Exploring the Embeddedness of an Informal Community of Practice Within a Formal Organizational Context: A Case Study in the German Military

Abstract

The embeddedness of communities of practice (CoPs)—self-organized groups of practitioners, who engage in the same practices, learn from each other, and innovate together—in contexts of formal hierarchical systems, is characterized through tension. CoPs drive learning and change, while formal systems are focused on stable execution and control, suppressing informality and self-organization. How leadership navigates this tension and shapes embeddedness is of interest to scholars and practitioners alike. In this article, we employ an interpretative research approach to explore how a CoP emerges and interacts with the formal hierarchy of the German Armed Forces. The findings of this study indicate that the embeddedness of a CoP within the formal organizational context molds through the dynamic interplay between administrative leaders and community members. In drawing from complexity leadership theory our grounded, cross-level, process model uncovers how a CoP evolves as individuals experience adaptive pressures in their practices stemming from environmental changes and start to generate new resources in response. Furthermore, it reveals how organizational leaders alternate between administrative leadership and enabling leadership techniques, allowing for both self-organized activities and also the integration of the emergent outcomes. Therefore, the model contributes to our understanding of the processes that unfold at the interface between a CoP and formal hierarchical system.