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 condi...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Cambridge, MA; Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2011
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66145 |
| _version_ | 1811085120198672384 |
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| author | von Hippel, Eric A. von Krogh, Georg |
| author_facet | von Hippel, Eric A. von Krogh, Georg |
| author_sort | von Hippel, Eric A. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | 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 also |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:13Z |
| format | Working Paper |
| id | mit-1721.1/66145 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:13Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | Cambridge, MA; Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/661452019-04-12T14:54:39Z Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science von Hippel, Eric A. von Krogh, Georg collective action open source software innovation incentives 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 also 2011-09-30T17:09:32Z 2011-09-30T17:09:32Z 2009-04-30 Working Paper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66145 en_US MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper;4739-09 application/pdf Cambridge, MA; Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | collective action open source software innovation incentives von Hippel, Eric A. von Krogh, Georg Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title | Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title_full | Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title_fullStr | Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title_full_unstemmed | Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title_short | Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science |
| title_sort | open source software and the private collective innovation model issues for organization science |
| topic | collective action open source software innovation incentives |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66145 |
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