The periphery on stage: The intra-organizational dynamics in online communities of creation

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent City Research OnlineThe periphery on stage:The intra-organizational dynamics in online communities of creation Francesco Rullani LUISS Guido CarliStefan Haefliger ETH Zurich July 2012 AbstractThis paper theorizes the intra-organizational dynamics of online communities of creation such as Free and Open Source software projects. It describes the role of the participants at the peripheries of these online communities and analyzes how the division of labor among peripheral and core members is handled. The paper further demonstrates that this mode of labor division is possible only if the periphery is able to acquire and absorb the standards associated with the developers' activities, described here as a social practice. We describe how the propagation of such standards takes place through non-material artifacts such as code and virtual discussions. We show that because of the capacity of these artifacts to effectively disseminate the standards of a social practice, such standards can be transferred not only face to face, but also asynchronously, asymmetrically and openly.

What makes a social practice? Being, knowing, doing and leading

“…Open source software development is organized in communities that comprise both individual users and firms, represented by employees (Levine andPrietula, 2013, Rullani andHaefliger, 2013;Lakhani & von Hippel, 2003;Spaeth, von Krogh, & Fang He, 2014). New forms of collaboration (e.g., Börjeson, 2015;Howison and Crowston, 2014;Iturrioz, Aragon, & Narvaiza, 2015) can trigger both updates in social practice and conflict in terms of agenda setting, for the community or for the individual participants in an organization.…”

Revisiting Linus’s law: Benefits and challenges of open source software peer review

“…In their widely-cited article, Mockus et al (2002) reported the differences of contribution types and scale between core developers and the other contributors: a group larger than the core by about an order of magnitude contributed to defect fixing, and a group larger by another order of magnitude contributed to defect reporting. Rullani and Haefliger (2013) described the roles of core developers and those in the peripheries, and how the propagation of such standards is communicated through non-material artifacts such as code and virtual discussions as a social practice.…”

Core-periphery communication and the success of free/libre open source software projects

“…For example, Crowston and Howison [2] see community-based FLOSS teams as having an onion-like core-periphery structure, in which the core category includes core developers and the periphery includes co-developers and active users. Rullani and Haefliger [10] described periphery as a "cloud" of members that orbits around the core members of open source software development teams.…”

“…It is evident that, by making direct contributions to the software developed, core members are vital to project development. On the other hand, even though they contribute only sporadically, peripheral members provide bug reports, suggestions and critical expertise that are fundamental for innovation [10]. In addition, the periphery is the source of new core members [12,13], so maintaining a strong periphery is important to the longterm success of a project.…”