Abstract
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share common concerns, problems, or passions for a domain, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise through interaction on an ongoing basis. People view a CoP as a wellspring of precious knowledge in the era of knowledge economy. Notably, many researchers support the notion that a CoP is not designed or made but grown. However, there is no systematic theory of online community development. Based on the properties of autotrophic and open system of online CoPs, there are several differences between traditional groups and online CoPs. Interestingly, there exists an ideal mapping between the properties of an online CoP and an ecological ecosystem. This study adopts Yin’s analytic strategy of descriptive framework and Odum’s ecosystem model to develop an online CoP ecosystem model to identify the evolution of an ecosystem over time. Finally, some policies implications for development of online communities of practice are proposed based on the ecosystem view.