VIRTUAL SOCIAL NETWORKS AND OPEN INNOVATION/ KNOWLEDGE SHARING: QUESTIONING THE RBV

Tesi di laurea specialistica di Caccamo GianlucaMatricola 1184746

Milano, 26 Marzo 2009

“To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press and the birth of mass media...” Rupert Murdoch

RESEARCH OBJECTIVESTHEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS LITERATURE REVIEWRESEARCH METHODOLOGYDATACONCLUSIONS

RESEARCH CHALLANGE: QUESTIONING THE RESOURCE-BASED VIEW

DECLARED OBJECTIVE: Find out and examine any existing relation among static elements

DECLARED OBJECTIVE: Find out and examine any existing relation among static elements

FOUNDATIONS OF VIRTUAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

NETWORKED KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION GENERATION

DECLAREDOBJECTIVE:Search of structural conditions that lead to innovation

DECLAREDOBJECTIVE:Search of structural conditions that lead to innovation

“We have a partner in this business and that partner is the community of users”

eBay CEO, Meg Whitman.

EMERGING MODEL

CURRENT MODEL

ORIGINAL MODEL

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• If we create the best ideas in the

industry, we will win.

• We have to protect and isolate

our resources (RBV)

• Not all the smart people work for us. We need to work with smart people inside and outside the company.

• Self-organizing free agents

• The smart people in our field work for us .

• Principal-agent relationship

• If we make the best use of internal and external ideas, we will win.

• The world is our R&D department”

Chesborough 2003

Closed attitude Open attitude

• Knowledge and innovation management is confined within firm’sboundaries

• The central domain is the social network: holistic integration of social network and knowledge management

RECURSIVE PROCESS

SAMPLE COMPOSITION

DISTORTED SAMPLE

MOTIVATION TO SOCIAL NETWORKING

Supporting empirics : Forrester’s 2007 research

Our empirics

THE SOCIOLOGICAL AND COMMUNICATIONAL ASPECTS ARE EVIDENT

TIME DEDICATED TO SOCIAL NETWORKING

RESULTS• INDIVIDUAL AVARAGE: 8+ HOURS/WEEK• ENTIRE SAMPLE: 25.000 HOURS/YEAR• CUMULATED FREQUENCY FIRST THREE CLASSES: 85+ %

SPARE TIME COMMODITIZATION

Members’ expectations for theirtime consumption

COMMUNITY RELEVANT CHARACTERISTIC AND ROLES DISTRIBUTION

• 70+ % USERS (MODE FOR FOUR AGE CLASSES)

RESULTS

• ADOPTION OF GNU LICENSES: UNCERTAINTY PREVAILS

• BANDWAGON FAD: “I WANT TO BE WHERE EVERYBODY IS”• LACK OF ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE ON GNU LICENSING SYSTEM

SOCIAL NETWORK STRUCTURE

THE “FRIEND WHEEL” • Facebook’s application reproducing the structure of nodes and ties.• Facebook surveyed individuals ( 74% of sample)• The cirlce: first degree ties

RESULT• International reach• 3 areas of redundacy, reflecting distinct real-life social circles• Presence of structural holes

FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS TO COME ACROSS HETEROGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SPUR INNOVATIVE CONTENT

GENERATION OF PROSUMED INNOVATIVE CONTENT

COMMUNITIES ARE “MARKET OF CONVERSATIONS” AND INNOVATIVE IDEAS

RESULTS• Easy of interaction •Bottom-up sharing system• Freedom of expression• Ideas mixing and re-combining• Absence of any spatial or time limit

Results have important implications for managerial practice and further research. The following table outlines a few avenues.

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• Companies with an open approach have the best chance of harnessing an enormous wealth of free talent available outside firm’s boundaries. Success will lie in choosing the right parameters of openness.• Platforms for participation will only remain viable if all stakeholders are adequately compensated for their contributions – companies are warned, they can’t expect to free riding forever.

• The way we manage intellectual property affects everything we have discussed. The actual intellectual property regime is radically out with modern technological, economic and social realities and needs to be integrally redifined.• Privacy of users is another important issue that deserves extensive research.

Paper openly consultable in accordance with the principles of openness discussed