Open Source Software and Firm Productivity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nagle, Frank
• 署名单位: University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2017.2977
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1191-1215
• 关键词: productivity of IT; user innovation; open source software; economics of IS; technology strategy; IT policy and management

摘要

As open source software (OSS) is increasingly used as a key input by firms, understanding its impact on productivity becomes critical. This study measures the firm-level productivity impact of nonpecuniary (free) OSS and finds a positive and significant value-added return for firms that have an ecosystem of complementary capabilities. There is no such impact for firms without this ecosystem of complements. Dynamic panel analysis, instrumental variables, and a variety of robustness checks are used to address measurement error concerns and to add support for a more causal interpretation of the results. For firms with an ecosystem of complements, a 1% increase in the use of nonpecuniary OSS leads to an increase in value- added productivity of between 0.002% and 0.008%. This effect is smaller for larger firms, and the results indicate that prior research underestimates the amount of IT firms use.