Perceptions of library and information science community towards open source software adoption in libraries of Oman

This paper undertake a focus group research approach to investigate the perceptions of LIS community towards open source software adoption in libraries of Oman. The motivation of the study comes as a result of E-Oman strategy to uplift the information and communication technology services in Oman. The focus group approached applied in this study was carried out by means of inviting participants from seven institutions in Oman, to participate in a workshop about OSS adoption in libraries. During the workshop, focus groups were established. After the workshop, each group participates in responding to their perception towards OSS adoption in libraries. The results of their responses were analyzed. It was discovered that there are lack of awareness and readiness toward adoption of open source software in libraries of Oman

The impact of commercial open source software on proprietary software producers and social welfare

Purpose: A growing number of commercial open source software, based on community open source, appears in many segments of the software market. The purpose of this study is to investigate how commercial open source software affects the pricing (market share or profit) of proprietary software producer, consumer surplus and social welfare. Design/methodology: To analyze the impact of commercial open source software on proprietary software producer, this study constructs two vertical-differentiation models: the basic model considers proprietary software only competing with community open source software, and its extended one considers proprietary software competing with both community and commercial open source software. Findings: This study mainly finds that the presence of commercial open source software can lead to the decrease of the software price and profit for proprietary software producer, while the consumer surplus and social welfare will be increased. However, it does not necessarily cause the decline in the market share for proprietary software producer. Originality/value: The main contribution of this study is to examine the effect of commercial open source software on the competitive strategies of proprietary software producer, consumer surplus and social welfarePeer Reviewe

Generating Value Through Open Source: Software Service Market Regulation and Licensing Policy

In the software industry, commercial open-source software vendors have recognized that providing services to help businesses derive greater value in the implementation of open source–based systems can be a profitable business model. Moreover, society may greatly benefit when software originators choose an open-source development strategy as their products become widely available, readily customizable, and open to community contributions. In this study, we present an economic model to study how software licensing attributes affect a software originator’s decisions, aiming to provide policy makers with insights into how welfare-improving, open-source outcomes can be incentivized. We show that when a competing contributor is apt at reaping the benefits of software development investment, a less restrictive open source license (e.g., Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD style) can improve welfare. On the other hand, when the originator is better at leveraging investment and service costs are high, a more restrictive license (e.g., General Public License, or GPL style) can be best for social welfare even when a contributor can cost-efficiently develop the software. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0726

