TY - GEN
T1 - How companies govern their open source software contributions
T2 - 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019
AU - Wissel, Juliane
AU - Zaggl, Michael
AU - Lindberg, Aron
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Companies are increasingly involving themselves with open source software (OSS) communities. We lack knowledge about how companies ensure a compliant behavior, while granting a certain degree of flexibility to their employees in managing their OSS contributions. We approach this gap in an explorative case study at Siemens AG through the following question: How do companies negotiate the tensions between control and flexibility regarding their employees' community interaction by means of governance mechanisms? Initial results show that Siemens introduced a formal template process, which the different organizational units within Siemens can adapt according to their needs. The extent to which the process is implemented depends on the level of closeness to core intellectual property of the organizational unit and the intensity of the involvement in OSS communities. Developers use several methods to shorten the process. Our study contributes to the literature on company-involved OSS development and the OSS governance literature.
AB - Companies are increasingly involving themselves with open source software (OSS) communities. We lack knowledge about how companies ensure a compliant behavior, while granting a certain degree of flexibility to their employees in managing their OSS contributions. We approach this gap in an explorative case study at Siemens AG through the following question: How do companies negotiate the tensions between control and flexibility regarding their employees' community interaction by means of governance mechanisms? Initial results show that Siemens introduced a formal template process, which the different organizational units within Siemens can adapt according to their needs. The extent to which the process is implemented depends on the level of closeness to core intellectual property of the organizational unit and the intensity of the involvement in OSS communities. Developers use several methods to shorten the process. Our study contributes to the literature on company-involved OSS development and the OSS governance literature.
KW - Governance
KW - Open source software
KW - Organizations
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85114902323
T3 - 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019
BT - 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019
Y2 - 15 December 2019 through 18 December 2019
ER -