Implementing communities of practice in the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Details

• Creators:
  Kingsley, Gordon ; Boyer, Eric ; Rogers, Juan ; Knox-Hayes, Janelle
• Corporate Creators:
  Georgia Institute of Technology
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Communities
  • Employees
  • Information dissemination
  • Retirement
  • Training
  • Communication systems
  • Planning methods
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-GA-14-1137
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Georgia
• Corporate Publisher:
  Georgia. Department of Transportation. Office of Research
• Abstract:
  This study explored strategies through which the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) can develop communities of ; practice to help managers facilitate critical exchanges of knowledge, support organization learning, and ultimately achieve ; improvements in performance outcomes. Communities of practice (COPs) are groups of professionals working on behalf of an ; organization, who develop on-going informal knowledge ex0changes as a means of learning about and performing key job-related ; processes and skills. The study consisted of five main objectives: 1) to map the incidence of COP in GDOT, 2) to monitor patterns ; of knowledge flows through COPs, 3) to assess the costs and benefits of COP, 4) to develop a strategy for application of ; SharePoint to the development of COPs and 5) to assess the impact of employee retirements on knowledge retention. The study ; identified the practices and functions of four communities of practice within GDOT. Strategies for supporting COPs through ; training and the creation of SharePoint sites were applied to two of the COPs. The effectiveness of these strategies was tested by ; comparing the two COPs who received interventions with the two COPs with no interventions. The findings indicate that ; investing in communities of practice can lead to improved performance and operational efficiency. This finding was most ; pronounced in decentralized communities of practice where personnel are spread widely across many offices and locations within ; GDOT. Much of the role of supporting COPs, we find, occurs through providing increased authoritative support, improved ; definition of roles, and adaptation of COP knowledge to job-related skills.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  0010836 (RP 11-37)
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/28850/dot_28850_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.20 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f731e9e8a412359f3dabdf54f937e35fb7564c70147a147ca36845b17a297f9b