Lessons Learned from Applying Social Network Analysis on an Industrial Free/Libre/Open Source Software Ecosystem

Many software projects are no longer done in-house by a single organization. Instead, we are in a new age where software is developed by a networked community of individuals and organizations, which base their relations to each other on mutual interest. Paradoxically, recent research suggests that software development can actually be jointly-developed by rival firms. For instance, it is known that the mobile-device makers Apple and Samsung kept collaborating in open source projects while running expensive patent wars in the court. Taking a case study approach, we explore how rival firms collaborate in the open source arena by employing a multi-method approach that combines qualitative analysis of archival data (QA) with mining software repositories (MSR) and Social Network Analysis (SNA). While exploring collaborative processes within the OpenStack ecosystem, our research contributes to Software Engineering research by exploring the role of groups, sub-communities and business models within a high-networked open source ecosystem. Surprising results point out that competition for the same revenue model (i.e., operating conflicting business models) does not necessary affect collaboration within the ecosystem. Moreover, while detecting the different sub-communities of the OpenStack community, we found out that the expected social tendency of developers to work with developers from same firm (i.e., homophily) did not hold within the OpenStack ecosystem. Furthermore, while addressing a novel, complex and unexplored open source case, this research also contributes to the management literature in coopetition strategy and high-tech entrepreneurship with a rich description on how heterogeneous actors within a high-networked ecosystem (involving individuals, startups, established firms and public organizations) joint-develop a complex infrastructure for big-data in the open source arena.Comment: As accepted by the Journal of Internet Services and Applications (JISA

Coopetition as an emerging organisational strategy for supply chain resilience: an exploratory study of the UKCS oil and gas sector.

Coopetition, a form of inter-organisational relationship that combines competitive and collaborative theories, has gained the interests of academics and practitioners of inter-organisational studies. However, despite numerous extensive coopetition reviews, several questions remain unanswered - especially with regards to the formation of the strategy. Although studies have acknowledged that coopetition can occur unintentionally, particularly among organisations in pre-existing collaborative relationships, it remains unclear how or if the nature of formation affects the performance or outcome of the coopetitive relationship. It is therefore necesssary for continued research efforts into the study of coopetition as an emergent strategy. This research addresses issues in coopetition studies with the specific aim of uncovering the relationship between the formation of coopetition alliances and its performance. The study argues that antecedents for successful intentional coopetition may not apply in coopetition that emerges unintentionally. Using the UK Oil and Gas Industry as a case study, this research investigates some of the factors that can improve the performance of emergent coopetition, such as its management, form of governance and the role of dedicated alliance functions. The study compares the antecedents for successful deliberate coopetition with the performance of unintentional coopetition. Drawing upon research from inter-organisational studies and interviews of oil and gas industry experts, this study proposes some hypotheses and a conceptual model relating to the interactions of the governance structure, control mechanisms, and management on the performance of both intentional and unintentional coopetition. Additionally, it investigates the role of supply chain flexibility on coopetition performance. The structural equation model is tested using empirical data obtained through web-based questionnaires from 380 supply chain professionals in the oil and gas industry. The results of this study confirm that the management technique and control mechanisms have a significant effect on the outcome of both intentional and unintentional coopetition. In contrast, the flexibility of the supply chain has little impact on the performance of the alliance. The study contributes to inter-organisational studies by demonstrating that the presence of a dedicated alliance function and contractual agreements are critical antecedents in the formation of a coopetitive alliance, including emergent coopetition. The study also highlights its limitations and recommends areas for further research

