. 1, p. 87, Dec. 2012, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-87.
  2. E. Bennett, “Building on ideas of Community of Practice using social software tools.,” Sep. 2006. Accessed: May 06, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Building-on-ideas-of-Community-of-Practice-using-Bennett/066eda0fb0920ec057184c1aea5e1d8b406a1bbc
  3. A. Majchrzak, S. Faraj, G. C. Kane, and B. Azad, “The Contradictory Influence of Social Media Affordances on Online Communal Knowledge Sharing,” J. Comput.-Mediat. Commun., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 38–55, Oct. 2013, https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12030.
  4. R. Alt and O. Reinhold, “Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM): Application and Technology,” Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng., vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 287–291, Oct. 2012, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12599-012-0225-5.
  5. E. Wenger, “Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction,” Oct. 2011.
  6. D. Nicolini, I. Pyrko, O. Omidvar, and A. Spanellis, “Understanding Communities of Practice: Taking Stock and Moving Forward,” Acad. Manag. Ann., vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 680–718, Jul. 2022, https://dx.doi.org/10.5465/annals.2020.0330.
  7. E. Wenger, R. A. McDermott, and W. Snyder, Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
  8. G. Probst and S. Borzillo, “Why communities of practice succeed and why they fail,” Eur. Manag. J., vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 335–347, Oct. 2008, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2008.05.003.
  9. European Commission. Joint Research Centre., The communities of practice playbook: a playbook to collectively run and develop communities of practice : print friendly version. LU: Publications Office, 2021. https://dx.doi.org/10.2760/37048.
  10. L. Dube, A. Bourhis, and R. Jacob, “Towards a Typology of Virtual Communities of Practice,” Interdiscip. J. Inf. Knowl. Manag., vol. 1, pp. 069–093, 2006, https://dx.doi.org/10.28945/115.
  11. R. Alt and O. Reinhold, “Social CRM,” in Handbuch Social-Media-Marketing, C. Zerres, Ed., Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2024, pp. 1–20. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42282-0_16-1.
  12. P. Greenberg, “The impact of CRM 2.0 on customer insight,” J. Bus. Ind. Mark., vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 410–419, Aug. 2010, https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/08858621011066008.
  13. J. vom Brocke, A. Simons, B. Niehaves, K. Riemer, R. Plattfaut, and A. Cleven, Reconstructing the Giant: On the Importance of Rigour in Documenting the Literature Search Process. 2009. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259440652_Reconstructing_the_Giant_On_the_Importance_of_Rigour_in_Documenting_the_Literature_Search_Process
  14. M. Saunders, P. Lewis, and A. Thornhill, Research methods for business students, 5. ed. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2009.
  15. F. D. Davis, “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology,” MIS Q., vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 319–340, Sep. 1989, https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/249008.
  16. J. Bindels, K. Cox, G. Widdershoven, C. P. Van Schayck, and T. A. Abma, “Stimulating program implementation via a Community of Practice: A responsive evaluation of care programs for frail older people in the Netherlands,” Eval. Program Plann., vol. 46, pp. 115–121, Oct. 2014, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.06.001.
  17. S. Holden, M. Ferguson, J. Brimblecombe, and C. E. Palermo, “Can a community of practice equip public health nutritionists to work with remote retail to improve the food supply?,” Rural Remote Health, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 3464, 2015.
  18. A. Wilson, M. Cornett, R. Delbridge, T. Mackean, and C. Palermo, “A realist evaluation of a community of practice for dietitians and nutritionists working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health,” J. Hum. Nutr. Diet., vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 277–287, Feb. 2023, https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jhn.13043.
  19. J. M. Spiegel et al., “Establishing a community of practice of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and communities to sustainably manage environmental health risks in Ecuador,” BMC Int. Health Hum. Rights, vol. 11, no. S2, p. S5, Dec. 2011, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-698X-11-S2-S5.
  20. R. Hennein et al., “Core components of a Community of Practice to improve community health worker performance: a qualitative study,” Implement. Sci. Commun., vol. 3, no. 1, p. 27, Mar. 2022, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s43058-022-00279-1.
