Afraid of Learning? Towards the Learning Through Communities of Practice Instigated by Individuals' Preference for Teamwork and Concern for Team Member

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the relationship between individuals' preference for teamwork and communities of practice (CoPs) mediated by individuals' concern for team members built from the perspective of social learning system for knowledge sharing and learning. A cross-sectional study with data collected from the respondents through a convenience, non-random, non-probability sampling technique was employed in this research. The data of 240 were collected from the respondents belonging to manufacturing and service organizations in India and analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis, multiple regression analysis and PROCESS macro from Hayes with bootstrapping technique. The findings from the analysis showed a positive relationship between individuals' preference for teamwork and CoPs, while concern for team members mediated the relationship between preference for teamwork and CoPs. When employees prefer to work in teams, they positively consider participating in CoPs. Thus, organizations should strategically formulate conditions for employees to enable them to prefer working in teams and groups so that they collaborate as CoPs for knowledge creation, sharing and learning. Such learning through CoPs can pave the way for skill development and high-quality performance, thereby evolving as a framework for human capital development. This chapter provides an understanding of the relationship between individual employees' preference for teamwork and CoPs, mediated by individuals' concern for team members in an Indian context. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, along with limitations and future research direction.