Products, Platforms, and Open Innovation: Three Essays on Technology Innovation

High technology industries, where IT artifacts are core to the business model of a firm, are marked by a high level of market competition and uncertainty. Firms within these industries are constantly evolving at a swift pace. Products and services developed in these industries have the shortest life cycle from product development to maturity, compared to those developed in other industries. According to a 2015 KPMG report, products and services in the high technology industry have an average maturity life cycle of 0.5 - 5 years, which is the shortest among all sectors (KPMG, 2015). Value generation and capture from these products and services must happen in a shorter duration compared to those from other industries. Imitation of products and services in these industries is also rampant, diminishing opportunities to generate value from innovative products and services. According to extant research, imitation among vendors in the IT sector is widespread, and firms mimic direct competitors in the introduction and withdrawal of products and services (Ruckman et al., 2015; Rhee et al., 2006). While the inherent nature of products developed in the IT industry and the associated incremental innovation leads to better performance gains, these gains erode quickly via imitation from firms competing in the same domain (Ethiraj et al., 2008). For many firms, these issues lead to a shift in their revenue generation model. Rather than appropriating the value from direct sales of products and services, firms have slowly started opting for innovation strategies that allow rent-seeking through opening up the business and revenue models of the firm. These strategies may include but are not limited to, adopting open standards for their products and services, establishing platform business models and engaging in open innovation. In this thesis, I assess these three innovation strategies and their value to a firm in terms of product and services and related value performance. In the first essay of this thesis, I start by examining the lifecycle of products in information technology-intensive firms, which is deemed to be shorter compared to other industries. I call these products complex assembled digital products (CADP). In the product innovation literature, the emergence of a dominant design configuration in a product category is seen as the start of a technological lifecycle that allows winners of the industry to appropriate long-term returns through incremental innovation. In the context of a complex assembled digital product, a dominant design will manifest itself as a single dominant design configuration or a narrow set of configurations that represent a majority of the products manufactured in a product category (Tushman & Murmann, 1998; Cecere et al., 2015). However, in technology-intensive firms, two challenges need further exploration. Firstly, due to the pace of innovation in technology-intensive industries, it is highly likely that a dominant design configuration never emerges (Srinivasan et al., 2006). Secondly, due to the modular nature of the products, even if a dominant design is achieved, it is achieved at the configurational level. It manifests itself as the set of components that achieves dominance in a product configuration (Murmann & Frenken, 2006). In the first essay, I examine the evolutionary attributes of the components of a CADP, which enable the components to become and remain part of the dominant design configuration of the product for a longer duration. I model the entry and survival of a component in a dominant design configuration using three evolutionary attributes: (1) pleiotropy of the component, (2) openness of the standard supporting the component, and (3) innovation source of the component. Pleiotropy as a construct is adapted from evolutionary biology and defined as the number of functionalities supported by a component. The standard supporting a component can be open or proprietary. The innovation source can be internal to the industry or external. I empirically test my hypotheses using a rich, longitudinal dataset of TV models spanning 15 years (2002-2016). The results show that components that have higher pleiotropy and that are supported by open standards not only have a higher chance of being selected into the dominant design configuration of TVs but also remain in the TV market for a longer time. However, while components developed through endogenous innovation efforts were nearly four times more likely to enter the dominant design configuration of TVs, their longevity was not significantly different from that of the components sourced exogenously. In the first essay, I look at how adopting components with specific sets of attributes allows firms to win a product market and appropriate value for a long duration from product development. In the second essay, I shift my focus from a product-based business model to a platform business model as an innovation strategy to achieve a competitive advantage. In recent years we have observed the emergence of platform businesses across domains of information technology-intensive industries (van Alystyne and Parker 2016). Firms are either completely shifting to platform business models or starting to include platform business models as part of their business strategy portfolios. Newer firms in these industries are more likely to adopt a platform business model as the core model for value generation and value capture. Seven of the ten most valuable companies in the world have opted for a platform business model as part of their overall business strategy (Cusumano et al., 2019). However, not all firms adopting the platform business model succeed in dominating the market. An exploratory study examined the success of platform businesses in terms of the number of years the firm remained in business. Taking a 20 years dataset