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The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical extension to the private‐collective model of information sharing along with an empirical test with users of a social bookmarking website.

The paper includes a survey of 112 users of an actual bookmarking site recruited through an online research panel firm. The survey consisted of scales adapted from the literature as well as scales developed by the authors.

The results indicate that contributions to a social bookmarking site are a combination of intentional and unintentional contributions. A significant predictor of intentional public contributions of bookmarks is an egoistic motivation to see one as competent by contributing valuable information. However, there is also a significant but negative relationship between altruism and public contribution whereby users concerned with the needs of others limit their public contributions.

The sample consists of users of a particular social bookmarking site (Yahoo!'s MyWeb). Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other social bookmarking websites, different types of social networks, or other contexts lacking the public/private option for contributions. Second, since the data comes from a cross‐sectional survey, as opposed to a longitudinal study, the causal relations posited in the model and substantiated with the statistical analyses can only be inferred based on the authors’ theoretical development. Third, although the size of the sample (112 respondents) is appropriate for PLS analysis it may have been insufficient to detect other significant relationships.

Administrators of social bookmarking sites should incorporate incentive and feedback mechanisms to inform contributors whether they contributions have been used (for example, with times viewed) and/or deemed useful (with numeric or qualitative ratings).

The results suggest that both selfish motivations associated with the need to feel competent (egoism), as well as selfless concerns for the needs of other users (altruism) drive intentional contributions to the public repository in social bookmarking systems. These two counterbalancing forces indicate that a mix of egoism and altruism is crucial for the long‐term sustainability of social web sites based on information sharing.

This study provides theoretical explanations and empirical evidence of egoism and altruism as significant explanations for cooperation in private‐collective models, such as the ones represented by social bookmarking systems.

This paper addresses innovations based on open source or non‐proprietary knowledge. Viewed through the lens of private property theory, such agency appears to be a true anomaly. However, by a further turn of the theoretical kaleidoscope, we will show that there may be perfectly justifiable reasons for not regarding open source innovations as anomalies. The paper is based on three sectorial and generic cases of open source innovation, which is an offspring of contemporary theory made possible by combining elements of the model of private agency with those of the model of collective agency. In closing, the paper addresses implications for further research, practitioners and other policy‐makers.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of online networking during the innovation process, including its role(s) in communication, cooperation and coordination. The paper neither implicitly assumes that online computer‐based networking is a prerequisite for the innovation process nor denies the possibility that innovation can emerge and successfully survive without it. It merely presupposes that, in cases of innovation where information and communication technologies play a substantial role, non‐proprietarity may offer an interesting alternative to innovations based on proprietary knowledge.

The paper borrows from the theory of communities‐of‐practice, which takes into account social relations, contacts, and the transfer and incorporation of knowledge. Open source innovation is not the exclusive preserve of computer nerds, but also has implications for existing software manufacturers. The paper therefore includes the case of IBM, a company which has successfully integrated this new and more open way of collaboration into its business model.

The paper concludes that online computer‐based innovation fundamentally challenges current ways of communicating, cooperating and coordinating during the innovation and product development process. Moreover, it challenges the traditional business model in that it forces the actors involved to shift the focus from the innovation itself to the identification of new supporting services higher up the value chain. Last, but not least, it blurs the boundary between development and use, since the developer remains the key user.

The paper addresses the implications for future research in the area.

The paper addresses implications for practitioners directly involved in innovation and product development.

This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding product development based on non‐proprietary knowledge, which cannot be adequately accounted for by traditional corporate innovation theory alone.

Innovation challenges are increasingly complex, cutting across distributed actors from different disciplines, organizations, and fields. Solving such challenges requires creating the capacities of opening up for innovation to access and develop a greater amount and variety of knowledge and resources. Perspectives on open source, open innovation, and interorganizational collaboration have explored such capacities, but from different origins and scopes of analysis. Our practice-based integrative framework of “opening innovation” helps highlight these differences and connect their relative strengths. Through a critical literature review paired with an analysis of different empirical cases from Hacking Health, a non-profit organization helping drive digital health innovation, the authors reveal the user-centric, firm-centric, and field-centric approaches to opening innovation that progressively connect a greater variety of actors and resources. The authors show how specific new relational practices they produce address the new relational dynamics these connections bring to accumulate more resources for innovation to keep progressing.

This study aims to recognize the growing importance of Open Innovation (OI) theory and practice in the broader fields of Management and Information Systems, and focuse on the relationship existing between OI and a firm’s Business Strategy. Hence, the study aims at investigating the multifaceted OI – Strategy nexus at a business level, assessing how OI initiatives influence Strategy within the Mobile Telecommunications Industry and thus contributing to framing and classifying such inherent relationship.

