<div dir="ltr">Intriguing stuff. You might find these three pieces useful. They frame the question differently (solidly within administrative/organizational science rather than political economy), but perhaps they are getting at similar things? The general argument is that the (shared) artifact itself does much of what has traditionally been done by coordination mechanisms, including top-down direction.<div><br></div><div>Bolici, F., Howison, J., & Crowston, K. (2016). Stigmergic coordination in FLOSS development teams: Integrating explicit and implicit mechanisms. Cognitive Systems Research, 38, 14–22. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2015.12.003">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2015.12.003</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>This piece below goes a little further, in some ways, discussing how the shared software (and its itch generating use) actually conducts a search for appropriate next steps and motivated actors, thus the artifact (and its networked distribution) take on more functions of the firm and its centralization of power.</div><div><br></div><div>Howison, J., & Crowston, K. (2014). Collaboration through open superposition: A theory of the open source way. MIS Quarterly, 38(1), 29–50. <a href="http://james.howison.name/pubs/howison-2014-superposition.pdf">http://james.howison.name/pubs/howison-2014-superposition.pdf</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Also, Aron Lindberg's work on emergence/variation of routines in FLOSS projects seems relevant here:</div><div><br></div><div>Lindberg, A., Berente, N., Gaskin, J., & Lyytinen, K. (2016). Coordinating Interdependencies in Online Communities: A Study of an Open Source Software Project. Information Systems Research, 27(4), 751–772. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0673">https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0673</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>I'd be very interested in hearing if these are useful to your thinking.</div><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>James</div><div><br></div><div>ps. I'm looking forward to reading "The emergence of routines" as well, Phil!</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Aug 24, 2019 at 2:53 PM PHILIP SCRANTON <<a href="mailto:scranton@scarletmail.rutgers.edu">scranton@scarletmail.rutgers.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">For some historical examples, you might look at the essays collected in The Emergence of Routines, edited by Daniel Raff and me (Phil Scranton), Oxford University Press, 2018. Negotiated standards were frequently documented by the contributors to this conference volume. <div> Best regards, Phil S.<br><br>On Saturday, August 24, 2019, jan <<a href="mailto:dittrich.c.jan@gmail.com" target="_blank">dittrich.c.jan@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Hello Maintainers, <br>
</p>
<p>I participate in a few open source projects [0] and decisions are
often taken either by an "emergent" consensus or by a "do-cracy"
in which people build something which might stick around. I noted
that it seems to be hard to get "conceptual integrity" [1],
meaning that a single or few principles can be used to explain why
the software is the way it is. A rough hypothesis would be that
defining, keeping and negotiating conceptual integrity needs a
power concentration which is hard to achieve in a system where
"free individuals" take their decisions where no or few
representational and legitimized actors exist that could enforce
rules/principles that others must/will follow. <br>
</p>
<p> I expected discussions of this to be easy to find, however the
closest I found so far were:</p>
<p>- The discussions of Standards in Relation to Hayek’s views on
economy and freedom in <i>"Standards: Recipes for Reality" </i><i>[2]</i><i>
</i>(which has few direct relation to peer production settings) <br>
</p>
<p>- "<i>Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness." </i>which
discusses the relationship of <i>Peer Production, Openness</i><i>
