Source-linked AI summary
Open Collaboration for Innovation: Principles and Performance
Sheen Levine, Michael Prietula
TL;DR
The paper asks what operating principles make open collaboration viable and what affects its performance across online and offline ventures. It reviews OC examples, defines its principles, and uses an agent-based computational model to study cooperation, need heterogeneity, and rivalry. OC performs robustly even with minority cooperators, free riders, rival goods, or homogeneous needs, supporting its expansion into new domains.
Problem
Open collaboration has substantial social and economic impact, but what affects its performance and why it remains viable are still unresolved.
Method
The paper reviews OC ventures and combines innovation theory with evidence on human cooperation in an agent-based model of cooperativeness, need heterogeneity, and rivalry.
Results
OC performs robustly when cooperators are a minority, free riders are present, goods are rival, or participant needs are homogeneous.
Takeaways & Limitations
OC is viable and likely to expand into new domains, while informing discussion of collaborative and communal organizational forms.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
The principles of open collaboration for innovation (and production), once distinctive to open source software, are now found in many other ventures. Some of these ventures are internet-based: Wikipedia, online forums and communities. Others are off-line: in medicine, science, and everyday life. Such ventures have been affecting traditional firms, and may represent a new organizational form. Despite the impact of such ventures, questions remain about their operating principles and performance. Here we define open collaboration (OC), the underlying set of principles, and propose that it is a robust engine for innovation and production. First, we review multiple OC ventures and identify four defining principles. In all instances, participants create goods and services of economic value, they exchange and reuse each other's work, they labor purposefully with just loose coordination, and they permit anyone to contribute and consume. These principles distinguish OC from other organizational forms, such as firms or cooperatives. Next, we turn to performance. To understand the performance of OC, we develop a computational model, combining innovation theory with recent evidence on human cooperation. We identify and investigate three elements that affect performance: the cooperativeness of participants, the diversity of their needs, and the degree to which the goods are rival (subtractable). Through computational experiments, we find that OC performs well even in seemingly harsh environments: when cooperators are a minority, free riders are present, diversity is lacking, or goods are rival. We conclude that OC is viable and likely to expand into new domains. The findings also inform the discussion on new organizational forms, collaborative and communal.
1. WHAT IS OPEN COLLABORATION?
Open collaboration (OC) extends beyond open-source software into diverse online and offline ventures, but its principles and performance remain under study. The paper defines OC, examines its performance drivers, and finds it robust across several challenging conditions.
- Scope and motivation: Open collaboration spans online communities, digital sharing, scientific projects, and offline sharing of goods and services.Examples include forums, mailing lists, user-generated content, Galaxy Zoo, mapping projects, and sharing tools or hosting strangers.
- Definition: OC is defined as goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants creating economic-value products available to contributors and non-contributors alike.The paper introduces this definition while investigating why such systems are viable.
- Performance drivers: The paper examines whether cooperation, need heterogeneity, and rivalry affect OC performance, addressing competing claims about diversity and shared resources.Need heterogeneity concerns diversity of participant needs, while rivalry concerns whether consumption interferes with others’ consumption.
- Findings: OC can thrive when cooperators are a minority, free riders participate, goods are rival, or participant needs are homogeneous.Performance suffers only when rival goods and homogeneous needs occur together.
- Findings: A small core contributes most of the work while many participants contribute little, a disparity the model explains.The paper presents this contribution pattern as an implication of the model’s results.
- Implications: The findings imply that OC may spread into new domains and inform debates about collaborative and communal organizational forms.The paper frames OC as harnessing goal-oriented, loosely coordinated human effort for products of economic value.