Open Source in Action I: Business Collaboration Among Open Source Projects

Abstract

It is generally assumed that in times of high competition, the ability to innovate is of high importance to corporate R&D. Moreover, a growing body of management research takes as its central assumption, that opening the boundaries of the firm potentially increases its innovative performance (Chesbrough 2003b, Laursen & Salter 2006, Lichtenthaler 2010a, Enkel, Gassmann & Chesbrough 2009). In addition to the general trend of opening R&D processes to external participants (Chesbrough 2006), which is currently discussed under the term open innovation, a further notable (but not necessarily new) trend is that firms increasingly make use of R&D alliances and consortia (Garringa, Von Krogh & Spaeth 2011).