sustainability of the opensim community: a research agenda

SETTING THE STAGE- - -

EXPLORING ACTOR ROLES FOR PRIVATE-COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY

SUSTAINABILITY

RESEARCH-IN-PROGRESS

Robin TeiglandStockholm School of Economics

Paul M. Di GangiLoyola University Maryland

Zeynep YetisStockholm School of Economics

October 2011

Introduction & Research Questions

Research Setting

Proposed Methodology

Expected Contributions

Questions & Answers

Thank You!

Overview

The Firm

The Collective

vs

Microsoft~ Built by employees within

organizational boundaries

Linux~ Built by users and distributed freely regardless of affiliation

Models of Knowledge Creation

Communities expanding across industries

• Software (e.g., LINUX, Apache, and MySQL)

• Pharmaceuticals (e.g., pinkarmy)

• Physical goods (e.g., farm machinery)

Threadless:What came first – the community or

the company?

eZ230+

Partners

40,900Communitymembers

5,000+Customers in 130 countries

eZ Ecosystem

• Open source content management software• 70 employees in 9 countries (US, Europe & Asia)• Customers: Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, UN, Vogue, Hitachi, 3M, MIT

70 emp

Community and firm share experiences and knowledge to co-create value

Community is a complementary asset to be leveraged and combined with firm’s internal

assets to deliver competitive solutions(Dahlander & Wallin 2006)

Private-collective Community (von Hippel & von Krogh 2003)

But there’s tension...

Private ModelDistribution of returns

and delegation of value creation solely to

organization

Collective ModelOpenness and free

distribution of intellectual ideas for common or

public good

VS

Our Primary Research Question

How do private-collective communities sustain themselves despite the challenges that the

tension produces?

Level of Analysis = Community (not the individual nor the firm)

Research Question One

(RQ1) Who are the key actors in a private-collective community, what roles do they

fulfill, and what resources do they contribute to the community to ensure its sustainability?

• Individual motivations from self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Gagné & Deci, 2005; See summary by von Krogh et al., Forthcoming)

– Intrinsic (e.g., fun, enjoyment)– Internalized extrinsic (e.g., reputation, reciprocity,

learning, and own-use)– Extrinsic (e.g., career and pay)

• Particularly when firms can freely leverage your resources for private gains.– Fairness & Transparency (Di Gangi et al., Forthcoming; Di Gangi

et al., 2010)

Research Question Two

Divergent interests

O’Mahony & Bechky, ASQ, 2008

(RQ2a) What motivates an individual to contribute privately held, valuable resources to a collective that will make the outcome of his or her efforts

free to any that seek it?

or does it feel like firms are stealing their candy?

(RQ2a) What motivates a firm to contribute to a collective that may produce unanticipated outcomes

that could diverge from its interests?

or does it feel like “customers” are looting the store?

• As communities mature– Go through different phases of governance – Bureaucratic and democratic mechanisms are

blended in line with the community’s changing conceptions of authority (O’Mahony & Ferraro, 2007)

(RQ3) What are the reciprocal effects of actor behavior (and motivation) and the governance structures used by the community to ensure its

sustainability?

Research Question Three

Introduction & Research Questions

Research Setting

Proposed Methodology

Expected Contributions

Questions & Answers

Thank You!

Overview

The emerging 3D internet

O’Driscoll 2009

Open Source

The OpenSim Community

Core Developers

Missing Core Developers

Retired Core Developers

Developers/ Testers/ Contributors

OpenSim Users

The Decision Makers

Organizational Agents

Dahlander & Wallin (2006)

More than just developers…

Introduction & Research Questions

Research Setting

Proposed Methodology

Expected Contributions

Questions & Answers

Thank You!

Overview

Proposed Methodology

RQ Focus:RQ 1

Core Methodology:Semi-Structured Interviews;

Questionnaires

Approach:Snowball technique

Outcome Focus:Identification of key actors, roles, and resources within

the private-collective community

RQ Focus:Validation & Refinement

Core Methodology:Semi-Structured Interviews;

Case Analysis

Approach:Identified Interviewees

Outcome Focus:Validate existing findings with community members

and extend based upon feedback

RQ Focus:RQ 2 & RQ 3

Core Methodology:Archival; Textual; Network;

Event-driven Analysis

Approach:Web Scraping

Outcome Focus:Develop understanding of evolutionary structure of

community as well as motivations

Stage One Stage ThreeStage Two

Introduction & Research Questions

Research Setting

Proposed Methodology

Expected Contributions

Questions & Answers

Thank You!

Overview

Additional theory• Contingency-based Perspective for Organizing (Lawrence &

Lorsch, 1967)

– Nature and form of organizing is determined by the environment in which a phenomenon operates

– Absorption and reaction to sudden shocks are resolved through the adaptive governance mechanisms derived from the inter-related web of behaviors and motivations driving resource contributions from the key actors of a private-collective community (Weick, 1969)

• Adaptive Governance of Social-ecological Systems (Folke et al., 2005)

– “In a social-ecological system with high adaptability, the actors have the capacity to reorganize the system within desired states in response to changing conditions and disturbance events.”

– “Crisis, perceived or real, seems to trigger learning and knowledge generation (58) and opens up space for new management trajectories of resources and ecosystems.”

Additional theory

• Toward a Network Perspective of the Study of Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems (Janssen et al., 2006)

– “Nodes and links are not always active. Some are sleeping nodes and links that are activated only in specific situations such as a crisis. Maintaining the capacity to reactivate these nodes and links in times of crisis is an important contribution to the system’s resilience. When nodes or links disappear from a system, it seems that one characteristic of a resilient system is the ability to fill up that space in the network with new nodes and links.” (Walker et al. 1999)

RQ 3: Evolution of Community Structure

Picture source: Wasko & Teigland 2004

Change in Number of Participants

150

170

190

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230

250

270

290

310

330

350

370

Janu

ary

Febru

ary

Mar

chApr

ilM

ayJu

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Augus

t

Septe

mbe

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Octo

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Decem

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Peo

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Part 2000 Part 2001 Part 2002 Part 2003 Part 2004

Picture courtesy of Wasko

RQ 3: Mapping Over Time

Inta

ngib

le R

esou

rces

Tang

ible

Res

ourc

es

Intrinsic Motivation Extrinsic Motivation

Exploratory Analysis Objective:-------------------------------------------------------Determine role characteristics of main actors

and what motivates them to contribute resources over time.

Introduction & Research Questions

Research Setting

Proposed Methodology

Expected Contributions

Questions & Answers

Thank You!

Overview

Research Questions• How do private-collective communities sustain

themselves despite challenges that such conflicts produce? – RQ1: Who are key actors in private-collective community, what roles do they

fulfill, and what resources do these actors contribute to community to ensure sustainability?

– (RQ2a) What motivates an individual to contribute his or her privately held, valuable resources to a collective that will make the outcome of his or her efforts free to any that seek it?

– (RQ2b) What motivates a firm to contribute its resources to a collective that may produce unanticipated outcomes that could diverge from its private interests?

– (RQ3) What are the reciprocal effects of actor behavior (and motivation) and the governance structures used by the community to ensure its sustainability?