Software innovativeness. A comparison between proprietary and Free/Open Source solutions offered by Italian SMEs

Abstract

Innovation processes taking place in the software sector are already widely debated. The widespread success of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) raises new research issues, dealing with whether and how the free circulation of ideas championed by the movement and its collective management of intellectual property rights fosters innovation. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature by addressing the following research questions: are programs based on FOSS solutions more innovative than proprietary ones, and, if so, which innovation dimensions are typical of the FOSS production mode? Based on a sample of 134 software solutions produced by Italian Small and Medium Enterprises and using a methodology frequently applied in technology management to evaluate innovativeness of products and services, this exploratory study provides initial insights into what happens when alternative metrics are used to observe complex innovation processes in the software market.

An integrated model of innovation drivers for smaller software firms

“…The ability to reflectively evaluate ideas, techniques and processes for their contribution to innovation (Briggs & Reinig, 2010;Compeau, Meister, & Higgins, 2007;Higgins, 1996;Koc, 2007;Lamastra, 2009;Massetti, 1996;Müller & Ulrich, 2012;Sosa, 2011) Knowledge Driver: Knowledge Leverage…”

“…Using open business models that partially or wholly share intellectual property (for example code) to promote innovation (M. Henkel, 2006;Lee & Cole, 2003;Leimeister et al, 2009;West & Gallagher, 2006) Open Source Exploiting open source code or co-operations to drive innovation (M. Henkel, 2006;Igira, 2008;Lamastra, 2009;Von Krogh, Spaeth, & Lakhani, 2003) Crowd Sourcing Inviting the wide-spread participation of potential users and customers to enhance innovation (de Jong & von Hippel, 2009;Leimeister et al, 2009) …”

Innovation Drivers and Outputs for Software Firms: Literature Review and Concept Development

“…National and regional development projects, science parks, silicon valleys, and industry and university collaborations are often created to encourage innovations and ensure that these innovations spawn further innovations. However, the software industry has witnessed the emergence of a specific form of community-based innovation in the form of the open source movement [59,60]. The importance of this movement is such that most major software firms now use open source as an integral element of their innovation strategy [50] with platform developers routinely using open strategies for populating their platforms with applications [31].…”

“…Some types of open source development might even be characterized as forms of user-driven software development, involving open access to intellectual property such as source code in a model known as open innovation [50,54,60,[62][63][64][65][66][67]. Supporting these models are developments in social computing technologies that have significantly expanded the nature and scope of the communities and networks that can be drawn upon.…”

Bibliometric analysis of international researches on innovation metrics

“…Process (Guan and Chen, 2010;Aschhoff and Schmidt, 2008;Prajogo and Sohal, 2006;Stiebale and Reize, 2011;Dibrell et al, 2008;Desouza et al, 2009;Matolcsy and Wyatt, 2008;Dervitsiotis, 2011;Lamastra, 2009). Generated revenue and profits (Dervitsiotis, 2011).…”