Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
Interorganizational interactions are often complex and paradoxical. In this research, we transcend two management paradoxes: (competition versus cooperation) and (open-source versus proprietary) technology development. We follow the OpenStack open-source ecosystem where competing firms cooperate in the joint-development of a cloud infrastructure for big data. We provide a narrative, complemented with social network visualizations, which depicts the evolution of cooperation and competition. Our findings suggest that development transparency and weak intellectual property rights (i.e., characteristics of open-source ecosystems) allow a focal firm to transfer information and resources more easily between multiple alliances.
Cooperation among competitors in the open-source arena: The case of OpenStack
Interorganizational interactions are often complex and paradoxical. In this research, we transcend two management paradoxes: (competition versus cooperation) and (open-source versus proprietary) technology development. We follow the OpenStack open-source ecosystem where competing firms cooperate in the joint-development of a cloud infrastructure for big data. We provide a narrative, complemented with social network visualizations, which depicts the evolution of cooperation and competition. Our findings suggest that development transparency and weak intellectual property rights (i.e., characteristics of open-source ecosystems) allow a focal firm to transfer information and resources more easily between multiple alliances.