Training Methods In Businesses

Since the importance of learning has come to focus with in organizations, it is vital that we must understand how to learn and develop in order to create success and survival of an organization. The traditional view of learning has disassociated learning and work. It is believed that work is done on the job and learning is done whilst on training. In order to bridge this gap between learning and work, forming what is known as Communities of Practice (COP) is established.

The purpose of this paper is to examine literature on the impact and development on two alternative perspectives in learning, namely COP and e-learning. The author aims to first define a COP. wenger (1998) defines a COP as a group of people who share knowledge, learn together and create common practices (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002). COP recognizes that people do not learn solely from activities that are formally organized but instead learn a lot more from everyday activities and experiences. (Retna, 2010). COP has 3 fundamental elements: a domain of knowledge, a community of people and the shared practice and are naturally occurring and are often informal (Galagan, 1993). Engagement in a COP enhances the learning environment because the learning that emerges from COP is collaborative, which is greater than individual knowledge (Johnson, 2001). This can be further supported by Vygotsky’s (1978) argument that an individual’s learning could be enhanced when engaged with other people. A lot of emphasis has been given to the concept of sharing when COP’s have been discussed (Wenger et al, 2002). The same authors view them as “groups of people, who share a concern, set of problems or passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing basis”. The above indicates that the development of knowledge is continuous without a beginning or ending. Wenger (1998) argued that people learn better from social settings and through interaction, which focuses around knowledge....