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In enterprise software markets, firms are increasingly using services-based business models built on open-source software (OSS) to compete with established, proprietary software firms. Because third-party firms can also strategically contribute to OSS and compete in the services market, the nature of competition between OSS constituents and proprietary software firms can be complex. Moreover, their incentives are likely influenced by the licensing schemes that govern OSS. We study a three-player game and examine how open-source licensing affects competition among an open-source originator, an open-source contributor, and a proprietor competing in an enterprise software market. In this regard, we examine (1) how quality investments and prices are endogenously determined in equilibrium, (2) how license restrictiveness impacts equilibrium investments and the quality of offerings, and (3) how license restrictiveness affects consumer surplus and social welfare. Although some in the open-source community often advocate restrictive licenses such as the GNU General Public License because it is not always in the best interest of the originator for the contributor to invest greater development effort, such licensing can actually be detrimental to both consumer surplus and social welfare when it exacerbates this incentive conflict. We find such an outcome in markets characterized by software providers with similar development capabilities yet cast in favor of the proprietor. In contrast, when these capabilities either become more dispersed or remain similar but tilt in favor of open source, a more restrictive license instead encourages greater effort from the OSS contributor, leads to higher OSS quality, and provides a larger societal benefit. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

This paper extends our previous studies on the assimilation of Internet-based e-business innovations by firms in an international setting. Drawing upon theories on the process and contexts of technology diffusion, we develop an integrative model to examine three assimilation stages: initiation → adoption → routinization. The model features technological, organizational, and environmental contexts as prominent antecedents of this three-stage assimilation process. Based on this model, we hypothesize how technology readiness, technology integration, firm size, global scope, managerial obstacles, competition intensity, and regulatory environment influence e-business assimilation at the firm level. A unique data set of 1,857 firms from 10 countries is used to test the conceptual model and hypotheses. To probe deeper into the influence of the environmental context, we compare two subsamples from developed and developing countries. Our empirical analysis leads to several key findings: (1) Competition positively affects initiation and adoption, but negatively impacts routinization, suggesting that too much competition is not necessarily good for technology assimilation because it drives firms to chase the latest technologies without learning how to use existing ones effectively. (2) Large firms tend to enjoy resource advantages at the initiation stage, but have to overcome structural inertia in later stages. (3) We also find that economic environments shape innovation assimilation: Regulatory environment plays a more important role in developing countries than in developed countries. Moreover, while technology readiness is the strongest factor facilitating assimilation in developing countries, technology integration turns out to be the strongest in developed countries, implying that as e-business evolves, the key determinant of its assimilation shifts from accumulation to integration of technologies. Together, these findings offer insights into how innovation assimilation is influenced by contextual factors, and how the effects may vary across different stages and in different environments.

The abundance of transaction data available on the Internet tends to make information more transparent in electronic marketplaces. In such a transparent environment, it becomes easier for suppliers to obtain information that may allow them to infer their rivals’ costs. Is this good news or bad news? In this study, we focus on the informational effects of business-to-business (B2B) exchanges, and explore firms’ incentives to join a B2B exchange that provides an online platform for information transmission. We then study the equilibria by developing a game-theoretic model under asymmetric information. We examine whether the incentives to join a B2B exchange would be different under different competition modes (quantity and price), different information structures, and by varying the nature of the products (substitutes and complements). Our results challenge the “information transparency hypothesis” (i.e., open sharing of information in electronic markets is beneficial to all participating firms). In contrast to the popular belief, we show that information transparency could be a double-edged sword. The individual rationality of participation in the online exchange reflects the tradeoff between information transparency and data confidentiality. This may have important implications for the microstructure design (e.g., data access rules) of B2B electronic marketplaces.