Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Sponsorship of Common Technological Standards: The Case of SUN Microsystems and Java

Institutional entrepreneurship implicit in a firm's sponsorship of its technology as a common standard is beset by several challenges. These challenges arise from a standard's property to enable and constrain even as potential competitors agree to cooperate on its creation. Our exploration of Sun Microsystems's sponsorship of its Java technology suggests that standards-in-the-making generate seeds of self-destruction. Our study also identifies the social and political skills that a sponsor deploys to address these challenges.