Internal boundaries between information systems divisions have traditionally caused friction and frustration, and negatively affected IT staff job satisfaction. Adopting open source development principles and processes within a corporate environment, what has been labeled ‘inner source,’ is now part of a larger management strategy to break down silos and promote innovation, collaboration, cooperation and communication across divisions of an organization. In this article we argue that inner source emphasizes the importance of relationships between developers and teams interacting across intra-organizational boundaries. We posit that inner source helps to create social capital, which in turn links to higher levels of job satisfaction. We use a sequential mixed-methods approach to test a theoretical model by combining quantitative survey data collected at one IT organization with qualitative data based on interviews with professionals from six organizations that adopted inner source. The results suggest that employees who participate in inner source projects develop more social interaction ties with others and have higher levels of shared understanding of software projects. Furthermore, we confirm that social interaction ties and a shared understanding link to a higher degree of trust. Finally, this study provides evidence that social capital mediates the link between participation in inner source and job satisfaction, implying that an inner source strategy can offer benefits to organizations. Enriched with the findings from the qualitative interviews, we then identify a number of implications for managers.

Digital transformation is here to stay. With the emergence of new digital innovations and diverse and rich data sources, only those organisations that can adapt faster and make better, quicker decisions will become more competitive. Yet, being a first mover is only the start of the transformation process. Organisations need to address and implement digital strategies to manage and sustain a digital transformation in order to stay with, or ahead of, their competition. In this article, we outline some of the key challenges associated with researching digital transformations within the information systems (IS) field and stress the importance of shifting the focus on how digital transformations are managed and sustained. To explore this further, we launched a Special Issue on “Managing and Sustaining Digital Transformations” and received a large volume of submissions. After a series of reviews and revisions, we were delighted to unearth four excellent articles on this important topic. Our hope with this Special Issue is to improve researchers’ abilities to identify the importance of managing and sustaining digital transformations and to encourage them to build on these contributions to better unpack the digital transformation process for the future.

Crowdfunding projects have been the subject of contrasting narratives. To many, they are the antithesis of predatory bottom-line business ventures, and to others, they are an under-regulated vehicle for immature, or unscrupulous project owners to exploit inexperienced and vulnerable investors. These differences are significant, given many use crowdfunding to build public awareness and project a positive image. We use the myth of Prometheus – the Greek god associated with “defiant progress” and technological advancement – as a sensitising lens to build a set of competing, dialectic archetypes. We then apply these archetypes through a Hegelian dialectic analysis of three high-profile crowdfunding campaigns. The overarching contribution of the study is that it provides a foundation for discussion of the positive and negative narratives surrounding crowdfunded project owners and explicates the limitations of crowdfunding as an enabler of positive systemic change. The dialectic approach provides a systematic means of identifying the essence of disagreement between narratives. While it may be too early to predict the outcomes for emerging technology-driven initiatives such as crowdfunding, the use of myth offers a sophisticated means to look for “rhyming” phenomena, where the phenomena at play are similar to the grand frailties of humankind throughout history.

The emergence of open source software (OSS) as a form of peer production and innovation challenges theories of organisation and strategy due to its non-reliance on traditional governance mechanisms to organise production. OSS requires firms to rethink the processes that facilitate value creation and capture. The objective of this paper is to theorise how firms create and capture value from OSS. We derive a model from extant research and refine it through the study of three inter-organisational networks. The findings reveal how a firm's ability to access a value network of complementors is crucial for effective value creation and capture. Two types of networks are evident: a high-density network of familiar partners and a low-density network of multiple, often unfamiliar, partners. Leveraging these networks depends on the level of commitment, volume of knowledge exchange and the alignment of objectives among participant firms. Effective governance is revealed as critical for creating and capturing value within both types of network; and depends on both formal and informal mechanisms.