Managing knowledge through communities of practice: the case of the Singapore Police Force

There have been many Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives that focused on ‘hardware’ – Information Technology (IT) systems and databases. IT systems and databases are part of KM, but they are themselves insufficient to manage knowledge. The concept of Communities of Practice (CoP), where people who come together because of their common knowledge domain and practice, can enhance KM efforts through developing the ‘software’. This paper argues that CoPs should be nurtured to manage knowledge effectively and describes how such a perspective influences the KM strategy of one organisation, the Singapore Police Force (SPF). The case study of the SPF shows how the CoP perspective to KM can be implemented in practice to enhance not only the efficiency and effectiveness of the SPF but also its learning and innovation.