and Neoliberalism </i>(but not standard setting or coherence)<i><br>
</i></p>
<p><br>
I wonder if you know of literature discussing the (non)
negotiation of standards and conceptual integrity in context that
value a libertarian, free-individuals-focussed peer production
culture.</p>
<p>Kind Regards, <br>
</p>
<p> Jan<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[0] Mediawiki, Libre Office, Open Source Design<br>
</p>
<p>[1] See Brook’s Mythical Man Month or this:
<a href="https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.c2.com%2F%3FConceptualIntegrity&data=02%7C01%7Cscranton%40scarletmail.rutgers.edu%7C9d636362bece4a1f08a008d728c7aca6%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C637022710376170505&sdata=VDFvudPQpXcxI2t9I7iMNhUeCsniJXhZBR%2FbxXXb4hE%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">http://secure-web.cisco.com/16G3Ae-57d5KWJ6JeHLxGhZ81hzL5Gz4LhTBuOtPNibsIgS0J9pZgi9kQ3PdAvEn1kf-3BtqP7cOkaneHoqXll5W0T-8RygZxYpRlcqJWO4W6C9LwgoIqVY5cJGYrpNnvMQJHWWGMQO8GyEOg79wldo4ENT0wL9P_74aZJE5d9_UTKHvumqMAvqoOVfwZ8GQajHy0mewEfPhW4Y0SW7VSFLHkZ5oEf8TT5LNiaO4izdy7CLkAJiLU1cm4EVvYJ8S-Ot3lJMtilpkm7Y7K6Juyt5itpgyZ5GalW1kn978mbnNOk0HDeS-HTfNFEeAhXLcjbBTx1NHxsO51cLu0uYHSFLUIde3uIQErjk-ZLI9vb0kRrDxcKpxavkgibOXr-k8rlpLyJbJczfUkN4EUQAO3JRKPj_eDHQ7LTYx-4KJGX_1NzgAQJMvrOBQR6KwpecG_naGWSAbQVJl_crf236kWGsItqRwVb7kveHDOv3fxCEF2wtHEY_8U8eEp8m-N6oKM004Dc8217oG8ux5y3CJQaITk7dmNGQGuVxgWV3_sLBpkIBHsH26-NIWCZ26zqj8Hx4p8hcDsC_SfZQ6_X0J4B8UEoIJ1HhfibABAtyhL6yU/http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.c2.com%2F?ConceptualIntegrity</a><br>
It could be also described as "local standards" which a project
follows. </p>
<p>[2] Busch, Lawrence. 2013. <i>Standards: Recipes for Reality</i>.
MIT Press Ltd, p291: "For [Hayek], habits that are formed
unconsciously were considerably more desirable than those formed
consciously. What he failed to see was that this merely enshrines
the existing order as somehow always more desirable than any
alternative imagined future.", which has an interesting
resemblance to Jo Freeman’s "Tyranny of Structurelessness"</p>
<p>[3] Tkacz, Nathaniel. 2014. <i>Wikipedia and the Politics of
Openness</i>. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press.</p>
<div style="line-height:1.35;margin-left:2em"> <span title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-0-226-19230-7&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Wikipedia%20and%20the%20Politics%20of%20Openness&rft.place=Chicago%20%3B%20London&rft.publisher=University%20of%20Chicago%20Press&rft.aufirst=Nathaniel&rft.aulast=Tkacz&rft.au=Nathaniel%20Tkacz&rft.date=2014&rft.tpages=224&rft.isbn=978-0-226-19230-7&rft.language=Englisch"></span></div>
<p> </p>
<div style="line-height:1.35;margin-left:2em"> <span title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-0-262-52505-3&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Standards%3A%20Recipes%20for%20Reality&rft.publisher=MIT%20Press%20Ltd&rft.edition=Reprint&rft.aufirst=Lawrence&rft.aulast=Busch&rft.au=Lawrence%20Busch&rft.date=2013-09-16&rft.tpages=402&rft.isbn=978-0-262-52505-3&rft.language=Englisch"></span></div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Philip Scranton, Emeritus Board of Governors Professor, History of Industry & Technology,<br></div>Rutgers University;</div><div>Author, Enterprise, Organization and Technology in China: A Socialist Experiment, 1950-1971<br></div><div>Palgrave Macmillan (2019). BOOK LINK: <a href="https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030003975?wt_mc=ThirdParty.SpringerLink.3.EPR653.About_eBook#aboutBook" target="_blank">https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030003975?wt_mc=ThirdParty.SpringerLink.3.EPR653.About_eBook#aboutBook</a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">James Howison<div><br><div>Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies</div><div>School of Information</div><div>University of Texas at Austin</div><div><a href="http://james.howison.name" target="_blank">http://james.howison.name</a></div></div></div></div>