Brokering communities of practice: a model of knowledge exchange and academic-practitioner collaboration developed in the context of community policing

Abstract

Knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange have recently become commonly used terms in the social sciences. They imply a number of different relationships between researchers and practitioners, and between research and practice, although these have often remained implicit or underdeveloped. Drawing from the experience of designing, delivering and refining a three-year knowledge transfer fellowship on community policing, this article aims to critically appraise these concepts and the assumptions about 'knowledge' and academic-practitioner roles and relationships that underpin them. It examines the role of research in knowledge transfer and exchange collaborations and the importance of personal relationships and organisational structures in shaping and sustaining them. In so doing, we contend that the nature and scope of academic-practitioner collaborations (and the potential benefits and pitfalls inherent within them), is more meaningfully captured by a model that is introduced and sketched out in this article: 'brokering communities of practice'.

Developing and Maintaining Police-Researcher Partnerships to Facilitate Research Use

“…Knowledge translation is defined here as the effort to move research knowledge into practice (Green et al 2009;Henry and MacKenzie 2012;Lang et al 2007). While this definition essentially has a parallel framework to research utilization, the translation literature has largely remained disconnected from the earlier work on The Utilization of Research 21 research utilization, except for the work of a few scholars (i.e., Green et al 2009).…”

Community policing and reassurance: Three studies, one narrative

“…In short, we had to understand what CP actually 'was' in practice, and this required us to undertake research. This took various forms: focus group meetings with different interested constituencies of police officer (including strategic management, operational managers and CP officers themselves); individual interviews with officers; and the use of Dictaphone Diary interviews with CP practitioners to explore the detail of their working lives through their own words (see Henry and Mackenzie, 2012 for further details).…”

‘Professor-for-a-Day’: An Initiative to Nurture Communities of Learning and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism

“…Notably, the two-community theory was originally developed in the late 1970s and early 80s to describe the low level of instrumental use of social sciences research by practitioners (Caplan, 1979;Dunn, 1980;Weiss, 1979Weiss, , 1980. It suggests that academics (knowledge producers) and practitioners or policy makers (knowledge users) reside in two culturally different worlds, each with different mandates, priorities and norms, following different rules, and facing different restrictions or challenges (Henry & Mackenzie, 2012). Metaphorically, utilization of academic research is often seen as a barrier-overcoming process with "bridges", "gaps", and "vehicles" as implied in many outreaching practices (or extension services) such as knowledge transfer (more often in engineering), knowledge management (in business), knowledge exchange (in health studies), organizational learning or learning organizations (organizational studies), and knowledge mobilization or communities of practice (in education and community development studies).…”

“…Metaphorically, utilization of academic research is often seen as a barrier-overcoming process with "bridges", "gaps", and "vehicles" as implied in many outreaching practices (or extension services) such as knowledge transfer (more often in engineering), knowledge management (in business), knowledge exchange (in health studies), organizational learning or learning organizations (organizational studies), and knowledge mobilization or communities of practice (in education and community development studies). From an evolution standpoint, with the community paradigm gradually in place, the incorporation of the researched or knowledge users in the utilization spectra marks an important shift in the studies of theory-and-practice relationships (Xiao & Smith, 2007;Henry & Mackenzie, 2012). This is reflected in a change of focus from the conventional positivist/post-positivist measurements of knowledge use (through tools such as level-of-use scales, utilization indices and use indicators, experimental methodologies, and path analyses of use stages), to a community paradigm of knowledge stakeholders, which is characterized by notions such as knowledge networks through collaborative research, co-creation partnerships, communities-of-practice, organizational learning cultures, utilization-focused program evaluation, naturalistic studies of utilization settings, as well as ethnographies of knowledge exchange (Hartas, 2015).…”