Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2021
  • Chapter
  • The Handbook of Peer Production

Governing for Growth in Scope: Cultivating a Comparative Understanding of How Peer Production Collectives Evolve

By: Rebecca Karp, Amisha Miller and Siobhan O'Mahony
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

One of the early challenges for any peer production collective is how to govern the growth of new members or contributors. Scope growth was not a topic of concern when scholars were focused on understanding the emergence of peer production collectives as a phenomenon and on identifying the conditions enabling their growing prevalence. But, with the emergence of peer production communities addressing domains as diverse as problem solving at NASA; to engaging in other innovative and technical endeavors, the time has come to treat the topic of scope growth with the import it deserves. Scope growth is important to understanding the current and future challenges that maturing peer production collectives face for several reasons. Governance rights offer participants the opportunity to make decisions that affect the participation architecture, or the social, legal, and technical capabilities that guide interactions and exchange in a collective.

Keywords

Peer Production Collectives; Scope Growth; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Governance; Growth Management

Citation

Karp, Rebecca, Amisha Miller, and Siobhan O'Mahony. "Governing for Growth in Scope: Cultivating a Comparative Understanding of How Peer Production Collectives Evolve." Chap. 11 in The Handbook of Peer Production, edited by Mathieu O'Neil, Christian Pentzold, and Sophie Toupin, 137–152. John Wiley & Sons, 2021.
  • Read Now

About The Author

Rebecca A. Karp

Strategy
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • March 2022
    • Strategic Management Journal

    From Proprietary to Collective Governance: How Do Platform Participation Strategies Evolve?

    By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp
    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Expanding the Entrepreneurial Cultural Toolkit: The Temporal Interplay of the Substantive and the Symbolic

    By: Rebecca Karp and Siobhan O'Mahony
    • Forthcoming
    • Academy of Management Journal

    Gaining Organizational Adoption: Strategically Pacing the Deployment of Digital Innovations

    By: Rebecca Karp
More from the Authors
  • From Proprietary to Collective Governance: How Do Platform Participation Strategies Evolve? By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Rebecca Karp
  • Expanding the Entrepreneurial Cultural Toolkit: The Temporal Interplay of the Substantive and the Symbolic By: Rebecca Karp and Siobhan O'Mahony
  • Gaining Organizational Adoption: Strategically Pacing the Deployment of Digital Innovations By: Rebecca Karp
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College