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<p>The Department of Defense has recently discovered the benefits of Communities  of Practice as a Knowledge Management program in strategic, tactical, and staff  environments. Such communities have grown in popularity - 185,000 users growing at  5,000 per month in over 6,000 registered Communities in the Air Force alone. However,  their emergent manner and perspective is limited; an information-focused approach  prevails, through which primary emphasis is placed on technology and document  archives. This approach fails to address knowledge as a unique human feature. As a  result, current implementations are unable to address intrinsic fundamental issues about  knowledge that could improve the effectiveness of new and extant Communities of  Practice. This thesis addresses the deficiency by investigating the characteristics of  knowledge, Knowledge Management and Communities of Practice and proposing a  socio-technical knowledge-focused approach for military functional communities.  Findings are applied principally to the Air Force Manpower function and the Navy  Security Cooperation activity, but results should also be generalizable to other  functions/organizations, military Services and Department of Defense organizations  trying to implement new Communities of Practice or enhance existing ones.
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<br>Subjects: Communities; Manpower; Sea control; Information technology; Management; Learning; Knowledge management; Communities of practice</div>
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Palos, Guillermo A.</div>
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