Collaborative community

Paul Adler (2006) and his colleagues (Adler, Kwon & Hecksher 2008) devel-oped the notion of “ collaborative community” to draw attention to how con-temporary capitalistic society in fact needs non-capitalistic forms of organiza-tions and communities in order to meet the growing demands of accountability, quality improvement and cost reduction. Adler studied specifically health care organizations (Adler & Hecksher, 2006). This new updated community concept is directly based on the classical sociological work of Ferdinand Tönnies and Emile Durkheim.

Tönnies was the first to distinguish between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society) types of sociality. He found that modern society in

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the turn of the century was witnessing a transition from a society marked by intimate relations and common belief-systems to a highly individualized (and specialized) society in which people acted on the basis of self-interest. Gemein-schaft represented a way of being that was valuable for its own sake, whereas the Gesellschaft type of getting together denoted an instrumental value.

Tönnies’ approach has been criticized for its strict conceptual divide and asso-ciated oppositional qualities (e.g. Brint; 2001; Delanty, 2010)³⁰. Tönnies was concerned with the loss of community in the modern society, which has been interpreted as nostalgia for the past (see Delanty, 2010). For Durkheim (1947), the traditional community represented the real while society represented the imaginary:

…Quite different is the structure of societies where organic solidarity is preponderant. They are constituted, not by a repetition of similar, homo-geneous segments, but by a system of different organs each of which has a special role, and which are themselves formed of differentiated parts.

(p. 181)

Mechanical solidarity refers to integration based on shared beliefs, while or-ganic solidarity refers to integration resulting from specialization that requires interdependence. In organic solidarity individuals are dependent on each other for pursuing their interests and specializations. According to Durkheim the key to understanding the industrial society was its division of labour, the specializa-tion of the funcspecializa-tions and roles involved in producspecializa-tion. Durkheim associated modern society with difference and individualist interests, dependent on divi-sion of labour and varied skills, that is, production based on complementarity.

In this sense Durkheim anticipated the concept of “network” (see Miettinen &

al., 2006, p. 8). Clearly then, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as ideal types offer too crude a vocabulary to discuss, let alone advance our understanding of Inter-net-mediated open source communities lacking physical proximity and clearly definable boundaries, and in which the division of labour is highly specialized and motivations varied. Geographically dispersed global open source commu-nities underline Durkheim’s emphasis on division of labour because the ties between people are based foremost on the variety and complementarity of their

30 “…gemeinschaft is associated with common ways of life, gesellschaft with dissimilar ways of life; gemein-schaft with common beliefs, gesellschaft with dissimilar beliefs; gemeinschaft with concentrated ties and frequent interaction, gesellschaft with dispersed ties and infrequent interac-tion; gemeinschaft with small numbers of people, gesellschaft with large numbers of people;

gemeinschaft with distance from centers of power, gesellschaft with proximity to centers of power; gemeinschaft with familiarity, gesellschaft with rules to overcome distrust; gemeinschaft with continuity, gesellschaft with temporary arrangements; gemein-schaft with emotional bonds, gesellschaft with regulated competition.” (Brint, 2001, p.2–3)

33 skills, not familiarity, similarity or face-to-face interaction. In opposition to Tönnies, Durkheim’s conception of community could be characterized as com-munity of complementarity.

Adler and Hecksher (2006) and Adler, Kwon & Hecksher (2008) offer a more multifaceted view of community. They propose that different types of community can exist in parallel in contemporary institutions. In particular, Durkheim’s idea of the complementarity of communities can be seen in the concept of collaborative community. According to Adler and Hecksher (2006), multiple forms of community provide an alternative to markets and hierarchies.

They argue that capitalistic development erodes traditional forms of community while simultaneously creates new forms. They claim that neither hierarchical Gemeinschaft nor market-based Gesellschaft respond well to the growing demands of accountability, quality improvement and cost reduction within the liberal professions. Their argument is that capitalistic society needs non-capitalistic forms of organization in order to respond to these demands. The new coinage of collaborative community is an attempt to overcome the division between the two types, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, and the collective-individual dichotomy that it entails.

According to Adler & Hecksher, (2006), ideal types like communities, hier-archies and markets emerge in hybrid forms and “in reality” professional com-munities comprise a mix of these:

Hierarchy uses authority to create and coordinate a horizontal and vertical division of labour—a bureaucracy in Weber’s ideal-type form. Market re-lies on the price mechanism to coordinate competing and anonymous suppliers and buyers. Community relies on shared values and norms.

(p.15)

Characteristic of this new type of community is that knowledge is shared and created collaboratively, each individual complementing other individuals’

contributions for the benefit of a shared purpose. It is simultaneously highly individual and highly collective (Adler, 2006; 2007; Adler & Hecksher, 2008;

Adler, Kwon & Hecksher, 2008). This is an interesting insight and merits em-pirical exploration. While the traditional Gemeinschaf community was loyalty-based and relied on authority and status, and Gesellschaft market-oriented and contract-based, the collaborative community is based on trust and bound to-gether through interdependent contributions. The basis of trust is in contribu-tion, concern, honesty and collegiality.

The problem of the relationship between the collective and the individual is highly relevant for the study of hybrid open source communities. Since partici-pation is ideally volunteer-based, one can assume that the people who choose to

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participate have some kind of overall common ground with respect to open source. Commitment can be political, practical or ideological, but no one of these need be the primary reason for participating. Otherwise there would be less cause to contribute. In this choice-based sense (Brint, 2001) open source collectives can be thought of as communities of interest. If a community is thought of as representing common ways of being, what kind of commonality required? It would seem plausible that communities vary according to the professional background, expertize, motives and contributions, even in profes-sional expert communities that seem relatively homogeneous from the outset (e.g. Saari & Miettinen, 2001; Saari, 2003).

The hybridity of open source complicates the issue further. It can be ex-pected that combining two historically and culturally different models of soft-ware development and distribution can lead to a collision between the norms of open source and those of the firm. Indeed, Siltala & al. (2007) claim that the relationship between corporate paid developers and volunteer contributors remains contested territory (see also Weber, 2004, p. 262). However, the idea that the collaborative community has a “mixed” character is a valuable insight and could help in conceptualizing hybrid open source as existing somewhere alongside markets and hierarchy. Since such projects have, ideally, both corpo-rate developers and volunteers working together, it becomes relevant to con-sider the boundaries of the community, and the question whose good–that of the firm, the volunteers, or both parties–is being served? It should be emphasized, however, that the juxtaposition of firm and volunteers might turn out more uneasy and fuzzier than first anticipated. The collaborative community concept is well suited for understanding the professional aspects of hybrid open source communities and the co-existence of corporations and volunteers contributors.

However, the basis of trust, as characterized above, can prove more difficult to achieve, as we will see in the forthcoming analyses.