Starting Open Source Collaborative Innovation: The Antecedents of Network Formation in Community Source

Abstract

Unmet needs in the area of enterprise applications have led to a new type of collaborative open source innovation development across institution borders: Community source. We use the Kuali community source network, a jointly managed, border- spanning organization that supplies the institutions that created it, to describe how community source works. This study builds a theoretical basis for understanding the individual and institutional factors affecting community source network formation and the decision by organizations to join a community source network. We identify eight antecedents of decisions about forming or joining community source initiatives: motives, learning, trust, norms and monitoring, institutional similarity, external funding, hostile external environment, and information technology.

Keywords: Community Source, Network Formation, Open Source, Collaborative Innovation