The Dynamics of Design Microstructures in Open Collaboration: A Motif Perspective

1 Pages Posted: 15 Mar 2018

See all articles by Sabine Brunswicker

Sabine Brunswicker

Purdue University - Research Center for Open Digital Innovation (RCODI); Purdue University - Discovery Park

Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business

Satyam Mukherjee

School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University

Date Written: March 2, 2018

Abstract

The architecture of a design, and particular its interdependence, may significantly influence its design performance (Baldwin and Clark 2006; Tiwana et al.2010). Design interdependence (Simon 1962), describes the functional coupling between the different parts of the design artifact. In open collaboration communities, temporally and geographically distributed collectives of individuals iteratively change and modify small bits of the overall design (Baldwin and von Hippel 2011; Levine and Prietula 2014). When reprogramming and repurposing a certain design part (e.g. modifying several files ina code base when making a commit), each individual take design actions – such as splitting, augmenting, inverting (also referred to as design operators(Gamba and Fusari 2009)) – which change design interdependences among a small set of files. There is lack of understanding of the micro-level design actions that underpin the evolution of a large design artifact developed in fluid organizational forms like open collaboration: In there, individuals self-select into tasks and make design decisions using simple heuristics (rather than real-option informed design choices). Inspired by research on biological networks, we introduce the notion of design motifs that describe the smallest element of design dependencies (Milo et al. 2002). Using these micro-level concepts, we aim to unpack the underlying dynamics of designing in open collaboration.

Keywords: open collaboration, micro-structures, network motifs, modularity, complex architectures, design operators

Suggested Citation

Brunswicker, Sabine and Nickerson, Jeffrey V. and Mukherjee, Satyam, The Dynamics of Design Microstructures in Open Collaboration: A Motif Perspective (March 2, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3139654

Sabine Brunswicker (Contact Author)

Purdue University - Research Center for Open Digital Innovation (RCODI) ( email )

516 Northwestern Ave
West-Lafayette, IN 47906
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.purdue.edu/opendigital

Purdue University - Discovery Park ( email )

United States

Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business ( email )

Hoboken, NJ 07030
United States

Satyam Mukherjee

School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University ( email )

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