[p2p-research] Online Communities and Open Innovation: Governance and Symbolic Value Creation

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends,

I would be very happy if I could have access to the two essays mentioned
below.


For details see
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/companies-user-innovation-and-the-governance-of-online-communities/2008/08/20

Special issue at
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g792760006~db=all

* Of Hackers and Hairdressers: Modularity and the Organizational Economics
of Open-source Collaboration<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Econtent=a792758255%7Edb=all%7Eorder=page>
*
 125 – 143<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Econtent=a792758255%7Edb=all%7Eorder=page>
 *Authors:* Richard N. Langlois; Giampaolo Garzarelli
 *DOI:* 10.1080/13662710801954559

* The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored Open Source
Communities<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Econtent=a792753185%7Edb=all%7Eorder=page>
*
 145 – 168<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Econtent=a792753185%7Edb=all%7Eorder=page>
 *Authors:* Joel West; Siobh[image: aacute]n O'mahony
 *DOI:* 10.1080/13662710801970142



"

The Journal Industry & Innovation, (Volume 15 Issue 2
2008<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Econtent=g792760006%7Edb=all>),
seems to have published a timely special issue on a theme dear to our heart:
*Online Communities and Open Innovation: Governance and Symbolic Value
Creation*.

Only the introduction<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a792746826&fulltext=713240928>is
in free access and we quote from it:

"*Online communities, therefore, can constitute an important external source
of innovation for those firms able to implement a constructive relationship
with them (Dahlander and Magnusson, 2005). Individuals in these communities
may not only be able to develop innovations that can be integrated into the
firm, but also may come up with new perspectives on and ways of framing
problems. The community may develop a shared and mutual understanding of
what it is about, what in the new product design or features is valuable; it
may create product/firm loyalty and establish among community participants a
sense of belonging and meaning (Rindova and Petkova, 2007).*

*Despite these benefits, there is also a range of challenges for firms that
adopt the open innovation approach (Chesbrough, 2006). This is particularly
evident when managing online communities as individuals participating in
these communities are beyond the firms' hierarchical realms. Individuals can
decide where to work, who to work with and what to work on, making it
difficult for firms to steer the direction of development (Dahlander and
Wallin, 2006). Moreover, in online communities the social processes behind
members' participation are intrinsically dissipative because in such
self-organized processes, many individuals have to be mobilized to make the
most productive ones emerge (David and Rullani, forthcoming). This greatly
increases the resources firms have to pour into these communities, and
increases the risk of such investments. A large number of involved parties
with misaligned goals, different capabilities and diverse degrees of
involvement, raise the issue of governance of online communities.*

*In order to advance our understanding of the open and distributed nature of
the innovation process taking place through online communities, this Special
Issue revolves around the two themes identified above as crucial: *

*(1) the importance of conceptually including the symbolic value of the
artefacts in the innovation process, as online communities can be
fundamental tools by which firms can innovate in this sphere thickening the
symbolic value of their product; and *

*(2) the issue of governance and how it is associated with the way in which
firms try to harness these communities. Both themes have been relatively
unattended by earlier research. The papers in this issue were selected
precisely on the basis of the questions and answers they might generate with
respect to these overall themes*."

As examples of the special issue, I'm selecting two significant
contributions to the study of the governance of online communities:

"*The paper by Langlois and Garzarelli, "Of Hackers and Hairdressers:
Modularity and the Organizational Economics of Open-Source Collaboration",
is the first paper in this Special Issue and sets the stage for a discussion
on governance in online communities, allowing us to tease out what are the
important dimensions. In this mainly conceptual paper, the authors employ
the empirical illustration of an open source online community to explore the
generic question in organizational economics of how the division of
intellectual labour is based on a trade-off between modularity (i.e.
specialization) and the opportunity to integrate various individually
developed components of knowledge. The paper claims that the trade-off
allows the individuals populating the open source community to exchange
efforts rather than products, under a regime in which the providers of code
self-identify themselves as suppliers of products in a market, rather than
employees in a firm. Through their discussion, Langlois and Garzarelli build
a useful two-by-two matrix of product vs. efforts on one axis and
self-identification of contributors vs. no self-identification on the other.
In this matrix the firm, the market, outsourcing and voluntary production as
it occurs in open source communities are situated and, hence, presented as
different modes of innovation production.*

*This provokes a series of questions on how communities can be managed when
the connection between incentives—that is, the voluntary basis upon which
the community is built—and the particular dynamics of the organization of
labour in an open community—exchanging effort and not product—is taken into
account. Firms and communities have diverse and sometimes incommensurable
goals (O'Mahony, 2003), and it is a challenge for firms to derive benefits
from working with communities.*

*The West and O'Mahony paper, "The Role of Participation Architecture in
Growing Sponsored Open Source Communities", offers an answer to the previous
implicit question about governance structures and the contradictions of a
series of open source communities classified according to the typologies of
firms' participation in these communities. Based on a qualitative study the
paper shows that firm-sponsored online communities or open source online
communities initiated by a firm, differ from organically grown open source
communities. To demonstrate the differences between these two archetypical
forms of open source online communities West and O'Mahony develop the
concept of "participation architecture". The concept is created by the
joining together of three important design dimensions for the coordination
of tasks and communication in an online community: management of
intellectual property rights, development approach and model of community
governance. The study makes it explicit that various participation
architectures exist in the two kinds of open source communities. *

*The authors find that corporate sponsorship in open source communities
influences the design and evolution of them and that this affects: *

*(1) the degree of transparency of community participants to follow the
community's collective process of development; and *

*(2) accessibility for participants, to contribute to code development. *

*Despite oftentimes trying to imitate the organization and design of organic
open source communities, firm-sponsored communities face the classic tension
between control and growth. This is because firms that are sponsoring an
open source community struggle to maintain an open structure supportive of
growth in the community in parallel with managing and maintaining control
over the direction of and the activities taking place in the open source
online community. For example, a firm sponsoring a community may define and
potentially limit the opportunity structure for others to enter the
community, as well as deciding who has access to the code/core of the
community. The final contribution of this paper to the debate invoked in
this Special Issue demonstrates that it is rarely the technical architecture
and set-up of online communities that single-handedly determines
participation frequency and structure. To better understand the differences
in the character and quality of participation in different types of online
communities, and thus be better informed about how innovation through these
communities is managed and incentivized, we need to note that the
organizational structure hinges upon the community sponsor's decisions
regarding the design of governance mechanisms*."

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