Abstract
In the era of globalization, knowledge-creating organizations need to be managed as self-organizing networks of interactive, overlapping, and self-managing communities of practice. Because communities of practice bear the risks of closure, homogenization, and oppression, knowledge-creating organizations need to create an organizational environment that can prevent the malfunctions of communities of practice and can facilitate their dynamic evolutions. The activity theory provides a methodology of organizational knowledge creation for communities of practice in and around formal organizations. When practitioners define their activity systems, they can also identify "internal contradictions" as problems to be solved by creating new knowledge and practices, which lead to the transformation and development of the activity systems.
