Governing open source communities through boundary decisions

Governing open source software (OSS) communities is defined in the relevant literature as the formal and informal means to control and coordinate the collective efforts towards common objectives (Markus, 2007). OSS communities are not based on a fixed structure. Instead, the structure emerges through collaboration. Participants, technical artefacts, ideas, resources, and interactions are fluid (Faraj et al., 2011) in the sense that they are reconfigured over time, depending on the context of the community. This has raised governance challenges in terms of determining “how open is open enough” (West, 2003). Governing a fluid complex technically-mediated ecosystem, such as OSS communities, requires determining whether to keep the boundaries open to all, which may risk the quality of the deliverables, or restricting the contributions to an elite population, which restrains collaboration (Ferraro and O'Mahony, 2012). In this thesis, I argue that OSS governance is a boundary decision to determine and legitimise the practices that best govern the collective effort in a particular context (Ferraro and O'Mahony, 2012). The current literature focused on two types of boundaries; the external boundary that separates OSS communities from the commercial world; and the role-based boundary that identifies the roles and responsibilities of the individuals (Chen and O’Mahony, 2009). The former boundary has been extensively discussed in the literature by focusing on how firms reap the benefits of OSS products without exploiting the collective effort. The latter boundary focuses on individuals as the main actors of the community. The current views on OSS governance have two main limitations. First, current accounts focus on creating a governance structure that facilitates the collaboration among dispersed individuals, neglecting the issues of fluidity and dynamicity. As a result, scholars continue to build their studies on taken-for-granted assumptions overlooking the transformations that have occurred to the overall settings of the OSS community. One of the overlooked areas is the emergence of vertical (i.e. domain-specific) OSS communities, which is the main interest of this thesis. Second, technology, in the context of OSS, is either considered as an end product or a medium of governance. Current studies failed to address the materiality of technology, where materiality refers to the ways in which the properties of technology are arranged and rearranged in relation to each other to accomplish governance practices in a particular context. The materiality of technology entails different possibilities for governance practices, which is not sufficiently addressed in the literature. Therefore, I argue and demonstrate that any attempt to explain OSS governance without addressing materiality is considered incomplete. In this thesis, I demonstrate that OSS communities are governed through boundary decisions, where decisions refer to delineating the boundaries of the community. This is achieved by identifying the actors, actions, and resources required to control and coordinate the collaborative effort in a particular context. Boundary decisions entail remaining sensitive to the changes that occur to the context and change the boundaries accordingly. I adopt grounded theory approach to conduct a case study on Kuali; a vertical OSS community that develops ERP system for the higher education sector. The research findings contribute to the OSS governance literature by developing a theoretical foundation that explains OSS governance as a boundary decision. The emergent theory explains OSS governance in terms of context, control, resources, and materiality. I illustrate through empirical evidence how these constructs interact with each other to govern the collective effort. The thesis contributes to the OSS literature by bringing to the fore the dynamicity and materiality of OSS governance. The thesis also has implications in the area of boundary management. OSS communities represent a non-traditional organisational settings, and thus provides novel theoretical insights with regards to boundary management

