Uczenie się kompetencji społecznych w społecznościach praktyki – studium porównawcze

The paper compares the results of recent researches on learning social competencies in communities of practice among Polish and Danish shop-assistants. To approach the problem the authoress used the ethnographic method (both direct and participatory observation) supplemented with semi-structured interviews. As a result of a qualitative analysis of empirical data three various perspectives have been revealed, each within the scope of dominating or competitive salesmen cultures. The first one connected with acting role of shop-assistant and the second one concerning skillful moving inside a community. The quality and the type of acquired social skills depend not only on the context of national culture of a given country but, above all else, are relative to the organizational culture created by employees. Research has shown that ‘being-in’ and co-creating the community of practice gives a core opportunity to learn social competencies: first, when the employees want to get into the community and to be able to understand new culture, and later when they want to ‘play the same game on equal rules’ with other members. However, taking on new responsibilities does not always guarantee new skills even though social competencies are crucial from the standpoint of employees. Formal and non-formal changes in organizations are also essential for learning process at workplaces. Those modifications constitute context of the workplace learning, consequently supporting or hindering the learning process.