Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science

Currently two models of innovation are prevalent in organization science. The "private investment" model assumes returns to the innovator results from private goods and efficient regimes of intellectual property protection. The "collective action" model assumes that under conditions of market failure, innovators collaborate in order to produce a public good. The phenomenon of open source software development shows that users program to solve their own as well as shared technical problems, and freely reveal their innovations without appropriating private returns from selling the software. In this paper we propose that open source software development is an exemplar of a compound model of innovation that contains elements of both the private investment and the collective action models. We describe a new set of research questions this model raises for scholars in organization science. We offer some details regarding the types of data available for open source projects in order to ease access for researchers who are unfamiliar with these, and als

CROSSROADS—Identifying Viable “Need–Solution Pairs”: Problem Solving Without Problem Formulation

Problem-solving research and formal problem-solving practice begin with the assumption that a problem has been identified or formulated for solving. The problem-solving process then involves a search for a satisfactory or optimal solution to that problem. In contrast, we propose that, in informal problem solving, a need and a solution are often discovered together and tested for viability as a “need–solution pair.” For example, one may serendipitously discover a new solution and assess it to be worth adopting although the “problem” it would address had not previously been in mind as an object of search or even awareness. In such a case, problem identification and formulation, if done at all, come only after the discovery of the need–solution pair. We propose the identification of need–solution pairs as an approach to problem solving in which problem formulation is not required. We argue that discovery of viable need–solution pairs without problem formulation may have advantages over problem-initiated problem-solving methods under some conditions. First, it removes the often considerable costs associated with problem formulation. Second, it eliminates the constraints on possible solutions that any problem formulation will inevitably apply

Identifying viable "need-solution pairs": Problem solving without problem formulation Identifying viable "need-solution pairs": Problem solving without problem formulation

Abstract Problem-solving research, and formal problem-solving practice as well, begins with the assumption that a problem has been identified or formulated for solving. The problem-solving process then involves a search for a satisfactory or optimal solution to that problem. In contrast, we propose that, in informal problem solving, a need and a solution are often discovered together, and tested for viability as a need-solution pair. For example, one may serendipitously discover a new solution, and assess it to be worth adopting even though the "problem" it would address had not previously been in mind as an object of search --or even awareness. In such a case, problem identification and formulation if done at all, comes only after the discovery of the need-solution pair. In this article, we propose the identification of need-solution pairs as an approach to problem solving in which problem formulation is not required. We argue that discovery of viable need-solution pairs without problem formulation may have advantages over problem-initiated problem-solving methods under some conditions. First, it removes the often considerable costs associated with problem formulation. Second, it eliminates the constraints on possible solutions that any problem formulation will inevitably apply. We suggest that this approach merits further investigation

Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science

A version of this paper with a different license is available in the MIT Open Access Articles collection at https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/106296.Currently, two models of innovation are prevalent in organization science. The “private investment” model assumes returns to the innovator result from private goods and efficient regimes of intellectual property protection. The “collective action” model assumes that under conditions of market failure, innovators collaborate in order to produce a public good. The phenomenon of open source software development shows that users program to solve their own as well as shared technical problems, and freely reveal their innovations without appropriating private returns from selling the software. In this paper, we propose that open source software development is an exemplar of a compound “private-collective” model of innovation that contains elements of both the private investment and the collective action models and can offer society the “best of both worlds” under many conditions. We describe a new set of research questions this model raises for scholars in organization science. We offer some details regarding the types of data available for open source projects in order to ease access for researchers who are unfamiliar with these, and also offer some advice on conducting empirical studies on open source software development processes

Open Innovation and the Private-Collective Model for Innovation Incentives

A central tenant of open innovation is free revealing of the detailed workings of novel products and services, so that others may use them, learn from them, and perhaps improve them as well. We explain that innovators frequently do freely reveal proprietary information and knowledge regarding both information-based products and physical products they have developed. We explain why free revealing can make good economic sense for innovators and for society as well. The article develops the case for free revealing in terms of a “private collective” model of innovation incentives

Online Community as space for knowledge flows

Online communities frequently create significant economic and relational value for community participants and beyond. It is widely accepted that the underlying source of such value is the collective flow of knowledge among community participants. We distinguish the conditions for flows of tacit and explicit knowledge in online communities and advance an unconventional theoretical conjecture: Online communities give rise to tacit knowledge flows between participants. The crucial condition for these flows is not the advent of novel, digital technology as often portrayed in the literature, but instead the technology’s domestication by humanity and the sociality it affords. This conjecture holds profound implications for theory and research in the study of management and organization, as well as their relation to information technology

Social Software and Strategy

Social software challenges strategic thinking in important ways: empowering creative, independent individuals implies indeterminate and uncertain reactions and creations in support of, or in opposition to, management’s original thinking. We build a framework that organizes research on social software, taking perspectives from both inside and outside companies. We use this framework to introduce the contributions to this special issue in terms of strategy, technology, and community and to ask a series of questions for strategy research that pays particular attention to value creation and appropriation, the role of technology both as tool and mediator between managers and users, and the role that management can play in communities, both as leaders and in shaping boundaries. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved