In this article, we develop the founding elements of the concept of Communities of Practice by elaborating on the learning processes happening at the heart of such communities. In particular, we provide a consistent perspective on the notions of knowledge, knowing and knowledge sharing that is compatible with the essence of this concept – that learning entails an investment of identity and a social formation of a person. We do so by drawing richly from the work of Michael Polanyi and his conception of personal knowledge, and thereby we clarify the scope of Communities of Practice and offer a number of new insights into how to make such social structures perform well in professional settings. The conceptual discussion is substantiated by findings of a qualitative empirical study in the UK National Health Service. As a result, the process of ‘thinking together’ is conceptualized as a key part of meaningful Communities of Practice where people mutually guide each other through their understandings of the same problems in their area of mutual interest, and this way indirectly share tacit knowledge. The collaborative learning process of ‘thinking together’, we argue, is what essentially brings Communities of Practice to life and not the other way round.

The original formulation of communities of practice primarily focused on describing how learning, meaning, and identity within a community can translate into a sustained practice. Wenger-Trayner et al. elaborated the concept of landscapes of practice to describe how different communities of practice may interact, and belong to broader landscapes of practice, rather than rely exclusively on their own local situated practices. In this conceptual article, we apply the perspective of landscapes of practice to organizations. The first part of our argument is descriptive, and is aimed at developing a model of landscapes of practice in organizations. With regard to this model, we propose that practices can be seen as multilevel, including local situated practices, generic practices, and cultural fields. This, in turn, helps to clarify and organize a number of central concepts within the practice literature. The second part of our argument is prescriptive, as we suggest that landscapes of practice call for triple-legitimization of situated learning, meaning that legitimization is not only needed at the level of community and organization, but also by attending to the dynamically changing epistemic texture of the landscapes.

Unexpected crises and risks affect the urban population. Critical infrastructure dependency, climate change and social dynamics have captured the attention of city decision makers across different disciplines, sectors, and scales. Addressing these challenges mandates an increase in resilience. This article presents the development of the novel European Resilience Management Guideline (ERMG) developed by the European H2020 Smart Mature Resilience (SMR) project. It encompasses five supporting tools for city resilience. The purpose of this article is threefold. First, it describes the extensive co-creation methods used to establish, validate and test the five ERMG tools as collaborations among seven city stakeholders and researchers in Europe. Second, it explains concisely the features of each tool and its use cases and applicability in the city resilience building process. Third, it shows how EMRG supports strategic management in encouraging the visibility of risk dependencies, identifying vicious loops and potential cascading effects, and promoting collaboration between stakeholders to share resources. The article concludes with a discussion of SMR standardization activities to support the transfer of this research results to wider audiences. It covers guidance on local resilience planning and supporting efforts in building and operationalization resilience at the city level. Addressing questions on how the impact of events can be managed requires a multidisciplinary approach across city sectors. For example, cities are highly dependent on CI services, and disruptions that occur in these CIs might have a profound effect on the city's ability to sustain normal functions, affecting the community at large. Not only is there a need to establish a holistic risk-assessment framework across the infrastructures to support cross-sector priorities, but these effects must also be seen in a wider city context. For example, how do organizations manage their infrastructure and variations in risk perception between stakeholders (Brown et al., 2017)? How will critical city services

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In this paper, we discuss two situations where two organizations with different aims recognised the dysfunctionality of their relationship. In each of these cases, which were long running (6-8 months), the organizations had worked hard to resolve this dysfunctionality, and conflict, by organizing off-site meetings designed to resolve the conflict. These one-day meetings failed. Subsequently Group Support System workshops were used for one day workshops and in each case the conflict was essentially resolved within 55 minutes. The research reported in this paper seeks to answer the question: what happened in these cases that led to a resolution of the conflict in such a short time period, given other attempts had failed? Specifically the paper explores the impact of the GSS used to facilitate two organizations seeking to resolve a conflictual situation.