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The \"variance hypothesis\" predicts that external search breadth leads to innovation outcomes, but people have limited attention for search and cultivating breadth consumes attention. How does individuals' search breadth affect innovation outcomes? How does individuals' allocation of attention affect the efficacy of search breadth? We matched survey data with complete patent records, to examine the search behaviors of elite boundary spanners at IBM. Surprisingly, individuals who allocated attention to people inside the firm were more innovative. Individuals with high external search breadth were more innovative only when they allocated more attention to those sources. Our research identifies limits to the \"variance hypothesis\" and reveals two successful approaches to innovation search: \"cosmopolitans\" who cultivate and attend to external people and \"locals\" who draw upon internal people.

Crowdsourcing-asking an undefined group of external contributors to work on tasks-allows organizations to tap into the expertise of people around the world. Crowdsourcing is known to increase innovation and loyalty to brands, but many organizations struggle to leverage its potential, as our research shows. Most often this is because organizations fail to properly plan for all the different stages of crowd engagement. In this paper, we use several examples to explain these challenges and offer advice for how organizations can overcome them.

This paper draws attention to a new dimension of organization, the semiformal organization, and it reveals how the allocation of different membership forms can render knowledge-intensive organizations more flexible and exploratory in their knowledge creation efforts without sacrificing the functions stably enacted via the formal organization. Most knowledge-intensive organizations seek to create new spaces for collaborations through formally prescribed departments and divisions or through serendipitous, emergent, informal associations (i.e., the formal and informal organization). However, organizations also strategically manage what we call the “semiformal organization” to guide the creation of new work relations and encourage innovation. These secondary memberships are organizationally sponsored and directly related to the organizations’ core research functions, but they are voluntarily joined. As such, they are distinct from formal and informal memberships. On the basis of extensive longitudinal analyses of research initiatives at Stanford University, we find that the semiformal organization provides a compelling channel through which organizations can shape employees’ collaborations and overall productivity.

Users often interact and help each other solve problems in communities, but few scholars have explored how these relationships provide opportunities to innovate. We analyze the extent to which people positioned within the core of a community as well as people that are cosmopolitans positioned across multiple external communities affect innovation. Using a multimethod approach, including a survey, a complete database of interactions in an online community, content coding of interactions and contributions, and 36 interviews, we specify the types of positions that have the strongest effect on innovation. Our study shows that dispositional explanations for user innovation should be complemented by a relational view that emphasizes how these communities differ from other organizations, the types of behaviors this enables, and the effects on innovation.

Project forms of organizing are theorized to rely upon horizontal as opposed to vertical lines of authority, but few have examined how this shift affects progression-how people advance in an organization. We argue that progression without hierarchy unfolds when people assume lateral authority over project tasks without managing people. With a longitudinal study of a mature, collectively managed open source software project, we predict the individual behaviors that enable progression to lateral authority roles at two different stages. Although technical contributions are initially important, coordination work is more critical at a subsequent stage. We then explore how lateral authority roles affect subsequent behavior-after gaining authority, individuals spend significantly more time coordinating project work. Our research shows how people progress to the center as opposed to up a hierarchy, and how progression differs by stage and specifies the theoretical relationship between lateral authority roles and the coordination of project work.

Contrast this with Valve where there is a stringent hiring process making sure prospective employees align with the company culture and enjoy working with autonomy. [...]it becomes necessary for someone to step in and “take charge” to resolve this problem. All too often, I have used the same kinds of examples ranging from open source communities, Wikipedia, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Zappos, Gore & Associates, Gitlab, Morningstar, or Valve. Reitzig’s book is refreshing as it also captures failures, and even sheds new light on organizations who may at first look successful but who have also faced challenges (a similar chord can be struck with the discussion about Oticon, where early work portrayed it as a success and later showed that the Oticon management moved away from the flat organizing principles (compare Lovas and Ghoshal 2000 with Foss 2003).

Using a longitudinal dataset of research collaborations over 15 years at Stanford University, we build a theory of intraorganizational task relationships that distinguishes the different factors associated with the formation and persistence of network ties. We highlight six factors: shared organizational foci, shared traits and interests, tie advantages from popularity, tie reinforcement from third parties, tie strength and multiplexity, and the instrumental returns from the products of ties. Findings suggest that ties form when unfamiliar people identify desirable and matching traits in potential partners. By contrast, ties persist when familiar people reflect on the quality of their relationship and shared experiences. The former calls for shallow, short-term strategies for assessing a broad array of potential ties; the latter calls for long-term strategies and substantive assessments of a relationship's worth so as to draw extended rewards from the association. This suggests that organizational activities geared toward sustaining persistent intraorganizational task relationships need to be different from activities aimed at forging new ones.

The Lego Group has been one of the most widely researched and emulated companies for its open innovation achievements with consumers. A crowdsourcing pilot that Lego launched in 2008 evolved into Lego Ideas. The lucky few whose ideas are commercialized (like the top-selling medieval blacksmith set) get 1% of the product's top-line revenue--often a life-changing sum. Meanwhile, popular ideas that are not selected as Lego products can get a second chance through a crowdfunding program on BrickLink, a consumer-led channel that Lego acquired in 2019. Beretta et al says their four-year study of Lego Ideas and BrickLink has uncovered fresh insights for managing open innovation platforms. Many open innovation initiatives start on the edge, as Lego's did, and remain there. To create value over time, however, they need to be integrated into the organization's core. They looked at how Lego involves customers in choosing hit products, provides an outlet for customers whose ideas are rejected, and enables customers to profit from their creations. Their findings could help business leaders strengthen their customer communities and keep members active in revenue creation, in part by integrating members into their product development and marketing operations.

The rapid growth of online platforms and the emergence of diverse online communities became an ideal resource from which to generate new product ideas or business solutions. The United Kingdom's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) had invited the public to choose the name of its newest polar research vessel, never anticipating the awkward moniker that won the online poll. Critical success factors for crowdsourcing projects x To analyze success and failure of virtual engagement tools and crowdsourcing projects, we collaborated with a private company to create a massive dataset in, that allowed us to study over 100,000 suggestions submitted to nearly 1,000 organizations. THE AUTHORS Linus Dahlander Professor and Lufthansa Group Chair in Innovation ESMT Berlin, Germany linus.dahlander@esmt.org Henning Piezunka Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise INSEAD, France henning.piezunka@insead.edu Companies should be selective about who they invite to participate.

Crowds can be very effective, but that is not always the case. To actually render the usage of crowds effective, several factors need to be aligned: crowd composition, the right question at the right time, and the right analytic method applied to the responses. Specific skills are mandatory to tap into the creativity of a crowd, harness it effectively and transform it into offers that markets value. The “DBAS” framework is recommended to successfully implement a crowd project. It consists of four stages, and in each phase some key questions need to be addressed. Each decision along the DBAS pathway matters and how you navigate each stage can either reinforce or undermine decisions made at the other stages. The right degree of innovativeness, listening to contributors and informing participants openly about the fate of rejected ideas are key success factors that require special attention. To continually improve the odds of success, crowdsourcing should best be treated as a continual iterative churn.