Capacité d’une communauté de pratique à créer des connaissances utiles pour le processus d’innovation: l’approche « située » de la communauté créative

This publication presents theoretical documents dealing with the capacity of a community of practice to create useful knowledge favouring the innovative process in its emerging stage. This research aims at a better understanding of innovative communities, and deals with the 2 situated dimension of these communities. This research also raises the question of the potential means to support the activity of a community of practice with innovative projects. The main line of investigation concerns the modes of communicational regulation chosen by innovative communities in order to match the specific features of the environment of their activity. The case study followed by a process of research / intervention favours an empirical questioning of the situated conceptualization of the communities of creators. The case of a long-standing innovative community, widely acknowledged by several generations, is compared to the cases of two firms attempting, ex nihilo, to set up a community of creative practitioners with innovative aims. These examples highlight some aspects of creative exchanges, such as human sensorial knowledge, emotional environment, shared emotions, tacit communication, etc.