Assessing the Impacts of Crowdsourcing in Logistics and Supply Chain Operations

Crowdsourcing models, whereby firms start to delegate supply chain operations activities to a mass of actors in the marketplace, have grown drastically in recent years. 85% of the top global brands have reported to use crowdsourcing in the last ten year with top names such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Nestle. These emergent business models, however, have remained unexplored in extant SCM literature. Drawing on various theoretical underpinnings, this dissertation aims to investigate and develop a holistic understanding of the importance and impacts of crowdsourcing in SCM from multiple perspectives. Three individual studies implementing a range of methodological approaches (archival data, netnography, and field and scenario-based experiments) are conducted to examine potential impacts of crowdsourcing in different supply chain processes from the customer’s, the crowdsourcing firm’s, and the supply chain partner’s perspectives. Essay 1 employs a mixed method approach to investigate “how, when, and why” crowdsourced delivery may affect customer satisfaction and behavioral intention in online retailing. Essay 2 uses a field experiment to address how the framing of motivation messages could enhance crowdsourced agents’ participation and performance level in crowdsourced inventory audit tasks. Lastly, Essay 3 explores the impact of crowdsourcing activities by the manufacturers on the relationship dynamics within the manufacturer-consumers-retailer triads

Collaborating with competitors: pitfalls and paybacks

Inter-firm collaborations have become an indispensable part of business strategy to deal with faster competitive dynamics and higher market and environmental uncertainties. Interestingly, research has found that around half of all cooperative relationships take place between competitors. Termed as coopetition , it refers to the simultaneous cooperation and competition between at least two actors. Over the past two decades, coopetition has become an important domain for industrial practice which has led to increasing research interest by scholars worldwide with a wide range of subjects studied within the extant body of literature. Despite the growing interest, coopetition research is still fragmented and is dominated by conceptual research. This entails limitations to knowledge and understanding reflected by heterogeneous uses of the coopetition concept (mixed definitions and a lack of clarity in how to apply coopetition successfully), a lack of generalisability, and a limited number of quantitative studies. Coopetition scholars commonly argue that competitors rarely cooperate in activities that are close to customers, known as output activities (e.g., sales and marketing), but instead argue that they mostly cooperate in activities far from the customer, referred to as input activities (e.g., R&D, logistics, and NPD). However, it has been found in real world business examples that competitors also cooperate in output activities. In this study these two distinct types of coopetition are termed as internally focused coopetition (cooperating with competitors in input activities) and externally focused coopetition (cooperating with competitors in output activities). This is the first study synthesising these two types of coopetition in one conceptual model, and examining their individual paybacks and pitfalls. After the development of the conceptual model based on the relevant literature, a cross-sectional research design is adopted and an online survey is implemented among Chief Operating Officers and Managing Directors in UK high-tech companies. A total of 148 completed questionnaires are collected. Data analysis employs a two-stage approach, which includes a measurement model assessment and a structural model assessment. The results indicate that both internally and externally focused coopetition can help firms to develop new knowledge-based resources and capabilities. However, these two types of coopetition also have different paybacks and pitfalls. Even though the new innovation knowledge-based resources and capabilities gained from internally focused coopetition can lead to better business efficiency and effectiveness, firms also lose uniqueness in their existing knowledge-based resources and capabilities (a key tenet of competitive advantage in resource- and knowledge-based theories). In contrast, externally focused coopetition has no significant impact on uniqueness, but the new marketing knowledge-based resources and capabilities negatively influence business efficiency and effectiveness. It has also been found that when firms perceive that their competitors are behaving opportunistically, they tend to do the same and appropriate more knowledge-based resources and capabilities from the collective value created. Competitors opportunism also renders more loss of uniqueness, which in turn worsens business performance. This research provides greater clarity and understanding to scholars of the workings of coopetition for deriving new knowledge-based resources and capabilities and extrapolating performance benefits from this. This work also illuminates situations where coopetition does not result in the perceived win-win-win situations indicated in literature. Based on these results, a number of theoretical and managerial contributions are developed. Principally, (1) this is the first study that conceptualises and operationalises internally and externally focused coopetition, and their individual knowledge-based outcomes are analysed from a knowledge-based view; (2) how competitors opportunism affects the dynamics of coopetition is better understood from a game theoretical perspective; (3) this study extends the understanding of business performance outcomes of coopetition

EBRF 2011 : conference proceedings

Published by University of Jyväskylä, Tampere University of Technology, University of Tampere, Aalto University, Lappeenranta University of Technology, University of Oulu, Abo Akademi Universit