Title: The link between incentives and product performance in open source development: an empirical investigation

Authors: Sujoy Chakravarty, Ernan Haruvy, Fang Wu

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. ' School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA. ' School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA

Abstract: In open source software development, users rather than paid developers engage in innovation and development without the direct involvement of manufacturers. This paradigm cannot be explained by the two traditional models of innovation, the private investment model and the collective action model (von Hippel and von Krogh, 2003). In order to bridge the gap between existing models and the open source phenomenon, we analyse data from a web survey of 160 open source developers. First, we empirically demonstrate that there is a common ground between the private and collective models where private returns and social considerations can coexist. Second, we explore the effect of incentives on the output of innovation – final product performance. The results show that social considerations and monetary rewards are significant in affecting different dimensions of product performance.

Keywords: open source software; incentives; altruism; software performance; software development; innovation; product performance; social considerations; monetary rewards.

DOI: 10.1504/GBER.2007.013698

Global Business and Economics Review, 2007 Vol.9 No.2/3, pp.151 - 169

Published online: 22 May 2007 *

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