TY - CHAP

T1 - Collaborative innovation online

T2 - Entanglements of the making of content, skills, and community on a songwriting platform

AU - Schiemer, Benjamin

AU - Schüßler, Elke

AU - Grabher, Gernot

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019 by Benjamin Schiemer, Elke Schüßler, Gernot Grabher. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

PY - 2019/10/4

Y1 - 2019/10/4

N2 - This chapter advances our understanding of collaborative innovation processes that span across organizational boundaries by providing an ethnographic account of idea generation dynamics in a member-initiated online songwriting community. Applying a science and technology studies perspective on processes “in the making,” the findings of this chapter reveal the generative entanglements of three processes of content-in-the-making, skill-in-the-making, and community-in-the-making that were triggered and maintained over time by temporary stabilizations of provisional, interim outcomes. These findings also elucidate interferences between these three processes, particularly when an increased focus on songs as products undermines the ongoing collaborative production of ideas. Regular interventions in the community design were necessary to simultaneously stimulate the three processes and counteract interfering tendencies that either prioritized content production, community building, or skill development, respectively. The authors conclude that firms seeking to tap into online communities’ innovative potential need to appreciate community and skill development as creative processes in their own right that have to be fostered and kept in sync with content production.

AB - This chapter advances our understanding of collaborative innovation processes that span across organizational boundaries by providing an ethnographic account of idea generation dynamics in a member-initiated online songwriting community. Applying a science and technology studies perspective on processes “in the making,” the findings of this chapter reveal the generative entanglements of three processes of content-in-the-making, skill-in-the-making, and community-in-the-making that were triggered and maintained over time by temporary stabilizations of provisional, interim outcomes. These findings also elucidate interferences between these three processes, particularly when an increased focus on songs as products undermines the ongoing collaborative production of ideas. Regular interventions in the community design were necessary to simultaneously stimulate the three processes and counteract interfering tendencies that either prioritized content production, community building, or skill development, respectively. The authors conclude that firms seeking to tap into online communities’ innovative potential need to appreciate community and skill development as creative processes in their own right that have to be fostered and kept in sync with content production.

KW - Management studies

KW - Collaborative innovation

KW - innovation as process

KW - online communities

KW - creative content production

KW - music industry

KW - digitization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073160827&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1c1a7f91-3aae-3e50-8e7f-1305d98c8c6a/

U2 - 10.1108/S0733-558X20190000064018

DO - 10.1108/S0733-558X20190000064018

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85073160827

SN - 978-1-78756-592-0

T3 - Research in the Sociology of Organizations

SP - 293

EP - 316

BT - Managing Inter-organizational Collaborations

A2 - Sydow, Jörg

A2 - Berends, Hans

PB - Emerald Publishing Limited

ER -