Sometimes dominant design is established by small and new ventures, rather than by large corporations, as we would expect. This is the case of Arduino, an open source platform for building and prototyping electronics projects, that imposed itself as dominant design in the fast-growing field of the digital makers. In our presentation, we use Arduino as an exemplar case to challenge some conventional wisdoms and traditional ways of thinking in strategic management. Our findings show that organization design and organizational processes shape the new ventures strategy (rather than viceversa), and play a critical role in setting a new dominant design.

1. Organizing New Venture
For A Dominant Design
Gianni Lorenzoni (unibo)
Massimo Aliberti (unibo)
Alessandro Narduzzo (unibz)

2. Dominant design
Def: the product whose form and function have evolved
to become the accepted market standard
Conventional wisdom about DD:
1. DD is an outcome of an intended innovation strategy
(e.g. Platform leadership strategy)
2. DD is expression of the market power exerted by incumbents
(e.g. in the PC era: HW: Intel, SW: Microsoft DOS/Windows)
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

3. Arduino as an exemplar case
• … born at the Interactive Design Institute in Ivrea as an
educational project,
• by accident Arduino turns into a new venture,
• and unexpectedly it becomes one of the cornerstones
of the makers’ movement, and…
• Arduino imposes itself as a dominant design in the
electronics industry, in less than a decade
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

4. Our analysis shows that
strategy follows structure
a particular choice of product design, namely open source
hardware, also provides the framework:
• to solve most of the typical organizational design problems:
(i.e. resources coordination and integration, within and across
the organizational boundaries)
• to open to the involvement of a multiplicity of actors:
ð suppliers, complementors, co-opetitors
ð various users, makers, developers, and adopters that altogether
form the Arduino community, under the leadership of the Arduino
founding group
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

5. Data sources
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it
• First-hand data:
ð Four interviews with Arduino representatives, including two founders, senior
executives and R&D team, between 2015 and 2017
ð Field notes collected attending Rome Maker Faire in 2015, 2016 and 2017, Maker
Faire 2017 in San Mateo California, and co-organizing and attending together with
the local Arduino community local events to celebrate the Arduino Day 2016 and
2017
• Secondary data:
ð Arduino website, blog, forum, playground produced by Arduino community
ð Arduino official presentations (e.g. “Arduino Confidential”, 2011 by the founders)
ð Kickstarter webpage (with respect to Arduino-related projects)
ð Articles, reports and commentaries on specialized media (e.g. Wired, Makers
Magazine),
ð Commercial catalogues published by Arduino competitors
ð Official company documents by Arduino Srl, Arduino SA and Arduino LLC
ð Repository of Arduino source code on Github

6. The theoretical framework
• Reconceptualizing organizational design (Weick 2004):
“the progression in designing from purpose (a binding intent), to
principles (how people will conduct themselves), to people (who
needs to participate), to concept (the set of relationships among
people that allow for the pursuit of purpose in accordance with the
principles), to structure (the charter that creates a legal entity),
finally to practice (deliberations, acts and decisions within the
community that animate and update the design)”
• Mechanisms drive the creation of emerging fields, leading
to new markets (Santos and Eisenhardt 2009):
1. Claiming the market
2. Demarcating the market
3. Controlling the market
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

7. Claiming the market
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it
Mechanisms for
claiming the market
Description
Adopt templates - “Arduino like Linux for OSH”
Signal leadership - Behaving as a market leader, despite the marginal position, and
leveraging from other roles (i.e. scientists, excellent technical skills).
- Active involvement in makers’ events like Maker Faire.
Disseminate stories - Banzi’s talks and systematic presence with local Arduino communities.
- Exploitation of “word of mouth” by users through Playground, Forum,
Blog, Developers mailing list.
Others:
Making sense of
the field and its
identity.
- Arduino searched for potential users and application initially with the
users’ community and generally the “interaction design” arena
- “Arduino is You”
- “The emphasis is on simple and streamlined user experience. It is
designed with beginners and non-technical people in mind”
- “Make projects, not platforms”
- “Experts are not the best advisors when you want to make tools for
beginners”

8. Demarcating the market
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it
Mechanisms for
demarcating the
market
Description
Revenue-Sharing
Agreement
- Licencing: Arduino sets royalties at 10% of the wholesale price
Antileader
Positioning
- “If you’re not prepared for someone else to clone your work, don’t share it
online”
- “If you are five people from three different countries, you are a multinational
company”
Relationships with:
complementors
the user
community
clones and
compatible
products
- Users prefer original Arduino to clones
- Users enthusiasm, support and trust strengthen Arduino uniqueness
- “Good hardware, good software, good explanation and generous users make
a great project”
g) “The official Arduino products are the only ones licensed to use the word
“Arduino” in their name. Other products may be labelled as “Arduino-
compatible” or “for Arduino”, but these are not a part of the platform itself
and don’t fund continuing work on the project. If you’re making a product and
wondering what to call it, we’ve added some guidelines to the FAQ.”

9. Controlling the market
Mechanisms for
controlling the
market
Description
Increased
coverage
- Agreement with chain of resellers (e.g. Radio Shack) to massively reach the
potential users.
- Huffington Post: “What Barack Obama Could Learn From Maker Faire”
- MechaRoboShop (Arduino distributor in Japan), reports from the Maker
Faire in Tokyo: “it was only opened 6 hours, but over 600 people showed up,
my booth was constantly crowded with people asking questions about
Arduino”
Others:
Controlling by
including.
Controlling by
following users
needs.
- Anybody can change, use, clone, improve the board and the IDE.
- Arduino legitimates coopetitors, compatibles and even clones, by listing
them and their features in its website
- “Respect the intelligence of the beginner”
- “Including people is hard (but necessary)”

10. …by accident Arduino turned into a new venture
• “We manufactured 200 copies, and the school ordered 50 of them.
We had no idea how we'd sell the other 150. We didn't think we
would.”
• “We were in right place at the right time, but we didn’t know it”
• “The proximity made the Arduino a quick achievement, a solution in
search of problems beyond the wall of the Institute”
[Banzi, 2008]
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

11. Arduino eco-system
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

12. Arduino community: 4 relational resources
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

13. Arduino as a system of OSH (boards) and OSS (IDE)
• “The Arduino that fuels the Maker Movement is the IDE provided by
Arduino.cc. […] Arduino is the IDE, not the PCB!”
• “The Arduino IDE is a priceless resource that provides value to a universe of
Makers and Inventors. Arduino brand boards are an overpriced commodity
that we support because it funds the continued development IDE.”
• […] And when I hear this hot new Internet of Things board is Arduino
compatible I think programming via the IDE, not the mechanical layout of the
pins. You can build Arduino projects without Arduino brand boards but you
cannot build Arduino Projects without the Arduino IDE. The Arduino
community could move forward without another board ever shipped with the
Arduino Logo on the silkscreen. But remove the Arduino IDE and there is no
longer Arduino.
[Various users’ excerpts]
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it

14. Sources: Massimo Banzi – “Arduino Confidential”, 2011
Arduino imposes itself as a dominant design
“we have estimated that there is at least one
derivative or clone board per every official one”

15. Conclusions
• New ventures are usually focused on business models,
product development and validation, customer acquisition
and satisfaction:
ð organization design is given low priority
• On this respect Arduino is not different, but…
• Arduino decision for OSH (product design choice)
significantly affected the organizational design by
providing a solution to most of the typical organizational
design problems: (i.e. resources coordination and
integration, within and across the organizational
boundaries)
alessandro.narduzzo@unibz.it