Communities of Practice as Vibrant Sources of Knowledge and Innovation within a Rigid Public Hierarchy

The concept of Communities of Practice is nowadays ‘common parlance’ in the private and public sector. However, research concerning the potential and benefits of CoPs embedded in public organizations lacks behind. Consequently, it still remains vague whether informal CoPs are able to unfold their widely recognized potential in terms of knowledge creation and dissemination within the context of the public sector. To shed light on this issue, the author employs the German Federal Armed Forces as a research setting since it is an outstanding example for a supremely hierarchical public organization showing a high degree of formalization in structure and processes. The research at hand particularly focuses the entanglement of the formal organization with the informal CoPs. More specifically, the author was inspired by the interest in exploring which role these informal entities play in regard to the development of knowledge and innovations, thereby, possibly fostering the organizational knowledge management as well as the adaptability of a supremely hierarchical public organization.