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Open-Coopetition in the PC and Mobile Industries: The WebKit Case

Jose Teixeira, Tingting Lin, Open-Coopetition in the PC and Mobile Industries: The WebKit Case. In: Ahmad Ghazawneh, Jacob Nørbjerg, Jan Pries-Heje (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS 37), 101–117, IRIS Association, 2014.

Abstract:

In an era of software crisis, the move of firms towards distributed software development teams is being challenged by emerging collaboration issues. On this matter, the open-source phenomenon may shed some light, as successful cases on distributed collaboration in the open-source community have been recurrently reported. In this paper, we explore the collaboration networks in the WebKit open-source project, by mining WebKit's source-code version-control-system data with Social Network Analysis (SNA). Our approach allows us to observe how key events in the competitive mobile-devices industry affected the WebKit collaboration network over time. With our findings, we highlight the explanation power from network visualizations capturing the collaborative dynamics of a high-networked software project over time. After integrating our findings with the current body of theoretical knowledge in management strategy, economics, strategic alliances and coopetition, we propose the novel of open-coopetition, where rival firms collaborate with competitors in the open-source community. We argue that classical coopetition management theories do not fully explain the competitive and collaborative issues that are simultaneously present and interconnected in the WebKit open-source community. We conclude with theoretical and managerial implications while proposing requirements for an open-coopetition theoretical framework.

BibTeX entry:

@INPROCEEDINGS{inpTeLi14b,
  title = {Open-Coopetition in the PC and Mobile Industries: The WebKit Case},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 37th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS 37)},
  author = {Teixeira, Jose and Lin, Tingting},
  editor = {Ghazawneh, Ahmad and Nørbjerg, Jacob and Pries-Heje, Jan},
  publisher = {IRIS Association},
  pages = {101–117},
  year = {2014},
  keywords = {Collaboration open-source distributed software development coopetition open-coopetition strategic alliances},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): UTU Information Systems Science (ISS)

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