Motivation, Governance, and the Viability of Hybrid Forms in Open Source Software Development

Shah, Sonali

doi:10.1287/mnsc.1060.0553

Cited by 709 publications

(450 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This result firmly suggests that individuals with different perspectives on FOSS coalesce around FOSS projects, thus lending support to the findings of prior studies of FOSS developers' motivation, which have shown that FOSS projects are able to attract contributors with diverse motivations (Ghosh, 2005;Ghosh, et al, 2002;Hertel, et al, 2003;Lakhani and Wolf, 2005;Shah, 2006). In this respect, the dispersion of contributors' subjectivity across four discourses reflects the diversity of opinion characteristic of a community as heterogeneous as the FOSS community.…”

Section: Implications For Innovation Policy and Managementsupporting

confidence: 81%

Images of innovation in discourses of free and open source software

Dafermos

Eeten

2014

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In this study, we examine the relationship between innovation and free/open source software (FOSS) based on the views of contributors to FOSS projects, using Q methodology as a method of discourse analysis to make visible the positions held by FOSS contributors and identify the discourses encountered in the FOSS community. In specific, our analysis reveals four discourses: four ways of expressing oneself used by FOSS contributors, which, aside from certain commonalities, postulate fundamentally different conceptions of innovation. Whereas the dispersion of FOSS contributors' subjectivity across four different discourses is indicative of the diversity and heterogeneity of the FOSS community, their commonalities, however, demarcate a common ground that all discourses share: points of agreement include the negative effect of patents on innovation, the predominant role of end users over manufacturers in the innovation process and the embrace of FOSS licenses as a key enabler of innovation. In the conclusion, we outline some implications for innovation management and policy. Contents Introduction MethodologyResults: Unfolding the discourses Implications for innovation policy and management IntroductionResearch interest in software developed and distributed freely over the Internet by voluntary associations of hackers [1] known as free and open source software (FOSS) projects has been steadily increasing during the last ten years. Readers of First Monday (FM) are familiar with the topic. In fact, few journals have devoted as much attention to FOSS as FM, as can be seen from the publication of Eric Raymond's (1998) 'The cathedral and the bazaar,' which popularised the study of FOSS, and the October 2005 Special issue on open source (http://firstmonday.org/issue/view/212), to name but two milestones in research on the topic. Since, a plethora of works published in FM have highlighted the uniqueness of FOSS. Characteristically, Schweik and English (2007) remarked the striking divergence of the mode of governance of FOSS from that typically encountered in natural resource commons on account of the informal and non-hierarchical governance of the former, while Jordan (2009) emphasised the 'novel understanding of property' encapsulated in the development of FOSS, which effectively inverts 'property as exclusion to property as distribution'. The ever-increasing stream of contributions to the evolving FOSS literature attests to the fact that the scholarly attention devoted to FOSS has since only been increasing, often in directions that extent beyond the realm of software production. Indicatively, Scacchi (2010) concluded that FOSS projects 'are in many ways socio-technical experiments to prototype alternative visions of what innovative systems might be in the near future' on the basis of a mode of governance that effects a 'transformation in the marketplace of ideas and [in] the means of production from centralized authority with corporate enterprises, towards a more decentralized commons-based peer production'. On the same w...

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Section: Implications For Innovation Policy and Managementsupporting

confidence: 81%

Images of innovation in discourses of free and open source software

Dafermos

Eeten

2014

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“…Extensive research on why people contribute to open source projects has in short come to the following conclusions: motivations differ extensively between individuals (Juell- , the 'open' ideology fuels development (Shah, 2006), open source developers are both intrinsically (e.g. Ghosh, 1998) and extrinsically motivated (e.g.…”

Section: Ogd Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ghosh, 1998) and extrinsically motivated (e.g. Kuan, 2001), participation is often driven by factors similar to other social movements (Hertel et al, 2003), and the motivations varies over time (Shah, 2006). In contrast, research on motivation among open data users is scarce.…”

Section: Ogd Usersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Barriers to innovating with open government data: Exploring experiences across service phases and user types

Smith

Sandberg

2018

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Abstract. Open government data (OGD) can enable outbound open innovation (OI) that is beneficial to society. However, innovation barriers hinder OGD users from generating value. While previous studies have detailed a large number of such barriers, little is known of how different types of OGD users are affected, and when the barriers appear in their innovation processes. To this end, this paper describes a case study of distributed service development in the Swedish public transport sector. The contribution to extant research is twofold. Firstly, based on an inductive analysis, three OGD user archetypes are proposed: employees, entrepreneurs and hobbyists. Secondly, the study finds that the significance of distinct innovation barriers varies across phases of the services' lifecycles and depending on the OGD users' motivation, objective, pre-conditions and approach. Drawing on these insights, we propose that OGD initiatives aimed at facilitating outbound OI to a greater extent should address the barriers that appear during diffusion of innovations, the barriers that are not directly related to the OGD provision, and the barriers that are experienced by non-obvious OGD user groups.

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“…By fixing bugs and adding new features to the software, they benefit from their work themselves. Frequently, such an own-use motivation is the initial reason to start contributing to an open source project, but in the long run intrinsic motives such as fun and enjoyment become relevant (Shah 2006).…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Motives of Citizen Reporting Engagement: Self-Concern and Other-Orientation

2018

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In smart city contexts, voluntary citizen reporting can be a particularly valuable source of information for local authorities. A key question in this regard is what motivates citizens to contribute their data. Drawing on motivation research in social psychology, the paper examines the question of whether self-concern or otherorientation is a stronger driver of citizen reporting engagement. To test their hypotheses, the authors rely on a sample of users from the mobile application ''Zurich as good as new'' in Switzerland, which enables citizens to report damages in and other issues with the city's infrastructure. Data was collected from two different sources: motivation was assessed in an online user survey (n = 650), whereas citizen reporting engagement was measured by the number of reports per user from real platform-use data. The analysis was carried out using negative binomial regression. The findings suggest that both self-concern and other-orientation are significant drivers of citizen reporting engagement, although the effect of self-concern appears to be stronger in comparison. As such, this study contributes to a better understanding of what motivates citizens to participate in citizen reporting platforms, which are a cornerstone application in many smart cities.

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Motivation, Governance, and the Viability of Hybrid Forms in Open Source Software Development

Cited by 709 publications

References 37 publications

Images of innovation in discourses of free and open source software

Images of innovation in discourses of free and open source software

Barriers to innovating with open government data: Exploring experiences across service phases and user types

Exploring the Motives of Citizen Reporting Engagement: Self-Concern and Other-Orientation

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