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

Thu Aug 21 17:50:57 CEST 2008

courtesy of george, the papers mentioned here at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/companies-user-innovation-and-the-governance-of-online-communities/2008/08/20

are available:see below

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dafermos, George <G.N.Dafermos at tudelft.nl>
Date: Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: [p2p-research] Online Communities and Open Innovation:
Governanceand Symbolic Value Creation
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>

Hi Michel,

I found the two texts online...

The pdf of "Of Hackers and Hairdressers" is here:
http://web.uconn.edu/ciom/Open1C.pdf

The pdf of "The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored
Open Source Communitiesis" is here:
http://www.joelwest.org/Papers/WestOMahony2008-WP.pdf

Happy reading,

g.

________________________________________
From: Michel Bauwens [mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com]
Sent: donderdag 21 augustus 2008 8:01
To: Dafermos, George
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Online Communities and Open Innovation:
Governanceand Symbolic Value Creation

it would be great if you could, they seem pretty serious contributions
to the actual workings of peer governance ...

Michel
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Dafermos, George
<G.N.Dafermos at tudelft.nl> wrote:
Hi Michel,

I don't have (ready) access to this journal but of course I could order
the two papers. Let me know.

Cordially,

george

________________________________________
From: p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org
[mailto:p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org] On Behalf Of Michel
Bauwens
Sent: woensdag 20 augustus 2008 15:56
To: Peer-To-Peer Research List
Cc: list-en at oekonux.org
Subject: [p2p-research] Online Communities and Open Innovation:
Governanceand Symbolic Value Creation

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-governan
ce-of-online-communities/2008/08/20<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<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Econtent=g792760006%7Edb=all>
Of Hackers and Hairdressers: Modularity and the Organizational Economics
of Open-source Collaboration
125 - 143
Authors: Richard N. Langlois; Giampaolo Garzarelli
DOI: 10.1080/13662710801954559
The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored Open Source
Communities
145 - 168
Authors: Joel West; Siobhn O'mahony
DOI: 10.1080/13662710801970142

"

The Journal Industry & Innovation, (Volume 15 Issue 2 2008), 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 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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--
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at
http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/

-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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