Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Communities of Practice and Social Capital 
Social capital theories have been applied to explaining collective action, community development, and 
participation in different domains. Lin, Cook, and Burt (2001) described social capital as the set of resources 
embedded in a social structure that are accessed and utilized for a purposive action. The key difference between 
social and other forms of capital, such as economic capital, is its strong groundedness in the social fabric and 
relationships within the communities in which an individual is embedded. For example, Nahapiet and Ghoshal 
(1998) developed a model of social capital to explain the knowledge management activities in organizations. They 
posited that structural, cognitive, and relational factors create the conditions necessary for knowledge exchange 
within each organization. These factors were also found applicable to explaining knowledge exchange and 
collaborations between members of multiple organizations, including competitors (Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). 
Collectively, these studies explicated three essential conditions of social capital: (1) individuals must perceive 
themselves as part of a network or community, (2) a sense of trust and relationship must exist between them, and (3) 
they must share a common language and shared practice. These conditions are also important to the online 
communities of practice due to the parallel nature of social and communication networks that make up the online 
communities in a virtual environment. Furthermore, they can be used to explain motivations at both individual and 
group levels as they bear on actions in a social setting, and thus very relevant to this particular study. These 
conditions sustain major dimensions where determinants for online knowledge sharing are reviewed. 

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