Geographic Allocation of OSS Contributions: The Role of Institutions and Culture

Sebastian v. Engelhardt () and Andreas Freytag ()
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Sebastian v. Engelhardt: Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration

No 2009-051, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: We analyze the impact of institutional and cultural factors on the supply side of open source software (OSS). OSS is a privately provided public good: it is marked by free access to the software and its source code, and is developed in a public, collaborative manner by thousands of volunteers as well as profit-seeking firms. Our cross-country study shows that a culture characterized by interpersonal trust and self-determination/fulfillment values has a positive impact on OSS activities and the number of developers. The supply side of OSS also benefits from the enforcement of intellectual property rights. A low degree of regulation and openness towards scientific progress has a positive impact on the number of OSS developers, but the latter not on the number of active or core developers.

Keywords: Open source software; Institutions; Culture; Social capital; Individualism; Intellectual property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 L17 L86 O34 Z13 Z19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-07-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ict, nep-ipr, nep-pr~ and nep-soc
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Published as "Geographic Allocation of OSS Contributions: The Role of Institutions and Culture", in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 95 (2013), 90-110.

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-051

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