What's in a (Missing) Name? Status and Signaling in Open Standards Development

Tim Simcoe (), David Waguespack () and Lee Fleming ()
Additional contact information
Tim Simcoe: Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/timothy.simcoe/
David Waguespack: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/management/faculty/Waguespack.aspx
Lee Fleming: Harvard business School, http://www.people.hbs.edu/lfleming/

No 08-31, Working Papers from NET Institute

Abstract: How much are we influenced by an author's identity? If identity matters, is it because we have a ``taste for status" or because it offers a useful shortcut --- a signal that is correlated with the likely importance of their ideas? This paper presents evidence from a natural experiment that took place at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) --- a community of engineers and computer scientists who develop the protocols used to run the Internet. The results suggest that IETF participants use authors' identity as a signal or filter, paying more attention to proposals from high-status authors, and this has a surprisingly large impact on publication outcomes. There is little evidence of a “taste" for status.

JEL-codes: L1 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-ipr
Date: 2008-10, Revised 2008-10
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