Month: September 2017

New Publication: »Open strategy-making with crowds and communities«

Academic publication processes often take some time. For example, the article “Open strategy-making with crowds and communities: Comparing Wikimedia and Creative Commons” by Jakob Kapeller and myself, which has now been published in Long Range Planning, is not entirely new. Back in 2013 at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, we had already received the prestigious Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award for a previous version of the article. Several rounds of revision later, we can proudly present the abstract of the now published final version of the paper:

In the wake of new digital technologies, organizations rely increasingly on contributions by external actors to innovate or even to fulfill their core tasks, including strategy-making processes. These external actors may take the form of crowds, where actors are isolated and dispersed, or of communities, where these actors are related and self-identify as members of their communities. While we know that including new actors in strategy-making may lead to tensions, we know little about how these tensions differ when either crowds or communities are concerned. Investigating this question by analyzing open strategy-making initiatives conducted by two non-profit organizations (Creative Commons and Wikimedia), we find that tensions with communities may be resolved with increasing openness in strategy-making, while crowds are better compatible with more exclusive strategy-making practices.

The full text of the article is available at the journal’s website. As usual, please send me an e-mail in case you are interested but your institution does not provide access to the journal.

New Publication: »Open to Feedback? Formal and Informal Recursivity in Creative Commons’ Transnational Standard-Setting«

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Animation by Creative Commons (Source)

Together with Sigrid Quack (University of Duisburg-Essen) and Markus Lang (University of Heidelberg), I have investigated the case of Creative Commons to learn more about formal and informal feedback cycles in transnatioal standard-setting. The article “Open to Feedback? Formal and Informal Recursivity in Creative Commons’ Transnational Standard-Setting” has been published in Global Policy and the abstract reads as follows:

In this article, we examine how non-membership organizations that claim stewardship over a transnational public or common good, such as the environmental or digital commons, develop combinations of formal and informal recursivity to develop and maintain regulatory conversations with their dispersed user communities. Based on a case study of Creative Commons, an organization that developed what have become the most widely used open licenses for digital content, we show how rhetorical openness to informal feedback from legitimacy communities in different sectors and countries can improve the feasibility and diffusion of standards. However, as long as the standard-setter’s methods of making decisions on the basis of such feedback remains opaque, its communities are likely to raise accountability demands for more extensive ex post justifications.

Global Policy also asks its authors to provide at least three policy implications, which we were happy to deliver: Continue reading “New Publication: »Open to Feedback? Formal and Informal Recursivity in Creative Commons’ Transnational Standard-Setting«” →

Veranstaltungshinweis: »The Others of the Others«

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Ein Veranstaltungshinweis für alle, die sich für (Anti)Diskriminierung interessieren. Aus der Einladung zur Veranstaltung (PDF):

Diskriminierung bedeutet Abgrenzung, Abwertung und Ausgrenzung von Anderen. In der Revue THE OTHERS OF THE OTHERS, die Stephan Bruckmeier und Margit Niederhuber im Auftrag der Gleichbehandlungsanwaltschaft mit dem Hope Theatre Nairobi produziert haben, findet eine Auseinandersetzung mit Diskriminierungsthemen statt – gespielt, gesungen und getanzt.

In Innsbruck gastiert die Revue am 16.10.2017 um 19 Uhr im VIER UND EINZIG, Hallerstraße 41. Anmeldung ist erforderlich unter ibk.gaw@bka.gv.at bis 9. Oktober 2017.