This document summarizes a research paper presented at the Academy of Management 2008 conference titled "Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation". The paper examines the open source Eclipse project and identifies four key contexts that enabled knowledge creation by outsiders, referred to as a "push model" of open innovation: 1) Preemptive generosity by initial sponsor IBM in openly revealing the Eclipse source code, 2) Continuous commitment by IBM in ongoing participation, 3) Adaptive governance structures through a nonprofit foundation, and 4) Lowering barriers to entry by allowing outsider-led subprojects. Analysis of Eclipse contribution and discussion data over time provides empirical support that these contexts motivated significant outs

1. Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders:
Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Authors: Sebastian Spaeth, Matthias Stuermer, Georg von Krogh
ETH Zurich, Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation
Academy of Management 2008, Anaheim, California, Aug 13, 2008
#1653 Strategy, Technology, and Innovation

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Content
 Theory
 Research Design
 Case description
 Methodology
 Findings
 Conclusion

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Gap in open innovation literature
 Definition “open innovation” (Chesbrough et al., 2006):
Inflow is concerned with the exploitation of knowledge
outside the firm's boundary.
 What would happen if everyone would be a free rider?
(West and Gallagher, 2006a)
 Gap in literature: What is the motivation of firms to freely
reveal knowledge that is of use to other innovators?

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Knowledge flows in open innovation
3 types of knowledge flows
(Gassmann and Enkel, 2004)
1. Inside-out: selling intellectual property
2.Outside-in: licensing-in external knowledge,
using open source software
3.Coupling of both inside-out and outside-in
knowledge flows

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Positioning of the push model
Actor
Firm Outside constituents
Activity
Knowledge
exploitation
Outside-in process
e.g., technology sourcing,
using open source software
Knowledge spillover to outsiders
e.g., reverse engineering
Knowledge
creation
Inside-out Process
e.g., licensing out
Push model
unsolicited knowledge creation
through outsiders
Coupled processes

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Licensing
innovations
to other firms
Current concept of
open innovation
Exploitation of
existing ideas

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Free revealing of
knowledge
Push model of
open innovation
Inducing new
external innovations
useful for the firm
Licensing
innovations
to other firms
Current concept of
open innovation
Exploitation of
existing ideas

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Research design
 Research question: What are the enabling
contexts that make the push model of open
innovation work?
 Empirical evidence: Examination of Eclipse project
 Data sources:
1. CVS commits external development contributions→
2. Newsgroup messages knowledge in- and out-flows→

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Eclipse history
 mid 1990's: started by Object Technology International (OTI)
 1996: OTI acquired by IBM
 2001: IBM released Eclipse as open source software
 2004: Formation of the Eclipse Foundation
 Technical infrastructure
 Development processes, e.g. release management
 Intellectual property rights of source code
 Promotion of Eclipse and its wider ecosystem

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Why Eclipse?
 Founded and sponsored by one dominant firm
 Governance underwent significant evolution
 Access to 6 years of development data

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Data source 1: CVS commits
 Counting added lines of code
 Range April 2001 until February 2007
 63 million lines of code
 Contributed by 605 distinct developers
 565 developers identified IBM vs. non-IBM

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Data source 2: Newsgroup messages
 Eclipse newsgroups vs. mailing lists
 Knowledge seekers vs. knowledge providers
 February 2001 until July 2007
 371,942 messages in 90 distinct newsgroups
 116,973 messages started a new discussion thread,
254,969 messages replied

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Coding of
500 newsgroup
messages
Categories:
 Questions
 Answers
 Follow-up
questions
 Comment
 Noise

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Inter-rater coding
 Data in the cells: “coder A; coder B”
 How coherent is categorization? Kappa of 0.816 is well
above 0.7 (Fleiss, 1971; Straub et al, 2004)

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: CVS commits
Active committers per month

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: CVS commits
Lines of code from IBM and non-IBM developers
COCOMO: external contributions of 21.5 million LOC
~ 214,000 man-months ~ 1.7 billion USD

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: Newsgroup messages
Messages per month (non-IBM messages growing)

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: Newsgroup messages
Thread reply over thread start ratio (more or less constant)

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: Newsgroup messages
Net knowledge creation through dialogue
net knowledge creation = answers - questions

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Findings: Newsgroup messages
External knowledge creation ratio is growing
0.743
0.998
Today non-IBM
contributors provide
more knowledge than
IBM members
Net knowledge creation non-IBM
Net knowledge creation IBM
Ratio =

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Contexts enabling the push model of open innovation
1. Preemptive generosity
 Revealing of initial Eclipse source code by IBM
2. Continuous commitment
 Constant number of IBM programmers in Eclipse
 Constant level of participation in newsgroups
3. Adaptive governance structures (giving up control)
 Non-profit foundation with equal membership of firms
4. Lowering barriers to entry
 Sub-projects by non-IBM people; modular architecture

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
1. Preemptive generosity
 Revealing of initial Eclipse source code by IBM
(valued at USD 40m)
 Attraction of external participants to contribute
to the public knowledge pool
 Creation of social capital: relationships, trust and
norms of knowledge sharing

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
2. Continuous commitment
 Opening up source code is a required but not
sufficient condition
 Dedicated 40 developers until 2003, and 80
developers until today, on average
 Reciprocity is a established norm in open source
communities (Shah 2006)

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
3. Adaptive governance structures
 IBM ceded control over infrastructure,
administration and IPRs on Eclipse source code
 IBM is now just one among many in Foundation
 Start of Foundation lead to significantly more
external code contributors
 IBM remains major leader of software evolution
due to highest share of code commits

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
4. Lowering barriers to entry
 Entry barriers = cost of joining and contributing to
an open innovation project
 Sub-projects run by non-IBM members only (BIRT)
 Other barriers: Choice of programming language
or design of software architecture

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2008 Enabling Knowledge Creation through Outsiders: Towards a Push Model of Open Innovation
Discussion