Paper ID

2429

Paper Type

short

Description

This study investigates the relationship between third-party support of young ventures and crowd engagement in open source development projects grounded in signaling theory. It is centered on the empirical analysis of a multi-source secondary dataset of 697 firms which conducted an initial coin offering (ICO) and published their source code online. We find that internal third-party support by technology advisors is positively associated with crowd engagement for open source development projects. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, we find internal support by business advisors and prestigious external support to be negatively related to crowd participation. The study enhances our understanding of antecedents of software co-creation and contributes to IS literature on third-party endorsement in open innovation and ICOs.

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Open Innovation After Initial Coin Offerings - An Empirical Investigation of Crowd Participation and Third-Party Support

This study investigates the relationship between third-party support of young ventures and crowd engagement in open source development projects grounded in signaling theory. It is centered on the empirical analysis of a multi-source secondary dataset of 697 firms which conducted an initial coin offering (ICO) and published their source code online. We find that internal third-party support by technology advisors is positively associated with crowd engagement for open source development projects. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, we find internal support by business advisors and prestigious external support to be negatively related to crowd participation. The study enhances our understanding of antecedents of software co-creation and contributes to IS literature on third-party endorsement in open innovation and ICOs.