Creating Open Source Guilds for More Sustainable Micro-Enterprises

* Justin Larner, Keith Cheverst, Matthew MacDonald, Cefn Hoile, Angus Soutar, (2017) "The open source guild: creating more sustainable enterprise?", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 36 Issue: 1, pp.71-80, 2017

URL = https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/JMD-10-2014-0134?

Abstract

"This paper explores the sustainability of individual micro-business, and shows that the open source guild model is a mechanism for an emergent micro-business to create a community around their values and grow their business without conventional external investment of resources.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an action research project with two emergent micro-businesses that explored how their business model connected with the principles of open source.

The authors developed the open source guild business model, which has the elements of: building a focal micro-business with resources secured through the guild, promoting learning and development through apprenticeship, promoting shared values through a commons of experience and capturing value by protecting key intellectual property."