Facilitating Contexts for Open Innovation
in Open Source Software
Michelle W. Purcell
Findings
Background
Data Collection
• Spaeth et al.[3] use the term “push model” to describe
a variant of outside-in innovation that derives from
unsolicited knowledge sharing by stakeholders
outside the firm.
• Push models of open innovation in open source
software have focused on contingencies supporting
code contributions, such as the role of the
development process; project governance structures;
software architecture; or business strategy.
• Participant architectures, “the socio-technical
framework that extends participation opportunities to
external parties and integrates contributions” [5, p.
146], enable varying degrees of openness which in
turn are positively related to sustaining and growing
an innovation community [5].
• The purpose was to investigate how participation
architectures support the push model open innovation
through means of engaging users in ways other than
code contribution.
• There were three ways new feature requests could be introduced, contract
• New feature requests were analyzed over several months.
development through a software service company, direct code contribution
• WIKI entries and IRC and mailing-list communications were
implementing the feature or direct request to the community. (See Fig. 1.)
analyzed over time, to permit enculturation in community practices.
• When an institution cannot develop the feature on their own and wishes to
• Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five community
contract out, there is a complicated process of networking to build support
members who were well-indoctrinated into community practice
and to pool funding if needed.
around the new feature request process.
• While there appears to be a philosophy of wanting ideas to bubble-up from
the community - which would be aided by community member feedback –
this does not appear to occur frequently. Difficulty in maintaining user
• Designing a participant architecture to support open innovation
awareness may contribute to this lack, as may a lack of incentives to provide
must address the challenge of distributed cognition - that in
feedback on issues that don’t affect the community member’s institution.
diverse communities, knowledge is ‘stretched across’
participants, rather than shared between them [2]. The concept
of mindfulness (a.k.a. heedful interrelating) explains how
individual processes combine into a system of distributed
Three aspects of a technology-enabled participation architecture were
cognition (a.k.a. collective mind) [4].
identified that appear core to meaningful involvement in open innovation:
• Data were coded to identify instances of mindfulness and
• The linkage between idea submission and community influence (such as
mechanisms by which participants contributed knowledge to the
the ability to mobilize funding to implement a new feature).
community. Further coding occurred within those categories to
• The ability to present and to represent innovation ideas so they are visible
identify characteristics such as methods of interpretation,
across the community.
motivation, and the ability to maintain awareness in order to
• The ability to maintain awareness of innovative ideas in order to obtain
locate knowledge within the system of social activity involved in
the feedback necessary for idea co-creation
the new feature request process.
These three factors appear to constrain the community’s ability to capitalize on
the push model of innovation in the form of new feature requests.
Objective
• This study explores participant architectures with the
objective of understanding the characteristics of
community information systems that:
1) influence participation diversity in the new feature
requests process
2) enable new feature request co-creation
Analysis Method
Implications
Future Work
This is the first stage of a multi-site study to explore how technology-mediated
participation architectures shape community interactions and mindfulness
across innovation communities. The objective is to understand how we may
design participation architectures that encourage meaningful user participation!
Research Method & Site
• Given the exploratory nature of this study a qualitative
approach using ethnographic methods was employed.
• The sample consists of one open source software
project although the study of additional communities
is planned.
• The project employs a deployment business model
meaning while the code is free users are willing to
pay support, subscription, and professional services
to maintain and customize the software [1].
• The majority of development is done by paid
developers.
• The project would be considered relatively small
based on lines of code and users.
drexel.edu/cci
References
[1] Chesbrough, H. W., & Appleyard, M. M. (2007). Open Innovation and
Strategy. California Management Review, 50(1), 57 – 76.
[2] Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in
everyday life. Cambridge University Press.
[3] Spaeth, S., Stuermer, M., & Von Krogh, G. (2010). Enabling knowledge
creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation.
International Journal of Technology Management, 52(3), 411–431.
[4] Weick, K. E., & Roberts, K. H. (1993). Collective
mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight
decks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 357–381.
[5] West, J., & O’Mahony, S. (2008). The role of
participation architecture in growing sponsored open
source communities. Industry and Innovation, 15(2),
145–168.
Figure 1. Methods of submitting new feature requests.
Advisor: Dr. Susan Gasson