of the firms in US markets, it was observed that only 43 out of 252 platform firms flourished are still active (Yoffie et al., 2019). Most of the surviving firms have to spend a considerable amount of resources in incentivizing the stakeholders of the platform, R&D, and marketing activities to stay relevant in the market (Cusumano, 2020). In Essay Two, I investigate the effect of a platform innovation on a firm’s performance under competitive threats. As argued earlier, technology-intensive firms operate in an ever-changing environment where competition is continuously evolving and mimicking the products of the focal firm. This constantly evolving product market competition is inherent in high technology industries. While product market competition encourages the overall pace of innovation as seen in technology-intensive industries, we are not aware of its effect on value generated by the firms operating in those industries. In the second Essay, I model the effect of product market competition on a firm’s performance. I look at how adopting a platform business model mitigates the effect of product market competition on a firm’s value generation. I use a machine learning-based firm classification method to measure the business model adopted by a firm. I extracted data from 10-K annual reports of the sample firms and classified the firms as platform or non-platform based on the supervised classification of 10-K annual reports of the firm. Using a 20-year panel of the firm’s financial data and their business classification, I explore the effect of a platform business model on a firm’s performance under high product market competition. My results suggest that adopting a platform business model can be an effective business strategy in delivering better value in general and under high market competition in particular. A third innovation strategy that has found favor with firms in recent years to build a competitive advantage over rivals is engaging in open innovation. Open innovation is defined as “a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology” (Chesbrough, 2003). In the context of information technology-intensive firms, open innovation manifests itself in many ways. In recent years, for-profit firms have started engaging with open-source communities to develop products and services on social coding platforms like GitHub. According to my investigation, 41 of the top 100 firms by market valuation have a direct presence on GitHub and actively develop their products with support from open-source developer communities. Opening up open software products and services for the world is another way that allows for faster development and propagation of products across user and developer communities (Khan, 2018). Firms also sponsor open source community developed products and regularly sponsor summer coding schools and hackathons (Mitchell, 2012). These open innovation events have shown promise in the collaborative development of products and services (Tereweisch and Xu, 2008). Firms appropriate rents by selling complementary services for the products they are developing as open-source. In his famous 1997 book, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” Eric Raymond coined the term “Cathedral” model of software development to represent the closed sourced, hierarchical and proprietary model of software development and “Bazaar” to represent the open-source, free and equality based software development model (Raymond, 1997). However, there is limited empirical evidence to suggest that firms create and capture value on open innovation platforms like GitHub (West et al., 2014). We do know that firms have started selective revealing of their accumulated knowledge and started engaging with open source communities (Fosfuri et al., 2008; Henkel et al., 2014; Alexy et al., 2018). In the third Essay, I investigate the effect of open-source engagement on the economic outcomes of a firm. More specifically, I look at how engagement on the open-source platform and intensity of that engagement influence the financial performance of a firm. To investigate the influence of open-source innovation on a firm’s financial performance, I created a data set containing all continuous open-source engagements of firms in high technology sectors. I collected this data from multiple sources, including GitHub, 10-K reports, and a search of innovation contests organized by firms. I then matched this data set with the financial information of the firms. I employed the generalized synthetic control method (GSynth) to estimate the model. I estimated the dynamic panel data regression model to measure the influence of open-source engagement intensity on financial performance. Additionally, I also investigated the heterogeneity in the effect of open-source engagement on the financial performance of the firm using the random causal forest. My results suggest that open-source engagement and its intensity positively influence the financial performance of a firm. The effects are heterogeneous and based on the absorptive capacity of the firm, market competition, and other environmental factors. I explore and discuss the implications of my findings on open-source engagement choices by firms. Finally, I conclude this dissertation with the findings of my essays and their implications on information technology-intensive firms. I provide additional details about my studies in the Appendices. The Appendices also highlight the additional analysis done during the research to test the robustness of the results. Overall, this dissertation has broader implications for research and practice alike. There are opportunities for future research and investigation into various innovation strategies adopted by firms in high technology industries. This research also provides directions for applying novel research methods, like the generalized synthetic control method and machine learning algorithms, in IS research

