Abstract
This chapter examines open source communities as distinct environments for distributed innovation. Focusing on open source 3D printing communities, we investigate approaches to entrepreneurial action and map various types of business models and their perceived legitimacy by the community. Although the community-focused mode works well for the explorative part of innovation, we find that it imposes limitations on actors who aim to diffuse—i.e., exploit—novel products. By qualitatively analyzing startup companies that emerge from or engage with open source 3D printing communities, we identify three main strategies to manage the interplay of community- and market-based settings and the associated levels of reciprocity.
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Tech, R.P.G., Ferdinand, JP., Dopfer, M. (2016). Open Source Hardware Startups and Their Communities. In: Ferdinand, JP., Petschow, U., Dickel, S. (eds) The Decentralized and Networked Future of Value Creation. Progress in IS. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31686-4_7
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