The paper explores how the collective identity of a community of practice contributes to the development of innovation capacity. Specifically, we question how members’ perception of collective identity influences their perception of individual and collective capacity to innovate, whether different dynamics are at work between collective identity and innovation capacity, and finally how individual factors can explain these different dynamics. Empirically, we studied the communities of practice at Schneider Electric, a world leading company in energy management and automation. We surveyed 672 members of communities of practice in order to understand their relationship to their community. Our findings highlight the relationship between the perception of CoP collective identity and innovation capacity and suggest that (1) the three dimensions of collective identity play a role on members’ perception of knowledge sharing and CoP contribution to innovation capacity and also that (2) this influence may act differently depending on members’ profiles.

中文翻译：

---

实践社区中集体认同与创新之间动态感知的多样性

本文探讨了实践社区的集体认同如何促进创新能力的发展。具体来说，我们质疑成员对集体身份的看法如何影响他们对个人和集体创新能力的看法，集体身份和创新能力之间是否存在不同的动力，以及个人因素如何解释这些不同的动力。根据经验，我们研究了世界领先的能源管理和自动化公司施耐德电气的实践社区。我们调查了 672 名实践社区的成员，以了解他们与所在社区的关系。