Markkinointi strategian tasolla avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoyrityksessä

Ohjelmistoliiketoiminta on monilla mittareilla yksi nopeimmin kasvavista liiketoiminnan alueista eikä kasvulle näy loppua. Digitalisaation myötä niin yritys- kuin kuluttajajärjestelmien merkitys on muuttunut niin, että yritystoimintaa on lähes mahdotonta harjoittaa ilman sitä tukevia ohjel mistoja ja järjestelmiä. Tämä kehitys on muuttanut myös ohjelmistokehitystä moniin eri suuntiin. Kun markkinoille ilmestyy uutta tarjoomaa jatkuvalla syötöllä, niin liiketoiminnan vaatimusten uskoisi kasvavan samaa tahtia. Ohjelmistoliiketoiminnan kantava voima on innovatiivisuus sekä kriittinen ajattelu. Nämä edellä mainitut ovat olleet omiaan edesauttamaan avoimeen lähdekoo diin perustuvaa ohjelmistokehitystä, jonka suosio on varsinkin yritysjärjestelmien pohjana kasva nut 2000-luvun alusta alati kiihtyvää tahtia. Avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoliiketoiminta perus tuu luotettavuuden, yhteisöllisyyden ja ilmaisuuden periaatteisiin. Nämä kolme teemaa asettavat avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoyrityksen liiketoiminnalle, ja erityisesti markkinoinnin strategi alle haasteita. Ohjelmistoliiketoiminnalle ominainen tuoteorientoitunut liiketoimintamalli onkin saanut rinnalleen suhdeorientoituneempaa toimintaa, jonka johdosta ala on pienimuotoisessa mur roksessa, mitä tulee markkinoinnin suunnitteluun, strategiaan ja toteutukseen. Näin ollen, mark kinoinnin teoriat kuten suhdemarkkinointi, perinteinen markkinointi, arvoajattelu sekä brändin ja yhteisön johtaminen – markkinointistrategiasta puhumattakaan, ovat siirtyneet lähemmäksi tar kastelun keskiötä, varsinkin avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoyrityksissä. Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastellaan avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoyrityksen, ja yleisesti ohjelmis toyritysten markkinoinnin toimintoja, ja sitä miten käytäntö ilmenee strategian tasolla. Markki nointiosastot ovat ohjelmistoyrityksissä aliarvostetussa asemassa, ja yleinen ymmärrys liiketoi minnalle keskeisten markkinointiteemojen osalta on kyseenalaista. Tarkastelu rajoittuu aiem massa tieteellisessä tutkimuksessa esiin nostettuihin keskeisiin markkinoinnin teemoihin, sekä tutkimushaastattelujen perusteella löydettyihin ydinasioihin. Tutkielma on toteutettu laadullisena tutkimuksena. Tutkimus on teorian osalta jaettu avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistojen sekä -liiketoiminnan käsittelyyn, ja markkinoinnin teorian tarkaste luun markkinoinnin johtamisen ja markkinointistrategian paradigmoihin pohjautuen. Aineisto ke rättiin puolistrukturoiduin teemahaastatteluin, ja haastatteluja oli neljä kappaletta. Tutkimustuloksien perusteella on todennettavissa, että ohjelmistoliiketoiminnassa yleisesti val lalla oleva tuoteorientoituneisuus vie huomiota markkinoinnin strategiselta toteutukselta, ja mark kinoinnin roolia yhtenä yrityksen liiketoiminnan avaintoimintona kyseenalaistetaan. Avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistoyrityksissä tilanne on kehittymässä markkinoinnin teemoille suotuisam paan ja niitä paremmin huomioivaan suuntaan, mutta murroksen voidaan todeta olevan vasta ke hitysvaiheessa. Painopiste strategian tasolla on yhä mitattavien lyhyen aikavälin toimintojen tar kastelussa, ei niinkään pitkän aikavälin suunnittelussa. Avainsanat: Markkinointistrategia, markkinoinnin johtaminen, brändi, yhteisö, avoimen lähde koodin ohjelmistoliiketoiminta, tuoteorientoituneisuus, suhdeorientoituneisuus

Essays on Operational Problems in Digital Economy

In this dissertation, I investigate operational issues in the context of online social networks and digital economy. The first essay analyzes the phenomenon of open technology in the context of resource allocation. In this study, based on evidence from prior literature and current business practices, I develop optimal control models to determine the optimal extent of technology openness and firm’s effort levels for maintaining an existing technology and developing a newer version of the technology. I derive and discuss important insights and shed light on the business practices of major technology firms. In the second essay, I develop a data-driven prescriptive framework for conducting an influencer marketing campaign on online social networks. Influencer marketing involves hiring influencers to promote products on behalf of a firm. The effectiveness of an influencer marketing campaign depends on choosing the right set of influencers for seeding and scheduling of ads on social media platforms. I first develop an optimization model to select influencers and then propose a model to schedule their posts on social media. Next, I develop a polynomial time heuristic that provides a near-optimal solution for selecting influencers. Next, using actual data from a popular social network, I demonstrate the superior performance of our selection model against current industry practices. Finally, the third essay empirically analyzes the effects of social media content created by influencers on audience engagement. In particular, I focus on the tone of an influencer’s content, an important emotional facet that plays a vital role in determining whether an audience engages with the content. Our results demonstrate that the tone of social media content affects the engagement levels of an influencer with the audience. In addition, the findings from this study establish the moderating role of an influencer’s popularity and the tone of related brands on the relationship between an influencer’s tone and engagement. The results of these essays provide prescriptive solutions that are easy to implement and several important managerial insights

