In this paper, we conceptualize Open Data ecosystems by analysing the major stakeholders in the UK. The conceptualization is based on a review of popular Open Data definitions and business ecosystem theories, which we applied to qualitative empirical data. Our work is informed by a combination of discourse analysis and a content analysis of in-depth interviews, undertaken during the summer of 2013. Drawing on the UK as a best practice example, we examine a set of structural business ecosystem properties: circular flow of resources, sustainability, demand that encourages supply, and dependence developing between suppliers, intermediaries, and users. We identify that gaps and shortcomings remain. Most prominently, demand is not yet fully encouraging supply and actors have yet to experience fully mutual interdependence.

With the rise of digital technologies, organizations are able to produce, process, and transfer large amounts of information at marginal cost. In recent years, these technological developments together with other macro-phenomena like globalization and rising distrust of institutions has led to unprecedented public expectations regarding organizational transparency. In this study I explore the ways in which organizations resolve the tension between a growing norm to share internal information with the public and their inherent preferences for informational control. Through developing the notion of transparency decoupling, I examine how organizations respond strategically to transparency expectations. Drawing on studies of "open data" transparency initiatives in NYC, London, and Berlin, I inductively carve out three modes of institutional information decoupling: (a) selecting the disclosed information to exclude parts of the data or parts of the audience; (b) bending the information in order to retain some control over its representative value; (c) orchestrating new information for a particular audience. The article integrates literature from New Institutional Theory and Transparency Studies in order to contribute to our understanding of how information sharing is realized in the interaction between organizations and their environment.

Predatory journals have emerged as an unintended consequence of the Open Access paradigm. Predatory journals only supposedly or very superficially conduct peer review and accept manuscripts within days to skim off publication fees. In this provocation piece, we first explain how predatory journals exploit deficiencies of the traditional peer review process in times of Open Access publishing. We then explain two ways in which predatory journals may harm the management discipline: as an infrastructure for the dissemination of pseudo-science and as a vehicle to portray management research as pseudo-scientific. Analyzing data from a journal blacklist, we show that without the ability to validate their claims to conduct peer review, most of the 639 predatory management journals are quite difficult to demarcate from serious journals. To address this problem, we propose open peer review as a new governance mechanism for management journals. By making parts of their peer review process more transparent and inclusive, reputable journals can differentiate themselves from predatory journals and additionally contribute to a more developmental reviewing culture. Eventually, we discuss ways in which editors, reviewers, and authors can advocate reform of peer review.

Given the excessive power of Google and other large technology firms, transparency and accountability have turned into matters of great concern for organization scholars. So far, most studies adopt either a causal or critical perspective on the relationship between the two concepts. These perspectives are pitted against each other but share some basic assumptions – a fact which limits organization theory’s ability to fully grasp the management of (digital) visibilities. To address these limitations, we therefore propose a third, constructive perspective on these concepts. A constructive perspective turns transparency and accountability from analytic resources into topics of inquiry, allowing organization scholars to study how people in and around organizations put them to work and with what consequences. We introduce sites of ethical contestation as a new methodological strategy to conduct surprising and unintuitive empirical research from a constructive perspective.

Transparency is in vogue, yet it is often used as an umbrella concept for a wide array of phenomena. More focused concepts are needed to understand the form and function of different phenomena of visibility. In this article, the authors define organizational transparency as systematic disclosure programs that meet the information needs of other actors. Organizational transparency, they argue, is best studied as an interorganizational negotiation process on the field level. To evaluate its merit, the authors apply this framework to a case study on the introduction of open data in the Berlin city administration. Analyzing the politics of disclosure, they consider the similarities and differences between phenomena of visibility (e.g., open data, freedom of information), explore the transformative power of negotiating transparency, and deduce recommendations for managing transparency. Evidence for Practice• The creation of organizational transparency, the systematic and rule-bound disclosure of relevant information, can be understood as a negotiation process between a focal organization and its stakeholders. • In this process, information providers (e.g., city agencies) can contribute to the realization of mutual benefit through tactful timing, structural coupling, and the creation of new role expectations. • Information seekers (e.g., advocacy organizations) can shape the process toward mutually beneficial outcomes through means of formalization and by using hybrid strategies (e.g., by simultaneously campaigning with very broad and very specific demands).

In this paper, the authors conceptualize Open Data ecosystems by analysing the major stakeholders in the UK. The conceptualization is based on a review of popular Open Data definitions and business ecosystem theories, which are applied to qualitative empirical data. The work is informed by a combination of discourse analysis and a content analysis of in-depth interviews, undertaken during the summer of 2013. Drawing on the UK as a best practice example, the authors examine a set of structural business ecosystem properties: circular flow of resources, sustainability, demand that encourages supply, and dependence developing between suppliers, intermediaries, and users. The authors identify that gaps and shortcomings remain. Most prominently, demand is not yet fully encouraging supply and actors have yet to experience fully mutual interdependence.

Public sector organizations increasingly innovate through open innovation practices that originated in the private sector. To explain the use of these innovation practices, extant research has focused on enabling conditions at the individual and organizational level, but has paid little attention to extra-organizational factors such as culture. To address this gap, we adopted a field framing perspective to study the use of open innovation practices in the New York City (NYC) administration. We found that actors in NYC equipped different social positionsinsider, outsider, and interstitialand used different discursive tacticsreflective frame blending and supplemental frame blendingto enhance the cultural resonance of open innovation practices. We further theorize these findings with a framework on the enabling conditions for the cultural resonance of innovation practices. Our study contributes to innovation studies by unpacking the role of culture for the use of innovation practices and to the framing literature by specifying the role of discursive tactics and social positions for the cultural resonance of new practices.

Over the last few decades, two domains have undergone seemingly similar transformations: Closed innovation turned into open innovation, closed science into open science. In this essay we engage critically with recent calls for a close coupling of the two domains based on their apparent commonality: openness. Comparing the historically-specific ways in which openness has been defined and mobilised, we find substantial differences between open innovation and open science. While openness in innovation was developed as an analytic concept and redefined quite flexibly over time, openness in science was created as a programmatic concept and its initial definition has been preserved rather rigidly. Contrasting openness in innovation and science helps anticipate some of the unintended consequences that a close coupling of these domains might yield. A close coupling might alienate advocates for change within the academic community, marginalise maintenanceoriented collaborations between science and practice, and increase the dependence of science on profit-oriented platforms. Reflecting upon these unintended consequences can help policy-makers and researchers to fine-tune their concepts for new forms of engagement across the science-practice divide.