Firms' Resource Deployment and Project Leadership in Open Source Software Development

Mario Schaarschmidt () and Harald Von Kortzfleisch
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Mario Schaarschmidt: University of Koblenz-Landau, Institute for Management, Universitaetsstr. 1, 56070 Koblenz, Germany
Harald Von Kortzfleisch: University of Koblenz-Landau, Institute for Management, Universitaetsstr. 1, 56070 Koblenz, Germany

International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), 2015, vol. 12, issue 02, 1-18

Abstract: When using the open source software (OSS), development model firms face the challenge to balance the tension between the integration of knowledge from external individuals and the desire for control. In our investigation, we draw upon a data set consisting of 109 projects with 912 individual programmers and 110 involved firms and show how those different projects are governed in terms of project leadership. Our four hypotheses show that despite the wish for external knowledge from voluntary programmers firms are relying on own resources or those from other firms to control a project, that projects with low firm participation are mainly led by voluntary committers, and that projects with high firm participation are mainly led by paid leaders. This research extends the dominating literature by providing empirical evidence in that area and helps to deepen our understanding of firm participation in OSS projects as a form of open innovation activity.

Keywords: Open innovation; open source; collaboration; project leadership; resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219877015500108

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