  21. W. Fingrut, L. A. Beck, and D. Lo, “Oncology Communities of Practice: Insights from a Qualitative Analysis,” Curr. Oncol., vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 378–383, Dec. 2018, https://dx.doi.org/10.3747/co.25.4088.
  22. J. E. Alcalde-Rabanal, V. M. Becerril-Montekio, and E. V. Langlois, “Evaluation of Communities of Practice performance developing implementation research to enhance maternal health decision-making in Mexico and Nicaragua,” Implement. Sci., vol. 13, no. 1, p. 41, Dec. 2018, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13012-018-0735-8.
  23. L. S. Penney et al., “Seeding Structures for a Community of Practice Focused on Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA): Implementing Across Disciplines and Waves,” J. Gen. Intern. Med., vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 313–321, Feb. 2021, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11606-020-06135-z.
  24. T. T. Do, A. McEwen, M. Martyn, C. Gaff, and B. Dawson-McClaren, “How can a community of practice support healthcare professionals navigating new roles? a case study of genetic counsellors employed to work in medical specialities,” BMC Health Serv. Res., vol. 25, no. 1, p. 314, Feb. 2025, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12440-2.
  25. C. Van Winkelen, “Using developmental evaluation methods with communities of practice,” Learn. Organ., vol. 23, no. 2/3, pp. 141–155, Apr. 2016, https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/TLO-08-2015-0047.
  26. L. Swaithes, Z. Paskins, J. G. Quicke, K. Stevenson, K. Fell, and K. Dziedzic, “Optimising the process of knowledge mobilisation in Communities of Practice: recommendations from a (multi-method) qualitative study,” Implement. Sci. Commun., vol. 4, no. 1, p. 11, Jan. 2023, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s43058-022-00384-1.
  27. A. U. Thomas, G. P. Fried, P. Johnson, and B. J. Stilwell, “Sharing best practices through online communities of practice: a case study,” Hum. Resour. Health, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 25, Dec. 2010, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-8-25.
  28. R. Sharma and S. N. Bagchi, “Projectized Community of Practice: A Case Study of Globally Distributed Information Technology Organization,” Vikalpa J. Decis. Mak., vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 7–24, Mar. 2024, https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02560909241232499.
  29. C. Alary Gauvreau, G. Le Dorze, D. Kairy, and C. Croteau, “Evaluation of a community of practice for speech-language pathologists in aphasia rehabilitation: a logic analysis,” BMC Health Serv. Res., vol. 19, no. 1, p. 530, Dec. 2019, https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4338-0.
  30. K. Hurtubise, G. Pratte, L. Rivard, J. Berbari, L. Héguy, and C. Camden, “Exploring engagement in a virtual community of practice in pediatric rehabilitation: who are non-users, lurkers, and posters?,” Disabil. Rehabil., vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 983–990, Apr. 2019, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2017.1416496.
  31. W. F. Boh, “Knowledge sharing in communities of practice: examining usefulness of knowledge from discussion forums versus repositories,” ACM SIGMIS Database DATABASE Adv. Inf. Syst., vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 8–31, May 2014, https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2621906.2621908.
  32. T. M. Nisar, G. Prabhakar, and L. Strakova, “Social media information benefits, knowledge management and smart organizations,” J. Bus. Res., vol. 94, pp. 264–272, Jan. 2019, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.005.
  33. K. D. Rolls, M. M. Hansen, D. Jackson, and D. Elliott, “Intensive care nurses on social media: An exploration of knowledge exchange on an intensive care virtual community of practice,” J. Clin. Nurs., vol. 29, no. 7–8, pp. 1381–1397, Apr. 2020, https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15143.
  34. K. Kirchner, R. Jørgensen, E. Bolisani, and E. Scarso, “Supporting Communities of Practice by Enterprise Social Platforms: The Case of an Engineering Company,” in Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Knowledge Management, ACPI, Sep. 2019. https://dx.doi.org/10.34190/KM.19.119.
  35. S. H. Elbrink, S. L. Elmer, M. H. Hawkins, and R. H. Osborne, “Outcomes of co-designed communities of practice that support members to address public health issues,” Health Promot. Int., vol. 39, no. 4, p. daae080, Aug. 2024, https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae080.