Virtual Knowledge-Sharing Communities of Practice at Caterpillar: Success Factors and Barriers

Abstract

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of success factors and barriers to the development of virtual knowledge-sharing communities of practice at Caterpillar Inc., a Fortune 100 multinational corporation. The study identified several prerequisites for successful knowledge management through virtual communities of practice: knowledge sharing as a key element of the corporate culture; employees regarding knowledge as a public good belonging to the whole organization, and not as their individual asset; communities self-organizing around specific performance-related problems or areas of professional interest of their members; and communities supported by volunteer managers and active core groups of experts. At the same time, the study has identified a number of important barriers to virtual community development. Specifically, even when employees give the highest priority to the interests of the organization, they tend to shy away from contributing knowledge for a variety of other reasons not related to information hoarding. In addition, corporate security considerations and concerns about the accuracy of the information and the potential information overload could clash with the need to promote spontaneous generation of information. Suggestions for overcoming the identified barriers, future research directions, and implications for HRD professionals are formulated.