Research Program

The search in our project looks at the open source phenomenon both from the standpoint of the I.T. vendor and the prospective business customer.

We are conducting a series of studies considering the effect of open source software on the existing I.T. industry. The studies focus around two research questions:

1. What impact is it having (and will it have) on the relationship between traditional I.T. vendors and their business customers?
2. How extensive is the impact of open source software likely to be?

We are always eager to consider other topics of significance to Silicon Valley firms. Please contact us with suggestions.

Publications

The published (and work in progress) papers of the project are listed below, most recent first. Click on the title to see the abstract or to access the complete paper.

• Joel West and Jason Dedrick, “Scope and Timing of Deployment: Moderators of Organizational Adoption of the Linux Server Platform,” International Journal of IT Standards Research 4, 2 (July 2006).
• Joel West and Scott Gallagher, “Challenges of Open Innovation: The Paradox of Firm Investment in Open Source Software,” R&D Management, 36, 3 (June 2006).
• Siobhán O’Mahony and Joel West, “What makes a project open source? Migrating from organic to synthetic communities.” Academy of Management conference, Technology and Innovation Management division, Honolulu, August 2005.
• Joel West and Jason Dedrick, “The Effect of Computerization Movements Upon Organizational Adoption of Open Source,” Social Informatics Workshop: Extending the Contributions of Professor Rob Kling to the Analysis of Computerization Movements, Irvine, Calif., March 2005.
• Joel West and Scott Gallagher, “Open Innovation: The Paradox of Firm Investment in Open Source Software” Western Academy of Management, Las Vegas, March 2005.
• Stephen K. Kwan and Joel West, “A Conceptual Model for Enterprise Adoption of Open Source Software.” In Sherrie Bolin, ed., The Standards Edge: Open Season, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Sheridan Books, 2005, pp. 274-301.
• Joel West and Siobhán O’Mahony, “Contrasting Community Building in Sponsored and Community Founded Open Source Projects,” Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawai‘i International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, Hawaii (January 2005): 196c. DOI: 10.1109/HICSS.2005.166
• Stephen K. Kwan and Joel West, “Heterogeneity of IT Importance: Implications for Enterprise IT Portfolio Management,” Academy of Management conference, Organizational Communication and Information Systems division, New Orleans, La., August 2004.
• Jason Dedrick and Joel West, “An Exploratory Study into Open Source Platform Adoption,” Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawai‘i International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, Hawaii (January 2004): 80265b.
• Joel West, “How Open is Open Enough? Melding Proprietary and Open Source Platform Strategies,” Research Policy 32, 7 (July 2003): 1259-1285.
• Joel West and Jason Dedrick, “Open Source Standardization: The Rise of Linux in the Network Era,” Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 14, 2 (Summer 2001): 88-112.

We also have a complete list of paper abstracts.

© 2004-2006 Silicon Valley Open Source Research Project