EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ANTECEDENTS OF PERCEIVED CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH LINUX

Open Source Software (“OSS”) has attracted significant research interest but research has focused on the development process (“supply side”) of OSS leaving the “demand-side” of OSS relatively unexplored. Further, extant OSS research is lacking in empirical studies. In this study we fill the gap with an empirical analysis of antecedents of perceived customer satisfaction with Linux, the most popular OSS product. We used Ordered Logit technique to analyze a dataset collected through a survey of business-technology professionals. Our results suggest that perceived customer satisfaction with Linux is positively influenced by duration of use and the quality of third party support. We also found a strong relationship between perceived satisfaction with Linux and prevalence of other OSS products in the organization. Further, we found that perceived customer satisfaction with Linux is lower for large firms and higher when the largest distribution of Linux is used. Interestingly, internal IT support capability was found to have no significant effect on perceived customer satisfaction with Linux. Our results contribute to research by verifying traditional customer satisfaction models in an OSS context and also by extending these models to include unique aspects of OSS. On practice side, this research provides directions to the OSS community for achieving higher customer satisfaction

Engagement of Information Systems Professionals in Open Source Software Development

Open source (OS) development of software is becoming increasingly desirable for individuals and organizations alike. Organizations that heavily resisted this new way of developing software are now actively participating in this process. Participation of information systems (IS) professionals in the open source environment has been a focal point in this stream of research in information systems. The dissertation goes beyond participation and examines engagement of IS professionals in the open source environment. The concept of engagement facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between a person and a his or her work. The three essays in the dissertation examine three aspects of IS professional’s engagement in the open source domain: job engagement, platform engagement, and continued participation. The first essay, using the job characteristics model as a theoretical framework, explores the role of job characteristics in driving job engagement and job satisfaction in open source projects. The second essay examines factors that can influence IS professionals continued contribution to future activities of an open source development platform. Using the social exchange theory, the second essay examines how perceived justice of rewards in OS projects can impact IS professionals’ platform engagement and intention to participate in future platform activities. The third essay explores the role of external feedbacks in open source projects. Using the signaling theory, this essay examines how characteristics of external feedback can interact with motivations to influence continued participation intention. The three essays are expected to enrich the information systems literature by providing new insights on various factors that can enhance engagement of IS professionals in the open source domain. The essays also contribute to the IS literature by applying the job characteristics model, social exchange theory, and signaling theory in the context of open source development

An Investigation of the Impact of Open Source Software Support on its Market Share

Open source software (OSS) support creates major barriers to increases in its market share. Drawing on the relationship marketing theory, we develop and empirically test a model to examine the influence of OSS support on OSS market share. Using a survey data of 151 IT professionals working in the US, we find that OSS support positively influences its market share. It also indirectly influences OSS market share through OSS investment decision and need based use for OSS. The results of this study indicate that OSS support plays a central role in improving popularity of OSS. The study informs managers on developing strategies to market OSS based on support and costs

MANAGING USER RESISTANCE TO OPEN SOURCE MIGRATION

A large amount of resources and effort have been devoted to the development of open source software like Linux. The development of Linux as the most well-known open source software with graphical user interface and useful functionalities is expected to result in the high level of Linux adoption by individual users based on the technology adoption model. However, Linux has about one percent of the operating systems market for personal computers. User resistance to switch remains one of the major obstacles in any successful open source migration. Based on the integration of equity implementation model and technology adoption model, this study examines how users form their resistance and the effect of user resistance on the adoption of Linux by individual users for their personal computers. The findings show that the adoption intention is negatively influenced by user resistance to switch. This study discusses the role and effect of user resistance to switch based on the equity implementation model in comparison with the two main determinants of technology adoption. This study contributes toward advancing theoretical understanding of OSS migration and user resistance. The findings also offer OSS community and practitioners suggestion for promoting the use of OSS by individual users

