REPERTOIRE OF SHARED RESOURCES IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: A STUDY OF THE MECHANISMS OF INTERACTION, ORGANIZATION AND CONTROL IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH GROUPS

Communities of practice are groups where informal relationships, participation, networking and self-management activities stand out. A class of these communities differs from the others through the strong use of information technology resources: these are virtual communities of practice. Considering the possibility of the research groups in a Federal University being taken as virtual communities of practice, the objective of this research was to identify and classify the research groups as virtual communities of practice and highlighting the mechanisms of interaction, organization and control, which exist in their repertoire of shared resources, as well as to assess their effects on the groups’ activities. The study employed a mixed method, using survey strategy and case study. It is expected that the outcomes stimulate a discussion on the importance of information technology and mechanisms analyzed in the exchange of knowledge and in the identity consolidation of scientific research groups with virtual performance.