What Enables a Software Firm to Persistently Reap Innovation Benefits from a Global Community of Unpaid Software Developers?

Senter for teknologi, innovasjon og kultur Det samfunnsvitenskapelige fakultet Postboks 1108 Blindern 0317 Oslo www.sv.uio.no/tik TIK-MA-THESIS What enables a software firm to persistently reap innovation benefits from a global community of unpaid software developers? Anders Rekve 08.08.2011 Word count: 31602 Abstract Since the phenomenon of users innovating scientific instruments was first documented by von Hippel, the aspect of user innovation has been given a lot of attention in innovation literature. With the increased penetration of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) such as computers and the internet, user innovation has become more and more relevant to society. For software firms gaining access to user innovators can be a valuable but also integral part of their innovation strategy. Gaining and keeping access can however be difficult. It is therefore of great interest to learn of examples of how this is achieved. This is an explorative case study of a software firm that has managed this since 1995. By exploring how the firm managed the relationship with a community of unpaid software developers, this paper finds that the firm is able to benefit from user innovators by creating a virtuous cycle. This virtuous cycle relies on a continuous input of software code from user innovators, and a continuous output of new software incorporating the contributed code as well as new code. This paper confirms some previously mentioned managerial challenges to the relationship, such as the importance of using the right licenses. In addition to this, a new managerial challenge has been identified. When the firm becomes a part of a corporation, complexities arise that need to be handled properly. This should be of interest to both managers and innovation researchers. Acknowledgements In my application for acceptance for the TIK master program I wrote that I wanted to learn more about the processes where novel innovations make it to become successful commercial businesses. I was particularly interested in innovations relating to Information Communication Technologies (ICT). With this thesis I feel that I have achieved my initial goal and much more. I therefore wish to thank the TIK centre for the opportunity given to me. I also want to extend my gratitude to my supervisor Jarle Moss Hildrum for his help and guidance during the last year. I have deeply appreciated his comments and constructive criticism, and also his encouragement. I would also like to thank the community manager at Qt Development Frameworks. Without his help this research would have been much harder. Lastly I want to thank my dear girlfriend Marthe for bearing with me, and for the support and help she has given me. Tables and figures table 1: Qt licenses .................................................................................................................................. 8 table 2: Open Innovation ....................................................................................................................... 22 table 3: Managerial issues with respect to OSS communities .............................................................. 26 table 4: Forums, blogs, mailing lists and IRC channels observed ......................................................... 32 table 5: Data analysis strategy ............................................................................................................... 40 table 6: Themes and categories identified ............................................................................................ 65 table 7: Comparison of managerial challenges, Trolltech’s solutions and categories identified .......... 67 table 8: Comparison of literature and findings ..................................................................................... 68 figure 1: Trolltech‟s virtuous cycle ........................................................................................................ 11 figure 2: Illustration of communities ..................................................................................................... 23 figure 3: Trolltech virtuous cycle .......................................................................................................... 49 figure 4: Network effect with respect to feedback and contributions.................................................. 52 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Background and relevance .................................................................................................................. 2 Brief introduction to the case firm Trolltech ....................................................................................... 6 Name of firm used in this paper ........................................................................................................ 11 Literature review ................................................................................................................................... 12 The User Innovator and the Lead User ............................................................................................. 12 Sticky information ............................................................................................................................. 14 Free revealing .................................................................................................................................... 15 User Toolkits ...................................................................................................................................... 19 What is an innovation community? .................................................................................................. 20 Illustration ......................................................................................................................................... 22 The research question in relation to literature ................................................................................. 25 Method .................................................................................................................................................. 28 Formulation of a research question .................................................................................................. 28 Choice of methodology ..................................................................................................................... 29 Data collection ................................................................................................................................... 30 Initial data collection ..................................................................................................................... 31 Main data collection ...................................................................................................................... 35 Data Analysis Strategy ....................................................................................................................... 38 Description .................................................................................................................................... 40 Categorical Aggregation ................................................................................................................ 42 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 45 Theme nr. 1: Communication ............................................................................................................ 46 Sub theme nr.1: non-verbal communication ................................................................................ 46 Licenses ..................................................................................................................................... 46 Feeding the community............................................................................................................. 51 Product Quality .......................................................................................................................... 54 Recruitment from the community ............................................................................................ 56 The sub-theme of non-verbal communication.......................................................................... 58 Sub theme nr.2: verbal communication ........................................................................................ 58 Engineers ................................................................................................................................... 59 Honesty ...................................................................................................................................... 60 Face to Face communication ..................................................................................................... 61 Theme nr.2: Structure ....................................................................................................................... 62 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 65 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 73 References ............................................................................................................................................

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