Governing open source communities through boundary decisions

Governing open source software (OSS) communities is defined in the relevant literature as the formal and informal means to control and coordinate the collective efforts towards common objectives (Markus, 2007). OSS communities are not based on a fixed structure. Instead, the structure emerges through collaboration. Participants, technical artefacts, ideas, resources, and interactions are fluid (Faraj et al., 2011) in the sense that they are reconfigured over time, depending on the context of the community. This has raised governance challenges in terms of determining “how open is open enough” (West, 2003). Governing a fluid complex technically-mediated ecosystem, such as OSS communities, requires determining whether to keep the boundaries open to all, which may risk the quality of the deliverables, or restricting the contributions to an elite population, which restrains collaboration (Ferraro and O'Mahony, 2012). In this thesis, I argue that OSS governance is a boundary decision to determine and legitimise the practices that best govern the collective effort in a particular context (Ferraro and O'Mahony, 2012). The current literature focused on two types of boundaries; the external boundary that separates OSS communities from the commercial world; and the role-based boundary that identifies the roles and responsibilities of the individuals (Chen and O’Mahony, 2009). The former boundary has been extensively discussed in the literature by focusing on how firms reap the benefits of OSS products without exploiting the collective effort. The latter boundary focuses on individuals as the main actors of the community. The current views on OSS governance have two main limitations. First, current accounts focus on creating a governance structure that facilitates the collaboration among dispersed individuals, neglecting the issues of fluidity and dynamicity. As a result, scholars continue to build their studies on taken-for-granted assumptions overlooking the transformations that have occurred to the overall settings of the OSS community. One of the overlooked areas is the emergence of vertical (i.e. domain-specific) OSS communities, which is the main interest of this thesis. Second, technology, in the context of OSS, is either considered as an end product or a medium of governance. Current studies failed to address the materiality of technology, where materiality refers to the ways in which the properties of technology are arranged and rearranged in relation to each other to accomplish governance practices in a particular context. The materiality of technology entails different possibilities for governance practices, which is not sufficiently addressed in the literature. Therefore, I argue and demonstrate that any attempt to explain OSS governance without addressing materiality is considered incomplete. In this thesis, I demonstrate that OSS communities are governed through boundary decisions, where decisions refer to delineating the boundaries of the community. This is achieved by identifying the actors, actions, and resources required to control and coordinate the collaborative effort in a particular context. Boundary decisions entail remaining sensitive to the changes that occur to the context and change the boundaries accordingly. I adopt grounded theory approach to conduct a case study on Kuali; a vertical OSS community that develops ERP system for the higher education sector. The research findings contribute to the OSS governance literature by developing a theoretical foundation that explains OSS governance as a boundary decision. The emergent theory explains OSS governance in terms of context, control, resources, and materiality. I illustrate through empirical evidence how these constructs interact with each other to govern the collective effort. The thesis contributes to the OSS literature by bringing to the fore the dynamicity and materiality of OSS governance. The thesis also has implications in the area of boundary management. OSS communities represent a non-traditional organisational settings, and thus provides novel theoretical insights with regards to boundary management

Yellowstone County/City of Billings Growth Policy Health Impact Assessment

Analyzes the potential impact of community growth and the built environment on residents' health, emergency preparedness, nutrition, pedestrian safety and traffic, and physical activity as a way to make health part of the decision-making process

Future directions in urban design as public policy: reassessing best practice principles for design review and development management

his paper reassesses John Punter's ‘Best Practice Principles for Design Review and Development Management’ that were published in this journal in 2007. Placing a focused lens on British and North American practice, the paper argues that design control and review has been profoundly reshaped since 2007 by three contributing factors: the challenges associated with climate change, the growing role that communities can play in local decision making, and the impacts of the global economic crisis upon public sector finances and property development. In light of these trends, the paper uses a review of recent literature and design practices to argue for a series of amendments to the best practice principles. These focus on: (1) the potential for design control and review to be more fully informed by ecological design theory and practice; (2) the need for more rigorous multi-stakeholder collaboration in the design decision-making process; and (3) the opportunity for urban designers to become more competent ‘market actors’ with the necessary abilities to confidently shape property development decisions

Schools and civil society : corporate or community governance

School improvement depends upon mediating the cultural conditions of learning as young people journey between their parochial worlds and the public world of cosmopolitan society. Governing bodies have a crucial role in including or diminishing the representation of different cultural traditions and in enabling or frustrating the expression of voice and deliberation of differences whose resolution is central to the mediation of and responsiveness to learning needs. A recent study of governing bodies in England and Wales argues that the trend to corporatising school governance will diminish the capacity of schools to learn how they can understand cultural traditions and accommodate them in their curricula and teaching strategies. A democratic, stakeholder model remains crucial to the effective practice of governing schools. By deliberating and reconciling social and cultural differences, governance constitutes the practices for mediating particular and cosmopolitan worlds and thus the conditions for engaging young people in their learning, as well as in the preparation for citizenship in civil society

Social Capital, Survival Strategies, and Their Potential for Post-conflict Governance in Liberia

This paper investigates how people created, adapted and used social capital and conflict resolution during more than a decade of violent conflict in Liberia, and the potential of such capital to contribute to post-conflict peace building and self-governance

