Similar to my fellow bloggers out in cyberspace, I am a member of several communities of practice. The most notable one that continuously pops into my head as I read Wenger is my membership into the community of practice at my workplace. We constantly have to deal with new policy and product changes, along with staff turnover. Some of you may question – “Does Lindsay work for a horrible organization?” Absolutely not! Yes, my job involves a high stress level at times and there is pressure to perform, but when you work hard, you reap rewards. My recent trip to New York is a great example.
I think anyone can relate to stressful times at work and at home. I attribute much of our staff turnover to promotions both inside and outside the company. As far as the policy and product changes are concerned, I may not always agree with them, but they are a part of my practice. New government regulations and changes in the economy are always bringing changes to my practice. As I read Wenger, I realize how important a role his processes of participation and reification play in this community of practice.
Wenger (1999) defines reification in various, yet similar ways. According to Wenger, reification allows us to project ourselves onto the world and become organized in order to provide meaning within a community of practice. Wenger states that reification is a, “...process of giving form to our experiences by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’” (p 58).
Within this community of practice, various forms of reification include the computer system we must utilize to process transactions and the strict lending guidelines and access to basic banking rules the federal government has outlined. It is the numerous forms we must utilize with every transaction. I can identify with Wenger’s Ariel and the forms she must use and the phone calls that interrupt a transaction you must terminate in order to deal with a phone call.
Without reification in the financial industry, there could be chaos in Canada’s economic system. No policies and procedures, no government regulation and regulators mean that almost anyone could open a financial institution and determine how they can invest or lend money. This is not a good idea! The United States over the past few years is a prime example of how lack of regulation and reification can lead to disaster. Due to the lack of government regulations and codes of conduct banks were expected to follow, financial institutions were being opened that did not have the backing of major financial institutions.
When the economic problems hit, these institutions did not have the capital to sustain themselves or the mortgages they provided their customers. Therefore, when the customers who could no longer pay when their interest rate increased, they defaulted their mortgage. With no capital to cover the cost of the mortgage and pay back their investors, they default as well. This issue was a huge contributing factor to the fall of the United States economy and why the Canadian government’s policies in mortgage financing continue to change. I could write a blog alone on the recent changes to mortgage financing and how it has affected my community of practice.
Along with reification, participation is an important element of a community of practice. Wenger (1999) describes participation as an action and connection, a source of mutual recognition between community of practice members. Wenger states that, “...participation in social communities shapes our experience, and it also shapes those communities; the transformative potential goes both ways” (p. 56-57). Participation involves taking the objects, tools and artifacts that result from reification and utilizing them within your community of practice.
Participation allows the community of practice masters to teach the apprentices how to work within their community of practice. When Lave and Wenger’s (1991) strategy of legitimate peripheral participation is utilized, it allows for a transformative process to potentially occur within the practice. Apprentices will be able to observe the master and learn the tacit knowledge of that master and others within the community. Once the observation is complete, the apprentice will be able to apply their learned skills and potentially be able to provide new ways of completing tasks and utilizing tools and artifacts of reification.
Due to constant change within my community of practice participation is essential. masters are constantly called upon to work with apprentices to pass on their knowledge. When reification changes occur, participation is needed in order to implement the changes in a fashion that works for that specific environment.
Every branch within a financial institution is different, especially in culture and the geographic area it serves. How to implement a new procedure in a “big” city, may not work in a “small” town. Through participation and community of practice member’s tacit knowledge, the implementation can be smoother as the members will have the knowledge in place to make this reification work in their area. A recent change in mutual fund policies involves the branches having to reprint new account applications and have the customers sign them for accounts that were opened prior to the year 1998. As a result, we implemented a rule that every time we meet with a mutual fund customer, we must pull their file prior to the appointment to verify if an account application is completed.
Participation and reification lead to the negotiation of meaning (Wenger, 1999). These processes allow us to understand why we complete tasks the way we do within our community of practice. The financial industry is an extreme example of the importance of these two processes and how they allow a community of practice to function properly.
References
Lave, J. And Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity (1st ed.). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Hi Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteI also find the interdependency of participation and reification to be an interesting part of Wenger's theory, because in essence they occur in all communities of practice that we are a part of. Your description of how implementing new procedures in "big cities" and "small towns" made me think how much culture comes into play in those situations as well. The customs, traditions and laws of a culture would also probably affect how meaning is negotiated among members as well as the ways in which people entered various communities of practice. This makes me think back to my experiences overseas and how changing jobs and changing countries required a whole new process of participation for me. Good post!
Hi Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteYour blog reminded me of an article I read last evening entitled, Disaster in the Making: The Quiet Erosion of Canada's Regulation System 2011, by Trish Hennessy. Her article spoke to your point that without reification of government regulations in the Canadian financial industry, there would be chaos in the economic system. Indeed, Canada was sheltered from the recent global economic meltdown because our bank regulations are tougher. However, even after this lesson that validated reified government regulations, Canada has new guidelines that require federal departments to soften regulations so they are in line with international trends.
The government is intent on reducing red tape in order to make Canadian corporations more competitive and the Canadian government more cost-efficient. However, the real cost is seen in the reduced health and safety regulations as government inspections are cut in the workplace. For example, in Walkerton, ON, 2500 people fell ill and seven died because the provincial government did not enforce the water quality regulation. In September 2006, the entire structure of an overpass collapsed killing three people in Laval, Quebec. An investigation revealed that the contract for construction was awarded to a company without a license. And then of course, in 2008, tainted meat was pulled off the grocery store shelves across Canada as a listeriosis outbreak from Maple Leaf Foods left 22 dead and many others sick. The union at Maple Leaf Foods said that there were not enough government inspectors to properly monitor the meat plant (Hennessey, para 1,2,3). The cost-saving measure to cut government regulations has left Canadians vulnerable.
In the same way, deregulation has left various communities of practice inefficient. In order for a community of practice to be efficient, there must be continuous negotiation between participation and reification. Therefore, if there is no participation in the reified regulations, the regulations are not worth the paper they are written on.
Thanks Lindsay for your thought provoking blog.
Ginger