Informação, aprendizagem e criação do conhecimento em comunidades de prática: um estudo de caso

Information, learning and knowledge creation in communities of practice: a case study. This research aimed to investigate the functioning of communities of practice, considering the following aspects: information processing, learning and creation of tacit knowledge. The investigation was made in Service Desk Microcity, mediumsized company with a high level of computerization, which offers IT management services. The literature points to difficulties in the implementation and effective use of technology, and innovation, highlighting the social and cultural contexts that create them and those who acquire it, together with the growing ease of purchase. In response to this finding, this research sought to investigate the claim that communities of practice are responsible for the transformation of tacit knowledge embedded in practice in the execution of daily work and innovation. Using the analytical perspective of situated learning, which is based on social theory of learning and knowledge, this research intended to monitor the processing of information and its transformation into learning and strategic knowledge in the day-to-day activities at the studied company.To situate the learning and knowledge creation in social practice, this theory focuses on change rather than on regulation, and assumed changes both in practice and in individuals engaged in the development of their life experience, both inside and outside organizations. The issue was researched with the, ethnography qualitatives methodologies. Facts from the context of the business environment and the theories issued from bibliography, propitiated the analysis. As a result of this research identified two communities of practice within the DTS, specifically, in the Service Desk and the performance of these communities in the flow of information, learning and creation of tacit knowledge were described. Conditions of the organizational environment, that fostered the emergence and development of the identified communities of practice, were also detailed.