The scalar politics of economic planning

Across England, modes of governing larger-than-local development strategies are undergoing far-reaching change. In particular, the new government of 2010 has a political and financial mission of rescaling and simplifying sub-national economic planning. Alongside the revocation of myriad and sometimes unpopular regional strategies, their supportive institutional structures are being rapidly disbanded, opening up a strategic leadership gap or fissure between national and local scales of policy. Analysing the theory and processes of spatial rescaling, including the emergence of new geographies of governance at the sub-regional scale, the paper draws attention to some of the key opportunities and dilemmas arising from these ‘scalar shifts’. The economic planning roles of the new, cross-boundary entrepreneurial governance entities – Local Enterprise Partnerships – are explored. A key question is whether these public-private arrangements, across what were intended as ‘functional’ economic areas, present a pragmatic way of resolving the strategic tensions between local authority areas that would otherwise be neglected in a post-regional era. The research is based on national monitoring of policy shifts and draws upon participatory observation as an instrument to enrich more formal policy narratives. The paper finds these new bodies lack powers and funding, and concludes that state-led rescaling in effect provides a new ‘cover’ for some old politics; namely neoliberalism including the deepening of entrepreneurial forms of governance. Key words: Strategic planning, sub-national development, economic planning, entrepreneurial governance and Local Enterprise Partnership

Governing in the Anthropocene: are there cyber-systemic antidotes to the malaise of modern governance?

The Anthropocene imposes new challenges for governments, demanding capabilities for dealing with complexity and uncertainty. In this paper we examine how effective governing of social-biophysical dynamics is constrained by current processes and systems of government. Framing choices and structural determinants combine to create governance deficits in multiple domains, particularly in relation to the governing of complex larger-scale social – biophysical systems. Attempts to build capability for governing ‘wicked problems’ are relevant to sustainability science and Anthropocene governance, but these have mostly failed to become institutionalised. Two cases studies are reported to elucidate how the systemic dynamics of governing operate and fail in relation to espoused purpose. In the UK attempts to enact ‘joined-up’ government’ during the years of New Labour government reveal systemic flaws and consistent praxis failures. From Australia we report on water governance reforms with implications for a wide range of complex policy issues. We conclude that innovations are needed to build capacity for governing the unfolding surprises and inherent uncertainties of the Anthropocene. These include institutionalising, or structural incorporation, of cyber-systemic thinking/practices that can also enhance empowerment and creativity that underpins sustainability science

Community based ecotourism as a panacea for protected areas: the use of common property theory in its analysis and development

Tourism is the worlds largest employer, accounting for 10% of jobs worldwide (WTO, 1999). There are over 30,000 protected areas around the world, covering about 10% of the land surface(IUCN, 2002). Protected area management is moving towards a more integrated form of management, which recognises the social and economic needs of the worlds finest areas and seeks to provide long term income streams and support social cohesion through active but sustainable use of resources. Ecotourism - 'responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well- being of local people' (The Ecotourism Society, 1991) - is often cited as a panacea for incorporating the principles of sustainable development in protected area management. However, few examples exist worldwide to substantiate this claim. In reality, ecotourism struggles to provide social and economic empowerment locally and fails to secure proper protection of the local and global environment. Current analysis of ecotourism provides a useful checklist of interconnected principles for more successful initiatives, but no overall framework of analysis or theory. This paper argues that applying common property theory to the application of ecotourism can help to establish more rigorous, multi-layered analysis that identifies the institutional demands of community based ecotourism (CBE). The paper draws on existing literature on ecotourism and several new case studies from developed and developing countries around the world. It focuses on the governance of CBE initiatives, particularly the interaction between local stakeholders and government and the role that third party non-governmental organisations can play in brokering appropriate institutional arrangements. The paper concludes by offering future research directions.

How Far Does the European Union Reach? Foreign Land Acquisitions and the Boundaries of Political Communities

The recent global surge in large-scale foreign land acquisitions marks a radical transformation of the global economic and political landscape. Since land that attracts capital often becomes the site of expulsions and displacement, it also leads to new forms of migration. In this paper, I explore this connection from the perspective of a political philosopher. I argue that changes in global land governance unsettle the congruence of political community and bounded territory that we often take for granted. As a case study, I discuss the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive as a significant driver of foreign land acquisitions. Using its global power, the European Union (EU) is effectively governing land far outside of its international borders and with it the people who live on this land or are expelled from it. As a result, EU citizens ought to consider such people fellow members of their political community. This has implications for normative debates about immigration and, in particular, for arguments that appeal to collective self-determination to justify a right of political communities to exclude newcomers. The political community to which EU citizens belong reaches far beyond the EU’s official borders