Peer Production in the U.S. Navy: Enlisting Coase's Penguin

Abstract

Peer Production is an emerging model in the information age. It takes advantage of greatly reduced transaction costs enabled by the combination of a networked information economy and ubiquitous personal computing power. This thesis outlines why this new model is so significant to the U.S. Navy. This is done in part through modeling and simulation in ARENA. The model demonstrates how incomplete specification of agent talent and task difficulty adversely affect traditional firm production and cause both cost and schedule overruns as well as project failure. Modeling the peer production process demonstrates how a significant portion of these shortcomings are overcome in the new economic model. The model also quantifies the significant gains in efficiency, higher probability of success, increased rate of innovation, and reduced cost result from PP. Finally, we present a first look at how peer production can be systematically applied and reapplied successfully--through a stakeholder analysis and functional decomposition.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA514470

Entities

People

  • William E. Koszarek Iii

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • Business Administration
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Economic Models
  • Employment
  • Information Systems
  • Intellectual Property
  • Internet
  • Management Personnel
  • Operating Systems
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychology
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Web Browsers

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Systems Analysis and Design