Amin, A. and J. Roberts, Eds. (2008). Community, economic creativity, and organization. Oxford ; New York, Oxford University Press.
This edited book debates the role of communities of practice and situated knowledge in driving innovation, competitive advantage, and regional development, primarily within the context of organizational learning. The theoretical and empirical contributions to the book address a range of topics and ideas: the role of improvisation for situated learning; the call for more focus on the context in which communities are enacted; what type of knowledge can be learned via communities; the distinction between the type of learning that happens within (exploitation) and between (exploration) communities, in conjunction with the role played by cognitive distance and boundary spanners; mini-case studies to illustrate relationships between projects and communities of practice; the idea that communities can be simultaneously enabling and constraining; the primacy of relational proximity over geographic proximity when it comes to social exchanges; and the case of Montreal to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between knowledge-intensive firms and creative cities. Another book which addresses the theme of communities of practice in organization studies and management is Wenger et al*.