Where Affinity Meets Practice: Emerging Communities of Practice to Meet the Needs of Korean IT Professionals

Abstract

The growing Information Technology (IT) international workforce in the US has diverse social and professional needs. Organizations offer support structures such as Affinity Groups (AGs) and Communities of Practice (CoPs) to provide social support, learning and mentoring opportunities for their members. In this paper, we examine an emerging form of a grass-root inter-organizational groups that provide such support for Korean IT employees. The paper reports on the preliminary findings of a case study of Changbal (CB), a professional and social community that combines the characteristics of AGs and CoPs. Our research examines the characteristics of CB, how the community supports employees to transition to the US workplace, and differences between CB and other AGs or CoPs. The paper reports on the implications of this new form of community on our understanding of CoPs and AGs and practical implications of the IT industry.