Community, Economic Creativity, and Organization

It has long been an interest of researchers in economics, sociology, organization studies, and economic geography to understand how firms innovate. Most recently, this interest has begun to examine the micro-processes of work and organization that sustain social creativity, emphasizing the learning and knowing through action when social actors and technologies come together in 'communities of practice'; everyday interactions of common purpose and mutual obligation. These communities are said to spark both incremental and radical innovation.In the book, leading international scholars critically examine the concept of communities of practice and its applications in different spatial, organizational, and creative settings. Chapters examine the development of the concept, the link between situated practice and different types of creative outcome, the interface between spatial and relational proximity, and the organizational demands of learning and knowing through communities of practice. More widely, the chapters examine the compatibility between markets, knowledge capitalism, and community; seemingly in conflict with each other, but discursively not. Exploring the frontiers of current understanding of situated knowing and learning, this book is for all those interested in the economic sociology of organizational creativity and knowledge capitalism in general.

Table of Contents:
Prologue: Paul Duguid: Community of Practice Then and Now 1: Ash Amin and Joanne Roberts: The Resurgence of Community in Economic Thought and Practice Part I: Community, Creativity and Economy 2: Michael Storper: Community and Economics 3: Paul Duguid: "The Art of Knowing": Social and Tacit Dimensions of Knowledge and the Limits of the Community of Practice 4: Nigel Thrift: Re-animating the Place of Thought: Transformations of Spatial and Temporal Description in the Twenty-first Century Part II: Bridging Cognitive Distance 5: Bart Nooteboom: Cognitive Distance in and Between CoP's and Firms: Where do exploitation and exploration Take Place, and How are They Connected? 6: Harry Scarbrough and Jacky Swan: Project Work as a Locus of Learning: The Journey Through Practice 7: Aurélie Delemarle and Philippe Larédo: Breakthrough Innovation and the Shaping of New Markets: The Role of Communities of Practice Part III: Achieving Relational Proximity 8: Meric Gertler: Buzz without Being There? Communities of Practice in Context 9: Patrick Cohendet and Laurent Simon: Knowledge Intensive Firms, Communities and Creative Cities 10: Juan Mateos-Garcia and Ed Steinmueller: Open, But How Much? Growth, Conflict and Institutional Evolution in Open Source Communities Epilogue: Jean Lave: Situated Learning and Changing Practice

About the Author :
Ash Amin is Professor of Geography at Durham University and Executive Director of the University's Institute Advanced Study. His current research interests lie in the areas of knowledge practices, the social economy, race and multiculturalism, social and spatial theory, urbanism, and political invention. His most recent books include Cities: Reimagining the Urban, with Nigel Thrift, Polity, 2002; Placing the Social Economy, with Angus Cameron and Ray Hudson, Routledge, 2002; Architectures of Knowledge, with Patrick Cohendet, OUP, 2004; Cultural Economy: A Reader, edited with Nigel Thrift, Blackwell, 2005. He is completing a book with Nigel Thrift on reinventing Left political thought and practice. Joanne Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in Management at Newcastle University Business School where she is a member of the Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE). Her research interests include knowledge intensive services, new information and communication technologies and knowledge transfer, inter and intra organizational knowledge transfer and the internationalisation of business services. She is a participant in the Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe, Network of Excellence and an Honorary Associate Fellow at the Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition, University of Manchester. Her recent books include Living with Cyberspace: Technology & Society in the 21st Century, edited with John Armitage, Continuum, 2002; Knowledge and Innovation in the New Service Economy, edited with B. Andersen, J. Howells, I. Miles and R. Hull, Edward Elgar, 2000.

Review :
`This is an outstanding book... and quite the best thing I have read on communities of practice. I'll be recommending it to many clients and firms.' Larry Prusak, Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Babson College, and Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School