The work of University of Westminster academic Dr Luca Cacciolatti about the Slow Food Movement in Italy has been published in a book edited by world-renowned scholar Professor Ikujiro Nonaka.
Cacciolatti’s chapter titled Collective Knowledge and Social Innovation in Communities of Practice: The Case of the Slow Food Movement in Italy appears in the latest edition of the Routledge Companion of Knowledge Management, edited by Professor Nonaka.
The chapter was co-authored with Professor Soo Hee Lee, a Professor in Organisation Studies at the University of Kent.
Professor Nonaka introduced the concepts of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge in Knowledge and Strategic Management models, which are now taught in universities around the world.
Cacciolatti is a Reader in the Westminster Business School, having joined the University in 2015 as a Senior Lecturer. He heads Westminster’s Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Research Group.
The chapter presents a new knowledge management model for communities of practice (CoPs) seeking to foster social innovation. CoPs are groups of people who share a concern for what they do and learn how to do it better. Cacciolatti uses the case of the Slow Food Movement in Italy, which promoted the use of local produce and opposed fast food chains. His findings reveal that CoPs emerge from the evolutionary process of collective learning and knowledge management and serve as an effective engine for social innovation.
Dr Cacciolatti said: “The opportunity to be invited to contribute to a book edited by a world-renowned scholar was exciting. I’m delighted that my work has been recognised as world leading.
“In Business and Management studies, all subject areas are interrelated. Most of the understanding of social phenomena, which include business phenomena, is enhanced by an interdisciplinary approach to research. I was able to explain some knowledge management dynamics as part of my wider search for an explanation of a social innovation-related phenomenon.
“I’m an advocate for a holistic approach to knowledge creation and distribution.”
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