The impact of external contributions to firm-hosted open source software on firm value
研究了企业托管的开源软件项目获得的外部贡献如何影响企业价值，发现外部贡献能提升企业价值，且当企业与贡献者技术领域差异大或项目评论活跃时效果更强。
In recent years, many firms, especially those in information technology (IT)-related industries, are increasingly hosting open source software (OSS) projects to garner external contributions from unaffiliated developers. This study is a pioneering investigation into the impact of external contributions to firm-hosted OSS projects on firm value as well as the moderating effects. Using a panel dataset of 536 publicly listed firms hosting OSS projects on GitHub, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) approach to address potential endogeneity issues. Our findings show that external contributions to firm-hosted OSS increase firm value, measured by Tobin’s q. Moreover, this beneficial effect is strengthened when firms and their external contributors operate in more distinct technological domains, or when there is increased comment activity within the firm-hosted OSS projects. Our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how firms can strategically leverage external contributions to enhance market-based firm value and provides valuable managerial insights for both the broader OSS community and firms navigating this domain.