The aim of the research is to evaluate the actual phenomena of online
communities for software development and their potential expansion as
intermediary platform in open innovation processes. Consequently, the
present paper propose an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the
virtual communities of practice that drive the innovative development
of web applications. The driving research questions are: Which are the
preeminent characteristics of practice communities that can favor the
process of creation and realization of a web application? Do these
characteristics differ in the different phases of web-application
building project (ideation, design, realization and verify)? We adopted a
multiple case study research design. After a selection of communities
of practice related to the development of a web application, we obtained
a sample of 46 communities of practice. We classified them basing on
the different processes that support the different phases of the
innovation process in software development analyzing six important
characteristics for each one. The results of the empirical analysis
shows that best practices are: In reference to members' involvement
(strategies to attract and to permit to collaborate), the use of open
source projects or challenges as organizational and working models to
attract and to motivate community's members and strategies like
royalties concession, direct charging of participation task from the
community and fixed project deadline as form of incentives to be used;
In reference to the role of the community and of community members in
software development, the support from other developers, involvement of
professional developer and direct contact as form of strategies of
collaboration.