21,219 research outputs found
Firm Assets and Investments in Open Source Software Products
No full textOpen source software (OSS) has recently emerged as a new way to organize innovation and product development in the software industry. This paper investigates the factors that explain the investment of profit-oriented firms in OSS products. Drawing on the resource-based theory of the firm, we focus on the role played by pre-OSS firm assets both upstream and downstream, in the software and the hardware dimensions, to explain the rate of product introduction in OSS. Using a self-assembled database of firms that have announced releases of OSS products during the period 1995-2003, we find that the intensity of product introduction can be explained by a strong position in software technology and downstream market presence in hardware. Firms with consolidated market presence in proprietary software and strong technological competences in hardware are more reluctant to shift to the new paradigm. The evidence is stronger for operating systems than for applications. The fear of cannibalization, the crucial role of absorptive capacity, and complementarities between hardware and software are plausible explanations behind our findings.Product Introduction, Open Source Software, Absorptive Capacity
The Birth of a New Industry: Entry by Start-ups and the Drivers of Firm Growth. The Case of Encryption Software
No full textThe paper analyses the birth of the Encryption Software Industry (ESI), a new niche in the software industry. Using a Chandlerian perspective, this work reports the main facts about firm entry and growth, with a particular focus on start-up strategies and actions. Since scale economies do not play a major role in ESI, the paper investigates the different sources of firm competitive advantages. This work shows that innovation and product differentiation, along with investments in co-specialised assets, are variables strongly correlated to young firm probability to survive and grow. In so doing, we have collected highly detailed information on product introduction, US patents granted, worldwide alliances and biographical data of firm founders.Entry, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Software.
Firm specialisation and growth. A study of the european software industry.
No full textThis paper analyses the process of growth and restructuring of 38 large European and US software firms during the period 1984-1992. Since the end of the 1960s, an independent software industry has emerged in the US and in Europe stimulated by technological and institutional change. Particularly, the diffusion of small computers and local area networks during the 1980s is largely responsible for the high growth rate of software market compared with other information technology segments. Moreover, software is a pervasive technology in that it tends to be used in all economic sectors. This has spurred the entry of many new firms and vertical disintegration of software activities from computer hardware manufacturing. In the 1980s a wave of M&As, joint ventures and corporate restructuring (new subsidiaries, reorganisations of divisions, etc.) took place in this industry. This paper aims to analyse the objectives of these operations (exploitation of new market opportunities or new joint research opportunities) and their directions (diversification or specialisation).
Comparative Analysis of Organizational Forms in the Software Industry and Legal Services
No full textLaw firms are expected to be controlled by the workers because given the difficulty of monitoring labor, the transaction cost would be very high and the essential human capital investment would be lacking in a form controlled by the capital suppliers. Expectations are confirmed by the data. However, following the same reasoning one can easily suggest that software firms should also be controlled by the labor suppliers given the similar difficulty of monitoring labor and essential human capital. As in a law firm, the software firm uses very generic capital such as offices, computers and programming languages. Moreover, the human capital of the software developer is indispensable and highly firm specific. While we observe widespread worker control in terms of partnerships in legal service industry, the majority of the software firms are not controlled by the labor suppliers: instead they are controlled by the capital suppliers.Organizational forms, Asset specificity
Firm Growth in Advanced Stages of Economic Transition: Evidence from Slovak Industry
No full textThis article analyzes the reaction of firms to transition in adjusting firm size. The author offers an empirical analysis in the context of the firm-growth model with emphasis on the presence of ownership and corporate-structure effects.There is no evidence for a general firm-growth/firm-size relationship. On the other hand, the author finds evidence that firm growth is a function of size for firms of a particular type. Specifically, there is an inverse growth-size relationship for privately owned joint-stock companies. Examining the character of these effects, the author concludes that their character is transitory: It corresponds to events related to exogenous settings of economic privatization and the economic restructuring process rather than tangible ownership or corporate-governance effects.firm growth; firms; transition; ownership; industry; Slovak Republic
Cultural Variation in the Theory of the Firm
No full textThis paper presents a model of the firm that includes the possibility of firm and employee-on-the-job decision making based on alternatives to profit and utility maximization. Such alternatives are relevant and significant when explaining firm activity in cultural environments in which self interest is not considered to be a primary force driving human behavior. Three types of firms are defined and their properties compared: the Western firm, the Japanese firm, and the clan. The third is a combination of the first two. JEL Categories: D21, Z19Culture, firm, decision making
An empirical look at software patents
No full textU.S. legal changes have made it easier to obtain patents on inventions that use software. Software patents have grown rapidly and now comprise 15 percent of all patents. They are acquired primarily by large manufacturing firms in industries known for strategic patenting; only 5 percent belong to software publishers. The very large increase in software patent propensity over time is not adequately explained by changes in R&D investments, employment of computer programmers, or productivity growth. The residual increase in patent propensity is consistent with a sizeable rise in the cost effectiveness of software patents during the 1990s. We find evidence that software patents substitute for R&D at the firm level; they are associated with lower R&D intensity. This result occurs primarily in industries known for strategic patenting and is difficult to reconcile with the traditional incentive theory of patentsPatents
Codified-Tacit and General-Specific Knowledge in the division of labour among firms. A study of the Software Industry
No full textThis paper addresses the organisation and codification of knowledge in the software industry. It analyses various economic incentives to codification, including the need to improve the productivity and quality of software production processes and to access inter-firm collaborations. The paper examines the experience of four Italian software firms specialised in software packages and services. It compares their capabilities, the main sources of tacit knowledge, their specific incentives to invest in knowledge codification, their usage of formal software development methodologies and quality control systems. Finally, the paper analyses two distinct technological collaborations that two of these firms have recently established.
Firm Culture and Leadership as Firm Performance Predictors: a Resource-Based Perspective
No full textIn this study, we tested part of the resource-based view of the firm by examining two 'soft' resources, firm culture and top leadership, as predictors of 'hard' or bottom-line firm performance.Transformational top leadership was found to predict firm performance directly while the link between firm culture and firm performance was indirect: via transformational top leadership.Firm culture was operationalized as the employees' views about the degree of optimization of four organizational practices (job autonomy, external orientational, interdepartmental orientation, and human resource orientation).We conclude that, rather than strong cultures, firms need best organizational practices and transformational leadership.Organizational culture;Leadership firm performance;Resource-based theory of the firm
Intra-Firm Adoption Decisions
No full textThe subject of this paper is intra-firm adoption decisions, a relatively unexplored research area in the marketing literature. In particular, we investigate which factors influence the intra-firm adoption decisions regarding the common European currency of the treasury, purchasing and sales departments of European companies. Two sets of independent variables were hypothesized to influence the intra-firm adoption decisions, i.e. (1) variables known from the inter-firm diffusion literature, (2) variables specifically relevant for intra-firm analyses of innovation acceptance. The hypotheses are tested using data from treasury, purchasing and sales managers (441 respondents in total) from companies located in five different European countries. The results of logistic regression show that the proposed intra-firm variables are indeed important explanatory variables that should be included in intra-firm analyses. Moreover, for the inter-firm variables we found differences in the effects between departments, which demonstrates the very need for an intra-firm analysis.innovation;European Monetary Union;business marketing;intra-firm adoption;European marketing
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