Designs That Favour Value Creation
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P2Pvalue Designs that favour value creation: Governance, sustainability strategy, systems of rewards and recognition, and value in commons-based peer production (summary) P2PValue Techno-social platform for sustainable models and value generation in commons-based peer production in the Future Internet 1 P2Pvalue P2Pvalue FP7-ICT-2013-10 Project: 610961 Techno-social platform for sustainable models and value generation in commons-based peer production in the Future Internet http://www.p2pvalue.eu/ D1.2 Statistical Analysis – Executive summary task 1.1. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Lead beneficiary: IGOPnet.cc Autonomous University of Barcelona Authorship: Fuster Morell, M. Salcedo, J. Berlinguer, M,and W. Tebbens (2016). Release research report: Design that favours value creation: Governance, sustainability strategy, systems of rewards and recognition, and value in commons-based peer production (Summary). P2Pvalue project. FP7-ICT-2013-10 Project: 610961 Research team: P2Pvalue Consortium IGOPnet.cc team (WP coordinator) Principal investigator: Mayo Fuster Morell Contact: [email protected] P2Pvalue Consortium: University of Surrey (Coordinator), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Stichting Peer to Peer Alternatives (P2P Foundation), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Università Degli Studi di Milano. 2 P2Pvalue Contents Executive Summary Task 1.1 Statistical Analysis .............................................................. 4 Research questions ............................................................................................................... 4 CBPP a “unified” third mode of production ................................................................. 4 CBPP value .......................................................................................................................... 5 Factors that explain value creation at CBPP ................................................................... 6 Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 7 Summary of main results .................................................................................................... 7 1. Value ................................................................................................................................ 8 2. Basic community features ........................................................................................ 12 3. Collaborative production ........................................................................................... 13 4. Governance .................................................................................................................. 15 5. Sustainability ................................................................................................................ 31 6. Internal Systems of Recognition and Reward of Contributions ....................... 33 7. Correlations between variables .............................................................................. 35 References ............................................................................................................................ 37 Annexes: Methods ................................................................................................................. 40 3 P2Pvalue Executive Summary Task 1.1 Statistical Analysis Mayo Fuster Morell, Jorge L. Salcedo, Marco Berlinguer and Wouter Tebbens (IGOP-UAB) Research questions The Task 1.1 Research addresses three central questions. The first question is if CBPP could (or in which degree) be characterized as a “unified” third mode of production. The second is how CBPP applies value. The third question is if and how factors of productivity might explain value(s) creation in CBPP. The final goal is to advance the theory of value production in CBPP in respect of the present state of the art, and more practically to extract empirical insights for the design of the P2Pvalue platform. CBPP a “unified” third mode of production One key assumption in the literature is that CBPP is a third distinctive mode of production (Benkler, 2006). However, the empirical research regarding CBPP has not addressed this assumption directly as such. Previous work has mainly focused on the functioning of single cases. When analyzing the functioning of more than a single case, it has focused on considering very similar cases (such as contrasting the diverse linguistic diverse Wikipedias (such as the work of Ortega comparing the 10 most popular Wikipedias), comparing wikis at “wikifarms” (see work of Hill, Shaw and Benkler (forthcoming) at Wikia) or FLOSS projects (see work of Schweik and English (2012)). But, in order to sustain empirically that CBPP is a mode of production, research has to cover more than single cases or specific areas in order to identify and investigate commonalities among a plurality of cases and areas in which CBPP has been developing. 4 P2Pvalue Beyond aiming to provide insights to fulfil the gap in the literature and theory, another reason to develop a field analysis of such a broader scope is linked to the practical application of the research. The P2Pvalue platform is in fact expected to be adopted and used for a wide set of purposes and activities. In order to have design insights that can apply to the large variety of areas of CBPP, it is inappropriate to restrict our research to similar cases. CBPP value The P2Pvalue project aims to foster value creation and productivity in CBPP as a collaborative form of production. This implies a need to understand value creation in CBPP, as CBPP challenges traditional conceptions of value. Indeed, the application of conventional value metrics is increasingly problematic more generally in information and knowledge economics. The proliferation of communities of collaboration is creating significant problems for traditional conceptions of productivity and value. New definitions of value are necessary in order to evaluate the contribution of the wide diversity of productive activities. However, the question of value in collaborative communities is not only an economic one, but also a question of justice. The problem of how to regulate and reward activities that are presently without a market value (e.g. the externalities produced by Free Software for the software industry) is contingent on the ability to find a rational and transparent measure of value. The state of the art has emphasized the diversity of notions of value that operate within the information economy. With Task 1.1, we approach the building of a framework to investigate value in CBPP, providing a set of dimensions of value and applying them empirically. Factors that explain value creation at CBPP 5 P2Pvalue We deployed different strategies to measure the value created by CBPP cases and to analyze if and how certain factors of productivity might explain the capacity of communities to generate value (or particular types of value). Factors of productivity (Independent variable) >>> Dimensions of value (Dependent variable) The dimensions we have been considering are general community attributes, type of collaboration, governance, sustainability strategies and internal systems of recognition and reward of contributions. We also explored how the diverse dimensions of analysis relate to each other, and if their particular combinations might also explain value creation themselves. In order to analyze the governance of CBPP, we applied the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework of Ostrom’s school (1990). IAD was initially developed to analyze the governance of natural commons. To analyze the factors of productivity (that is, the conditions of success of CBPPs), we adapted the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework (Ostrom, 2007). IAD was initially formulated to study sustainability in traditional commons (e.g. common land, water resources and forests). This framework provides a systematic way of analyzing complexity in communities, as well as their capacity to manage common resources in a sustainable way and to generate sustainable outcomes and value. Ostrom (1990) and her school have extended the use of IAD to analyze the sustainability of communities around natural commons resources. The P2Pvalue project is innovative in adapting the IAD to communities organized around digital commons goals. There have been previous attempts in this direction but with limited scope. Madison, Frischmann and Strandburg (2008) suggested a frame for adapting IAD from natural commons to constructed commons in the cultural environment. However, these authors did not actually apply the framework to empirical research. Schweik and English (2012) adapted IAD, but only to the specific case of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities. In order to apply IAD to CBPP, we built upon and applied 6 P2Pvalue empirically an adaptation of the IAD to digital commons developed by Fuster Morell.1 Methodology The methodology is based on a statistical analysis. A sample of 302 cases was built. Data collection was based on four modalities: web collection (observing characteristics of the cases available their online platforms), web analytics services (scripts that automatically collect certain data from Google, Twitter, Alexa etc), data from a directory constructed by the project team and a survey sent to the cases. A “codebook” regarding the data collection