Problem‐formulation and problem‐solving in self‐organized communities: How modes of communication shape project behaviors in the free open‐source software community

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2439
• Date: 01 December 2016
• Author: Nicolai j. Foss,Francesco Rullani,Lars Frederiksen
• Published date: 01 December 2016

Strategic Management Journal

Strat. Mgmt. J.,37: 2589–2610 (2016)

Published online EarlyView 14 December 2015 in WileyOnline Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/smj.2439

Received 17 November 2014;Final revisionreceived 15 August 2015

PROBLEM-FORMULATION AND PROBLEM-SOLVING

IN SELF-ORGANIZED COMMUNITIES: HOW MODES

OF COMMUNICATION SHAPE PROJECT BEHAVIORS

IN THE FREE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE

COMMUNITY

NICOLAI J. FOSS,1,2*LARS FREDERIKSEN,3and FRANCESCO RULLANI4,5

1Department of Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business

School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

2Department of Strategy and Management, Norwegian School of Economics,

Bergen, Norway

3Department of Management, BSS, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

4Department of Business and Management, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, Italy

5Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, Copenhagen Business

School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

Research summary: Building on the problem-solving perspective, we study behaviors related to

projects and the communication-based antecedents of such behaviors in the free open-source

software (FOSS) community. We examine two kinds of problem/project-behaviors: Individuals

can set up projects around the formulation of new problems or join existing projects and dene

and/or work on subproblems within an existing problem.The choice between these two behaviors

is inuenced by the mode of communication. A communication mode with little a priori structure is

the best mode for communicating about new problems (i.e., formulating a problem); empirically,

it is associated with project launching behaviors. In contrast, morestructured communication ts

subproblems better and is relatedto project joining behaviors. Our hypotheses derive support from

data from the FOSS community.

Managerial summary: We study how the way in which individuals communicate inuence

the project-behaviors they engage in. We nd that relatively unstructured communication is

associated with the setting up new projects, while communication that is structured around an

artifact is associated with joining projects. Our ndings hold implications for understanding

how management may inuence project behaviors and problem-solving: Firms that need to

concentrate on more incremental problem-solving efforts (e.g., because a sufcient number of

attractive problems have already been dened) should create environments in which interaction

is undertaken mainly via artifacts. On the other hand, if rms seek to generate new problems

(e.g., new strategic opportunities), they should create environments in which open-ended, verbal

conversation is relatively moreimportant than artifact-based communication. Copyright © 2015

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: communities; open-source software; problem–

solving; communication; project organization

*Correspondence to: Nicolai J. Foss, Department of Strategic

Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business School,

Kilevej 14, 2nd oor, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. E-mail:

njf.smg@cbs.dk

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

A core part of strategic thinking is envision-

ing a space of possible strategic opportunities,

intelligently searching within that space, and

deploying resources, actions, and investments in

2590 N. J. Foss, L. Frederiksen, and F. Rullani

the pursuit of promising opportunities (Afuah and

Tucci, 2012; Denrell, Fang, and Winter, 2003;

Foss and Klein, 2012; Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and

Theoret, 1976). We address communication-related

aspects of this process by focusing on the extent

to which (online) dialogue and communication

about new opportunities, projects, and business

ideas are free and unconstrained or whether such

dialogue and communication are more constrained

and revolve around existing artifacts. We argue

that the former kind of search is more likely to be

associated with creating and initiating new major

strategic initiatives, while the latter kind of search

is associated with more incremental initiatives.

Our empirical setting is a community for free

open-source software (“FOSS”) development.

The research literature on communities con-

ceptualizes these as self-organizing organizational

forms that access and combine relevant knowledge

that is distributed among individuals (Hayek,

1945) in the production of public goods, often

relying on IT-mediated communication (Frey,

Luethi, and Osterloh, 2012). Community members

establish new projects aimed at formulating and

solving problems within an overall framework

characterized by voluntarism, unpaid contributions,

free entry, the absence of externally imposed rules,

and the presence of self-dened lateral governing

rules. Although research on communities has

many strides forward, little is known about the

evolving pattern of problem-formulation and

problem-solving activities and how these activities

are embedded in the basic organizational unit of

most communities, namely, projects (Dahlander

and O’Mahony, 2011; O’Mahony, 2007). In many

communities, such dynamics take the form of indi-

viduals launching and joining projects. The relative

lack of understanding in the literature of these

organizational dynamics is problematic because the

ability of communities to produce private and social

benets through problem formulation and solving

depend precisely on these dynamics (Nickerson and

Zenger, 2004). Obtaining a better understanding of

these dynamics is important because rms increas-

ingly seek to tap into communities to increase their

innovativeness (e.g., Bonaccorsi, Giannangeli,

and Rossi, 2006; Dahlander and Wallin, 2006;

Fosfuri, Giarratana, and Luzzi, 2008; O’Mahony

and Bechky, 2008; O’Mahony and Lakhani, 2011).

There may be important lessons to learn for

rms from how the operation of the community

stimulates the creation of new strategic initiatives.

We address communication-based antecedents

of whether community members launch new

projects (set up new problems) or join existing

projects (solve subproblems dened by others

or dene subproblems within an overall problem

structure dened by others), framing our discussion

in terms of the “problem-solving perspective”

(e.g., Baer, Dirks, and Nickerson, 2013; Heiman,

Nickerson, and Zenger, 2009; Macher, 2006;

Macher and Boerner, 2012; Nickerson and Zenger,

2004). We specically argue that an individual’s

project-behavior (i.e., launching or joining) is

predicted by the mode of communication (Guet-

zkow and Simon, 1955; Orlikowski and Yates,

1994; Zmud, Lind, and Young, 1990) and the

associated artifacts (or absence thereof) that char-

acterize the context of interaction around the focal

individual. In the FOSS community, the mode of

communication ranges from unstructured, informal

open-ended communication to highly detailed,

formal, and specic communication that revolves

around a concrete artifact (i.e., a piece of code)

(Carlile, 2002). We argue that different modes

of communication predict individuals’ behaviors

as follows: Communication with less a priori

structure (i.e., open-ended and informal commu-

nication with few constraints) is the best mode for

communicating about new problems; empirically,

it is therefore associated with project launching

behaviors. In contrast, more structured and formal

communication (i.e., communication that directly

relates to well-dened objects, and therefore, has

inherent constraints) ts subproblems better and

is therefore more associated with project joining

behaviors. We develop two hypotheses from this

overall argument and test them on data from

SourceForge.net (henceforth, SF.net), the largest

repository of open-source software projects. This

data set details the activity of 544,669 developers

over 840 days from September 2000 to Decem-

ber 2002. The empirical analysis supports our

hypotheses.

In sum, we develop insights into the inuence

of communication-related antecedents on actual

problem-formulating behaviors. We argue that our

theory and ndings generalize to other organi-

zational forms that— like communities —to some

degree rely on spontaneous, self-organizing forces

to allocate resources to the renement of exist-

ing ideas, and to launching and developing new

ideas. Examples include R&D departments and

project-based rms (Felin and Zenger, 2011; Gann

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strat. Mgmt. J.,37: 2589–2610 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/smj