Organizations coupled with communities: the strategic effects on firms engaged in community-coupled open innovation

Abstract

The study of open innovation has primarily focused on the benefits and consequences of inbound or outbound innovation exchange between firms; however, increasingly firms may be engaged in simultaneous inbound and outbound exchange forming a "coupled" approach. Furthermore, firms increasingly collaborate with communities as sources of innovation, but how does such "community-coupled open innovation" affect a firm? Through an in-depth study of 250 firms collaborating with a leading open source software community, we show how this approach incorporates not only the exchange of intellectual property but also the provision of help. We find that while community-coupled open innovation does not affect productivity, it can expand a firm's social ties, lead to a more conservative strategic posture, and shift its innovation focus. Implications for our theories of open innovation in the context of communities are discussed.

Write Code, Save Lives: How a Community Uses Open Innovation to Address a Societal Challenge

“…These extensions of the software were then contributed back to the community, helping to create a positive feedback loop (Sims and Seidel, ).…”

“…We used a qualitative, exploratory research design, using original and archival data including conference participation, community involvement, and qualitative analysis of recorded interview transcripts from OpenMRS. Case study research has been popular in helping open innovation scholars understand phenomena in new contexts, including how firms practice open innovation (Chiaroni et al, ), and the performance consequences of firm engagement with external communities (Sims and Seidel, ).…”

“…In outbound open innovation, organizations transfer internally developed innovations to external parties (Chesbrough, ). The coupled process can be seen when communities work with and depend upon the cooperation and contributions of both volunteers and partners (Sims and Seidel, ).…”

“…Communities have become an increasingly popular setting for open innovation research, in part because community members typically practice all three forms of open innovation (Enkel et al, ; West and Bogers, ). In line with open innovation research in general, the study of communities using open innovation has primarily focused on the benefits that accrue to for‐profit ventures (West and Gallagher, ; Sims and Seidel, ). Multiple types of communities interact with today’s firms: user communities help shape product development (Lakhani and von Hippel, ; Hienerth and Lettl, ), trade associations influence common standards among firms (Rosenkopf and Tushman, ; Fleming and Waguespack, ; Waguespack and Fleming, ), and open‐source software communities provide resources and opportunities for software firms of all sizes (Bonaccorsi et al, ; West and Gallagher, ).…”

Community interactions at crowd scale: hybrid crowds on the GitHub platform

“…Since Chesbrough wrote the preceding definition in 2006, a third 'coupled' process, which combines both inbound and outbound engagement with an external source of innovation, has grown in popularity (Enkel, Gassmann, & Chesbrough, 2009). Researchers have observed and examined how firms practice all three forms of open innovation when working with communities, including inbound West & Bogers, 2014), outbound (Henkel, 2008) and coupled (Enkel et al, 2009;Sims & Seidel, 2017). Research on firms working with crowds has primarily focused on inbound processes because prevalent topics including crowdsourcing and crowdfunding focus on soliciting resources and ideas from outside the firm.…”