Peer production, the commons, and the future of the firm. (May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Benkler, Yochai
• Is Part Of: Strategic organization. Volume 15:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 264
• Page End: 274
• Publication Date: 2017-05
• Subjects: design and boundaries -- knowledge creation -- organizational structure -- social networks -- technology -- transaction cost economics; Management -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; Business planning -- Periodicals; Strategic planning -- Periodicals; Gestion stratégique; Planification stratégique; Théorie des organisations; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 658.4012
• DOI: 10.1177/1476127016652606
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-1270

Abstract

From free and open source software, through Wikipedia to video journalism, peer production plays a more significant role in the information production environment than was theoretically admissible by any economic model of motivation and organization that prevailed at the turn of the millennium. Its sustained success for a quarter of a century forces us to reevaluate three core assumptions of the standard models of innovation and production. First, it places intrinsic and social motivations, rather than material incentives, at the core of innovation, and hence growth. Second, it challenges the centrality of property, as opposed to the interaction of property and commons, to growth. And third, it questions the continued centrality of firms to the innovation process.