Leveraging Stakeholders to Grow Open-source Hardware Business Models: The Case of Barcelona

Some authors, as well as practitioners, consider Open-Source Hardware (OSH) as the most disruptive innovation to have emerged from the Internet over the last few years. OSH could become crucial to attaining the Fab City objectives of making cities locally produce 50% of what they consume in the future. Understanding Open-Source Hardware Business Models (OSHBMs) is important as this could address their long-term viability in the context of transitioning to a circular economy. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the dynamics of value creation in a local context bringing together research on OSHBMs and the middleground construct. Since cities and regions have been identified as an understudied level of open innovation, the city is used as the unit of analysis and the authors conducted a qualitative explorative case study of the city of Barcelona, home to over 1340 commons-based cooperative platforms. The findings on the values and risks important to stakeholders are presented in a framework describing 4 synergy-catalyzing stages. The authors also provide a guide showing how OSH initiatives can leverage growth with external stakeholders.