Current issues and research trends on open-source software communities

Open source software (OSS) projects represent a new paradigm of software creation and development based on hundreds or even thousands of developers and users organised in the form of a virtual community. The success of an OSS project is closely linked to the successful organisation and development of the virtual community of support group. This paper reviews different fields and research topics related to the OSS communities such as collective intelligence, the structure of OSS communities, their success, communities as virtual organisations, motivation, shared knowledge, innovation and learning. The main challenges, results obtained, and the knowledge areas are detailed for each topi

A Relational View of Individual Participation in Online Communities of Practice: An Integrative Literature Review

This paper reviews prior research on individual participation in online CoPs. In particular, the paper examines how the concept of CoPs has been applied in IS and what theories have been applied to study knowledge sharing behaviours in online CoPs. Given inconsistent empirical findings derived from prior IS studies, the paper drew on literature on relationship marketing to re-conceptualize participation in a CoP as a contractual relationship between a member and the online community that evolves through a number of transitions. A conceptual framework was then developed to revisit prior empirical findings in relation to key antecedents and outcomes of individuals’ knowledge sharing in online environments. Review results suggest that there is a need to examine how individual, online CoPs and contextual factors may jointly affect individual participation in online CoPs through different intermediate processes and how an online member-community relationship may be formed and/or developed by different relational mediators

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

EFFECTS OF DEVELOPER COGNITIVE STYLE AND MOTIVATIONS ON INFORMATION SECURITY POLICY COMPLIANCE

Organizations are faced with information loss on a daily basis. Threats such as hacker attacks are mitigated by applyingpatches, improving encryption routines, closing security loop-holes in a program and keeping a constant vigil on virus andmalicious threats with up-to-date scanning techniques. Companies invest millions of dollars to keep such attacks at bay sincea loss of up-time to servers could cause a significant loss in customer revenue and thus result in catastrophic losses incustomer satisfaction and ultimately profits. Organizations that create or modify software try to deter threats to theirapplications by providing information security policies that provide guidelines to developers on what best practices need tobe adopted to make their applications safe and secure for customer consumption. This study presents a conceptual model forstudying how cognitive style impacts software developer motivations as they approach the task of complying withinformation security policies. The model is informed by the literature on information security awareness, ProtectionMotivation Theory, Kirton’s adaption-innovation theory and Herzberg’s motivation and hygiene theory

Virtual Social Identity Development for Customer Electronic Word-of-Mouth Participation

Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) plays a persuasive role in influencing consumers’ attitudes and purchase decision. There are many efforts to identify the effect of eWOM on the customers’ purchase decision. However, few studies on the intrinsic motivation of eWOM participation in online shopping malls have been published to date. The main goal of this study is to identify the factors that motivate customers to participate in eWOM and to suggest relevant strategies for leading customers’ eWOM participations. To accomplish this goal, we propose a structural model mainly based on social identity theory. In addition, customer citizenship behavior (CCB) which has been extended from organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is considered. And the effect of perceived extrinsic incentives such as; e-money or e-point on eWOM participation in the online shopping mall is contrasted with the effect of intrinsic motivation

The world wide web in modern marketing\u27s contribution to organisational performance

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the antecedents of organisational performance (OP), both financial and marketing, and the influence of holding a strategic market orientation (MO) where customer-base volatility is taken into account. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; A sample of 167 marketing organisations in Australia was surveyed to test the hypothesised model. Structural equation modelling was employed in the data analysis. Findings &ndash; Use of the world wide web (Web) reported by organisations in this study indicates that there is still separate use of the Web and that it has yet to be fully integrated into the marketing strategy of many organisations. The study finds that traditional marketing effort mediates the relationship between holding a MO and OP in terms of financial indicators. Research limitations/implications &ndash; A major limitation of this study is that it surveys organisations from many industries rather than selected industries. This tends to mask some of the possible outcomes. Practical implications &ndash; The findings in this study suggest that traditional and online elements of marketing effort each mediate the influence of holding a MO on OP, but differently. Innovation culture is found to influence both marketing practice and marketing performance, directly. A single measure of environmental turbulence &ndash; customer-base turbulence or churn &ndash; negatively affects marketing performance, and ultimately financial performance. Originality/value &ndash; A major contribution of this study is the examination of use of the Web in marketing effort and how this usage influences financial and marketing performance.<br /