In this paper, we conceptualize Open Data ecosystems by analysing the major stakeholders in the UK. The conceptualization is based on a review of popular Open Data definitions and business ecosystem theories, which we applied to qualitative empirical data. Our work is informed by a combination of discourse analysis and a content analysis of in-depth interviews, undertaken during the summer of 2013. Drawing on the UK as a best practice example, we examine a set of structural business ecosystem properties: circular flow of resources, sustainability, demand that encourages supply, and dependence developing between suppliers, intermediaries, and users. We identify that gaps and shortcomings remain. Most prominently, demand is not yet fully encouraging supply and actors have yet to experience fully mutual interdependence.

With the rise of digital technologies, organizations are able to produce, process, and transfer large amounts of information at marginal cost. In recent years, these technological developments together with other macro-phenomena like globalization and rising distrust of institutions has led to unprecedented public expectations regarding organizational transparency. In this study I explore the ways in which organizations resolve the tension between a growing norm to share internal information with the public and their inherent preferences for informational control. Through developing the notion of transparency decoupling, I examine how organizations respond strategically to transparency expectations. Drawing on studies of "open data" transparency initiatives in NYC, London, and Berlin, I inductively carve out three modes of institutional information decoupling: (a) selecting the disclosed information to exclude parts of the data or parts of the audience; (b) bending the information in order to retain some control over its representative value; (c) orchestrating new information for a particular audience. The article integrates literature from New Institutional Theory and Transparency Studies in order to contribute to our understanding of how information sharing is realized in the interaction between organizations and their environment.

Predatory journals have emerged as an unintended consequence of the Open Access paradigm. Predatory journals only supposedly or very superficially conduct peer review and accept manuscripts within days to skim off publication fees. In this provocation piece, we first explain how predatory journals exploit deficiencies of the traditional peer review process in times of Open Access publishing. We then explain two ways in which predatory journals may harm the management discipline: as an infrastructure for the dissemination of pseudo-science and as a vehicle to portray management research as pseudo-scientific. Analyzing data from a journal blacklist, we show that without the ability to validate their claims to conduct peer review, most of the 639 predatory management journals are quite difficult to demarcate from serious journals. To address this problem, we propose open peer review as a new governance mechanism for management journals. By making parts of their peer review process more transparent and inclusive, reputable journals can differentiate themselves from predatory journals and additionally contribute to a more developmental reviewing culture. Eventually, we discuss ways in which editors, reviewers, and authors can advocate reform of peer review.

Given the excessive power of Google and other large technology firms, transparency and accountability have turned into matters of great concern for organization scholars. So far, most studies adopt either a causal or critical perspective on the relationship between the two concepts. These perspectives are pitted against each other but share some basic assumptions – a fact which limits organization theory’s ability to fully grasp the management of (digital) visibilities. To address these limitations, we therefore propose a third, constructive perspective on these concepts. A constructive perspective turns transparency and accountability from analytic resources into topics of inquiry, allowing organization scholars to study how people in and around organizations put them to work and with what consequences. We introduce sites of ethical contestation as a new methodological strategy to conduct surprising and unintuitive empirical research from a constructive perspective.