The Contribution of Communities of Practice to Human Resource Development: Learning as Negotiating Identity

Abstract

The problem and the solution . The article explores the contribution of communities of practice (COP) to human resource development (HRD), specifically exploring a main point of COP, that learning is about negotiating identities.This implies that individuals attach temporal significance to the activities in which they are engaged by means of a symbolic framework. Identity construction implies construction of a trajectory that connects past, present, and future. There are several implications for HRD research and practice. First, the authors argue that identity dissolves the artificial separation of individual-level HRD and organizational-level HRD because identity is viewed as a pivotal point between the personal and the societal. Second, working with learning and development is to work with individuals' construction of trajectories. The authors distinguish between two ways of exploring trajectories: reflective practice—exploring trajectories to create best practice but where prevalent discourses are fixed—and reflexive practice—exploring trajectories to question discourses from within.

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