(apologies for cross-posting, please distribute)
Andreea Gorbatai, Mathieu O'Neil and I are editing a special issue of
the Journal of Organizational Change Management (listed on ISI, with
good IF and also Scopus listed) on "Management and the Future of Open
Collaboration".
I include the call below, initially we request 500-word abstracts or
full papers by 21 January 2013, although expressing initial interest
is also most welcome.
I would be most grateful for your consideration, as well as passing it
on to those who may be potentially interested.
best,
Dariusz Jemielniak
===================================================================
Management and the Future of Open Collaboration
Special issue call for papers from Journal of Organizational Change
Management (ISI ranked)
Open collaboration is a field of rapid growth in organizational theory
and innovation research. Initial work in this area focused on the
management and governance of open source software communities (Demil &
Lecoq 2006; O’Mahony & Ferraro 2007) as well as on a wide range of
user communities formed by lead users in sports such as, for example,
canoeing and sailplaning (Shah and Franke 2003). Another research
stream has focused on open innovation from a corporate perspective,
studying the ways in which traditional organizations can harness the
power of communities to innovate (Chesbrough and Appleyard 2007;
Jeppesen and Lakhani 2010), or on the creation of 'boundary
organizations' which enable collaboration between open-source
communities and firms by enhancing convergent interests whilst
preserving the divergent interests of the parties (O'Mahony & Bechky
2008). Yet another stream has focused on open collaboration platforms,
with particular focus on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, assessing
participation processes and collaboration outcomes in this particular
setting (Konieczny 2009; Spinellis and Louridas 2008).
The wealth of practical and theoretical development has progressed
hand in hand with a lack of conceptual clarity. Phenomena as diverse
as open innovation, free and open source software, wikis such as
Wikipedia and other collaboration platforms, social networks such as
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and CouchSurfing, game environments such
as FoldIt, and online review sites such as Yelp! and Virtual Tourist,
have been variously described as crowdsourcing, social, peer and
collaborative production, or as wisdom of the crowds. The social
consequences of the rapid development of new modes of collaboration
have been described in terms both extremely positive (Benkler 2006)
and negative (Keen 2007). Even relatively minor terminological
differences, e.g., distinguishing between open collaboration
communities and the virtual communities of practice (Dubé et. al.
2005) indicate deep divisions in academic interpretations of similar
processes.
Conceptually mapping these phenomena will generate a better
understanding of the current state of research in this field. In order
to do so, it is necessary to understand where open collaboration
models come from, by examining their relationship to the means
developed by members of epistemic communities (Haas 1992) and of
communities of practice (Wenger 1998) to integrate newcomers and
generate new ideas. It is also advisable to examine they owe to
earlier forms of collaborative practice such as the management of
public goods held in common (Ostrom 1990). Together with conceptual
mapping, a core research concern is the relationship of open models to
traditional corporate models, a question which can be modulated in a
variety of guises:
What is the impact of the open collaboration model on other business
models? How does the existence of open collaboration enable or hamper
corporate innovation and production?
What kind of regulatory framework should govern open collaboration
between organizations and individuals?
Is there a model for non-intrusive corporate participation and support
in open collaboration similar to that adopted in 'open source'
software, and under what conditions can such models be successfully
deployed?
What metrics can evaluate the success of open collaboration, and what
are the development cycles in open collaboration projects?
How is organizing practiced and enacted in open collaboration? What
manner of technological and social tools are combined to manage and
govern open communities?
What do open collaboration settings teach us about how traditional
organizations are or will be changing? Are there aspects of
traditional organizations that can be illuminated by being placed in
open collaboration settings?
To further develop research on open collaboration settings it would be
helpful to couple attention to the specifics of open collaboration
models with insights regarding the changing character of global
production and commerce in light of socio-economic, technological,
political and legal changes. We are particularly interested in
empirical papers that employ quantitative and qualitative methods to
examine open collaboration processes and outcomes, and which
explicitly aim to shed light on cross-level mechanisms and outcomes,
ranging from society- and industry-level consequences to
individual-level ones. In addition, we encourage efforts to map
existing research in the area of open collaboration on a unified
conceptual map by drawing from a variety of fields, ranging from
organizational theory and innovation to information systems research
and anthropology of virtual communities. We plan to use this Special
Issue as a foundation to further develop a community of thought in
this nascent field.
Deadlines:
500-word abstract or full paper submission: January 31, 2013
Notification of acceptance: February 28, 2013
Submission of revised / final paper: May 1, 2013
Contact:
Please email your submissions in Adobe Acrobat PDF format to: Andreea
Gorbatai (gorbatai(a)haas.berkeley.edu), Dariusz Jemielniak
(darekj(a)kozminski.edu.pl), and Mathieu O’Neil
(mathieu.oneil(a)anu.edu.au). If you have any questions feel free to
contact any of the editors at the email addresses listed above,
specifying ‘Special Issue JOCM question’ in the subject line.
References
Benkler, Y. (2006) The wealth of networks: How social production
transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Chesbrough, H. and M. Appleyard. (2007). Open Innovation and Strategy.
California Management Review 50 (1): 57-76.
Demil, B. & X. Lecoq (2006). Neither market nor hierarchy nor network:
The emergence of bazaar governance. Organization Studies 27(10),
1447-1466.
Dubé, L., Bourhis, A.I. and R. Jacob (2005). The impact of structuring
characteristics on the launching of virtual communities of practice.
Journal of Organizational Change Management 18(2): 145-166.
Haas, P. M. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic communities and
international policy coordination. International Organization 46(10):
1-35.
Jeppesen, L., and K. R. Lakhani. (2010). Marginality and
problem-solving effectiveness in broadcast search. Organization
Science 21:1016-1033.
Keen, A. (2007) The cult of the amateur: How today's Internet is
killing our culture. New York: Broadway Business.
Konieczny, P. 2009. Governance, organization, and democracy on the
Internet: The iron law and the evolution of Wikipedia. Sociological
Forum 24(1):162-192.
O'Mahony, S., & B. A. Bechky (2008). Boundary organizations: Enabling
collaboration among unexpected allies. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 53(3), 422-459.
O’Mahony, S. & F. Ferraro (2007). The emergence of governance in an
open source community. Academy of Management Journal 50(5): 1079-1106.
Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions
for collective action, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shah, S. and N. Franke. (2003). How communities support innovative
activities: An exploration of assistance and sharing among end-users.
Research Policy 32(1): 157-178.
Spinellis, D. and L. Panagiotis. (2008). The collaborative
organization of knowledge. Communications of the ACM - Designing games
with a purpose 51(8): 68-73.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and
identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.