The Strategy Finding Task Within Collaborative Networks, Based on an Exemplary Case of the Linux Community

This article will focus on how the strategy-finding task is performed within virtual organisations in general and in the open source community of Linux in particular. This article will demonstrate that one of the reasons for the success of Linux is the way the strategic finding task is fulfilled in this community.The point to be shown in this paper is the self-organising power and apparent success of emergent ('bottom up') strategy finding processes within the Linux community, ensuring the interaction between change trajectories of both its internal resources and external threats and weaknesses. It will be shown that a number of mechanisms have institutionalised this interaction in the community.