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Information and communication technologies have became pervasive in people's lives and in this changing world education cannot remain anchored in old‐fashioned models which ignore the evolution through which society is going. This paper seeks to present the gamble made by the University of Alicante (Spain) on the promotion of open knowledge.

The educational environment cannot continue to be fixed, closed and isolated, where students – assuming a basically passive role – receive standardised teaching. It must consequently experience a fast and decisive transformation which allows it, amongst other things, to respond to the new challenge posed by society: the need for all of us to share the knowledge we generate, so that further progress can be made.

The Institutional Repository (RUA) and the OpenCourseWare of the University of Alicante (OCW‐UA) were conceived from the very beginning as related projects that could constitute consecutive phases in the open publication of knowledge. In this way the aim of presenting the promotion of open knowledge not as a series of discrete projects but as a global strategic gamble of the institution was achieved. In addition to the most visible educational benefits, this policy has had the virtue of favouring the assumption by the University of its role as an online provider of quality (scientific and teaching) content.

RUA is the storage place of all the teaching materials published by the University of Alicante's teaching staff, which are retrieved from OCW‐UA, while OCW‐UA serves as an organisational model of teaching content self‐archived by the teaching staff in RUA. The connection between the projects has allowed the presentation of the promotion of open knowledge as a global strategic gamble of the University, which has contributed to a greater acceptance by the teaching staff. This work is original in that it shows a successful experience of involvement by one university and its members in the promotion of open knowledge.

We analyze how entry order in a new field influences the stock market reaction to strategic alliances and acquisitions aimed at expanding firm boundaries. We argue that alliances would be more valued by investors at the early stages of a process of convergence between two markets, whereas acquisitions would be more valued in the later stages. Using a sample of alliances and acquisitions carried out by European telecom firms, our hypotheses have been confirmed.

This paper aims to evaluate the evolution of the organizational field in the Colombian coffee industry between 1960 and 2020 and explain how peripheral actors influenced institutional change.

The methods analyze historical processes from a hermeneutical and interpretative perspective. The authors used data collection techniques through interviews, archive data, publications and media reports, embracing an interdisciplinary and qualitative documentary approach. This approach helps the authors unravel the temporal dimensions of the historical discourse related to coffee and the involvement of various actors within organizational structures.

The authors found that, unlike the literature regarding the change in organizational fields, recently, within the coffee sector in Colombia, the institutional work of peripheral actors (small producers, local associative groups and coffee women, among others) is changing the field as follows: (1) women are changing traditional behaviors moving from hierarchical family structures and lack of gender awareness, to empowered, horizontal and sustained relationships, (2) indigenous people include rituals and other traditional practices in coffee production and (3) ex-guerrilla members are helping to strengthen the peace process implementation in Colombia through coffee production.

The authors did not conduct statistical or computational analysis to simulate the emergence of new organizational forms. Instead, the authors attempted to elucidate narratives and discourses that reflect the tensions between central and peripheral actors from a historical perspective.

This study seeks to help leaders and managers overcome processes or organizational change in which peripheral actors are crucial. From that perspective, allocating resources and capabilities can become more effective.

This paper offers a new perspective of change within organizational fields from the roles of peripheral actors, which are fundamental in change processes within organizational fields, especially in the global south, where tensions between elites and vulnerable people are familiar.