Membership in a complex online project organization - Experiences of co-creation at Mozilla

Sammanfattning: We aim to reinforce the importance of more qualitative empirical studies researching the particularities of co-creation efforts, in the context of new, ambiguous mutations of work and organization generated by internet technologies. While answering our research question we will look into personal accounts referring to the individual’s experience of volunteering for Mozilla, and we will contribute to the critical questioning and understanding of what lies behind the decision to enroll in a co-creation project. Within an interpretive epistemological approach, based on hermeneutics and critical theory, we are inspired by the qualitative method called “netnography”. We use internet both as a research tool as well as a research site in our abductive research. We draw on relevant literature on co-creation, organizational boundaries, roles, responsibilities and membership. Our data consists in: transcripted interviews with five mozillians, located online at Mozilla Digital Memory Bank; blog posts of the respective interviewees, over several years relevant to our research; online content of official Mozilla websites and other relevant sources. Supported by our findings, we argue that the euphoric collaborative discourse around co-creation and Mozilla is not corrupt, but exaggerate. Co-creation is substantially supported by individual priorities and is not always a pleasant experience. However, considering how it demands reflection upon organizational aspects, the concept co-creation has the potential of pushing the way of thinking within and about organizations, from a modernist approach towards a more processual, interpretive view.