Sustaining collaborative software development through strategic consortium

Abstract

In recent years, consortium-based open source software (COSS) development has emerged as a strategic alternative to resource-intensive in-house development and misaligned commercial software acquisition. Yet consortia undertaking such collaborative efforts struggle to balance the oft-competing demands of innovation and sustainability. Drawing upon a longitudinal case study of the Kuali initiative, this analysis examines the mechanisms of exploration and exploitation involved in developing and sustaining a COSS approach. Based on our findings in the Kuali case, we develop a conceptual framework to discern whether and how COSS development initiatives can achieve contextual ambidexterity, balancing the strategic goals of innovation and sustainability over time. While exploration- and exploitation-oriented efforts compete for resources, our analysis reveals that they may also complement one another across distinct layers of institutional activity. The contextual ambidexterity is achieved through multi-level collaboration enabled by a modular technical and organizational design.