This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0170840609339241v1 30/9/987    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Hemetsberger, A. Articles by Reinhardt, C. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Collective Development in Open-Source Communities: An Activity Theoretical Perspective on Successful Online Collaboration

University of Innsbruck School of Management, Austria, andrea.hemetsberger{at}uibk.ac.at

Christian Reinhardt

University of Innsbruck School of Management, Austria, christian.reinhardt{at}uibk.ac.at

Online collaboration is often organized without strong predetermined rules or central authority, which is why coordination and ways of organizing cooperation become crucial elements of collaboration. This article investigates how online projects can overcome problems of dispersed work, solve inherent contradictions and utilize tensions in the activity system to develop collaborative artefacts and practices. Empirical evidence is based on a detailed observation of a successful open-source project — the K Desktop Environment (KDE). Our findings show that successful collaboration is based on coat-tailing systems. Coat-tailing means to inextricably bind together individual action and collective activity through careful design of complexes of technological, mental and cultural artefacts.

Key Words: activity theory • co-configurative work • online collaboration • open-source

This version was published on September 1, 2009

Organization Studies, Vol. 30, No. 9, 987-1008 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840609339241


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?