Disseny d'un model d'avaluació de resultats de l'activitat de màrqueting per a empreses competint al mercat català i amb relació contractual amb els seus clients

L’objectiu de la tesi doctoral és el de desenvolupar un model que permeti valorar de forma objectiva les actuacions en matèria de màrqueting portades a terme per una organització. Aquest model està constituït per un conjunt de variables descriptives i quantitatives, anomenades variables de control, juntament amb una metodologia de càlcul i un sistema d’indicadors integrat que facilita la traçabilitat de les inversions de màrqueting i explicita la relació causa-efecte entre aquestes i el valor generat per a l’organització. El model s’utilitza per a valorar dades reals d’organitzacions que operin al mercat català i que compleixin la condició de basar la relació amb els seus clients en un model contractual (com veurem més endavant, és inviable aplicar un model comú per a tot tipus d’empresa). L’objectiu, doncs, és la valoració de l’acompliment dels seus objectius en relació als seus actius de mercat (marca i valor de client) i la creació d’un model específic, no generalitzable, per a aquest tipus d’empreses. Un segon objectiu d’aquest treball és l’anàlisi de les principals publicacions especialitzades referents des d’un punt de vista global i local, proposant en primer lloc una terminologia clara en relació a l’activitat de màrqueting, l’acompliment dels seus objectius i la conceptualització d’actius de mercat, i analitzant, en segon, l’impacte d’aquests àmbits i la seva evolució en els últims quinze anys. Alguns estudis previs (Llonch et al., 2002; Ambler i Xiucun, 2003; entre d’altres) es centren a comparar empreses per sectors, funcionalitats i països. És probable, com apunta Llonch et al. (2002) al fer això, que casuístiques atribuïbles a diferències geogràfiques i nacionals es tractin erròniament com a empresarials. A tal efecte, aquest estudi elimina la variabilitat per país i sector (parcialment, aquest darrer), proposant un model acotat, tal com recomanen Ambler et al., (2001), Llonch et al (2002), entre d’altres, que pugui servir de referència en la metodologia i en la validesa conceptual, i no tant en els resultats del model en un context més genèric. Pauwels (2009) demostra la relació entre la creació d’un model predefinit de variables i la millora del càlcul de l’eficiència en la despesa en màrqueting, pel que la creació d’aquest model integrat té l’objectiu d’esdevenir una eina de Gestió del Rendiment Corporatiu (GRC, en endavant1) (Bauer, 2004) aplicada a la gestió de màrqueting i els seus actius. Aquesta particularització del GRC rep el nom de Gestió del Rendiment de Màrqueting (GRM, en endavant2) (Ambler, 2000) i el seu objectiu és el d’augmentar la usabilitat i faciliti la generació d’informació per a la presa de decisions de la línia directiva de les organitzacions. L’abast de la tesi és el de crear el model des d’una perspectiva d’avaluació de l’activitat de màrqueting per part de la línia directiva, i no pas el desenvolupament informàtic d’una eina de suport a la presa de decisions ja que això, com apunten diversos autors (Dover, 2004; Schiff, 2008) i es tractarà amb més profunditat en el capítol 5, implicaria un nivell de personalització per cada empresa que no és objectiu d’aquesta tesi.The thes is aims to develop a practical model to asses m arketing perform ance within an organization. The model is basically structured around control metrics both from a qualitative and quantitatve approach, together with an integrated system of key performance indicators that enables marketing accountability through different organisational divisions, thus stating a solid cause/effect relationship between marketing activities and the value created for the organisation. The aformentioned model is used to assess marketing activites for catalan com panies with a contract-based customer relationship. Final assessment includes also a dynamic valuation of the company's market as sets . A second objective of the thes is is to review the current state of the art of marketing assessment literature from specialized journals both from a global and a local pers pective, defining a comprehensive list of related terms about marketing performance measurement, market-asset description and valuation and an accurate analysis about its evolution throughout the last 15 years.Postprint (published version