A data-driven research approach is used, based on 45 qualitative interviews on firms operating in the Mobile Industry and involved in OI initiatives.

Six cross-themes the OI–Strategy relationship in the Mobile Industry revolves around are identified, i.e. OI and Competitive Advantage; OI and Strategic Positioning; OI and Business Models; OI in Networks; OI and Co-opetition; and OI and Resilient Business Advantages. For each theme, examples from the sample of interviewed Mobile firms are organized and reported. The key managerial issues emerging in the attempt to relate OI initiatives and the firm’s overarching Strategy are also underscored and organized in three streams, namely, designing an open business model; achieving competitive advantage through value capture; and nurturing OI as a dynamic capability.

The proposed reorganization of real-world OI and strategic initiatives in the Mobile Industry, together with the underscoring of key managerial issues, constitutes a comprehensive research agenda or roadmap, with value for both academics and practitioners.

The rise of the sharing economy has brought with it a huge variety of new organizational forms and innovative business models. An integral part of these forms and models is the communities and members of sharing-economy organizations, since they significantly contribute to value creation for these organizations. Relying on community member contributions, though, is a challenge for these organizations because fluid community boundaries and voluntary membership makes it difficult to coordinate their activities. This chapter investigates the under-researched question of how sharing-economy organizations govern the actions of their community members. Following an abductive approach that included site visits, participant observations, and 67 interviews, we develop a framework that illustrates four different types of governance: pure market, pure clan, market-hierarchy hybrid, and clan-hierarchy hybrid. The framework explains differences among these types depending on the main activity (providing resources or producing jointly) and the primary aim of the community (business orientation or social orientation). This study thus contributes to research on both governance in general and to sharing-economy organizations in particular by capturing the variety and diversity of community forms, governance practices, and business-model configurations.

Industry platforms can alter relations among exchange partners in such a way that the industry structure is changed. The focus of much industry platform research has been on how platform creation and leadership offers advantages to the most central firms, but platforms can also be advantageous for small specialist firms that compete with the most central firms. We examine book publishing as an example of an industry in which the central players – large publishing firms – are losing power to self-publishing authors because the distributor Amazon has a powerful platform for customers to communicate independently, and the non-publishing platform Twitter also serves as a medium for readers to discuss and review books. Our empirical analysis is based on downloaded sales statistics for Amazon Ebooks, matched with Amazon reviews of the same books and tweets that refer to the book or the author. We analyze how Ebook sales are a function of publisher, Amazon reviews, and tweets, and we are able to assess the importance of each factor in the sale of book titles. The main finding is that Amazon reviews are powerful drivers of book sales, and have greater effect on the sales of books that are not backed by publishers. Twitter also affects book sales, but less strongly than Amazon reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to review the emerging research field of open innovation and identify where the field is going as well as suggest future fields of research.

All academic papers and books published until November 2007 under the label of open innovation were systematically reviewed. Also, nine key researchers were asked to contribute with their opinions on the research frontier.

A number of key themes in the research were identified, and conclusions on the underlying structure were drawn. This reveals that there is a tendency towards a broader definition and application of the term, a growing critical perspective, and a concentration on theory development and managerial implications.

The paper suggests that the locus of the innovation process and the extent of collaboration should be used as two dimensions in a model to further understanding of how open innovation develops. These dimensions have an important impact on both the human and the organizational side of innovation, areas that are highlighted as important fields for further research.

Despite the interest in the open innovation topic, a comprehensive review of the academic publications in the area does not seem to exist. The review and the conclusions drawn support the understanding of the growing field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transferability of the open source principles of product development from the realm of software to the realm of physical products.

Based on the inherent differences between software and physical products, a theoretical discussion of the challenges that face the implementation of open source principles in the physical world are provided. A multiple case study methodology is adopted to provide insights into the applicability of the open source concept in product development outside software.

Many of the challenges identified theoretically are actually encountered in practice. To cope with these challenges effectively, hardware design activities can be translated into software development tasks, using programmable hardware. When dealing with open source projects in the physical realm, it is useful to distinguish between projects driven by commercial firms and those driven by individuals, as each project type can impose different conditions on successful implementation.

Although much scholarly attention has been devoted to open source software, the issue of transferability of the identified principles to other industries has undergone little in‐depth research. This paper provides a solid foundation for further investigation of this topic based on theory and empirical case examples. It derives recommendations for industrial experts wishing to benefit from the open source model in new product development.