The goal of this paper is to examine innovation activities in the Vienna software industry and to get a better understanding of the nature and geography of knowledge linkages in this sector. In the literature there seems to be a growing consensus that innovation rests on both informal local knowledge linkages and formal global networks, i.e. a combination of "local buzz" and "global pipelines". Recent studies on the software sector, however, show that the importance of different types of knowledge sources, the spatial dimension of knowledge transfer and the relevance of different channels of knowledge exchange in the software industry remain poorly understood. Drawing on a firm survey and qualitative face-to-face interviews with companies we will show that in the Vienna software industry the transfer and exchange of knowledge is highly localised and strongly informal in nature, pointing to a high significance of "local buzz" and a lack of "global pipelines". This specific pattern raises the question whether the Vienna software sector is exposed to a danger of lock in. (author´s abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

One of the cornerstones of the R system for statistical computing is the multitude of contributed packages making an extremely broad range of statistical techniques and other quantitative methods freely available. This study investigates which factors are the crucial determinants responsible for the participation of the package authors in the R project. For this purpose a survey was conducted among R package authors, collecting data on different types of participation in the R project, three psychometric scales (hybrid forms of motivation, work design characteristics, and values), as well as various specie-demographic factors. These data are analyzed using item response theory and generalized linear models, showing that the most important determinants for participation are a hybrid form of motivation and the knowledge characteristics of the work design. Other factors are found to have less impact or influence only specific aspects of participation. (authors' abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

Diese Dissertation behandelt Fragen des Wettbewerbs auf Softwaremärkten. Konkret geht es um folgende Frage: Welchen Einfluss haben kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen (KMUs) auf die Wettbewerbskonditionen in der Softwarebranche vor dem Hintergrund des zunehmenden Einsatzes von rechtlichen Maßnahmen zum Schutze des geistigen Eigentums? Theoretischer Teil: Wir untersuchen theoretisch Übertragungseffekte (Spillovers) zwischen KMUs und größeren Softwareunternehmen im Kontext von gebündelten Produkten (bundling). Während Bundling und die resultierenden wettbewerbspolitischen Optionen in einem statischen Kontext gut verstanden sind, gibt es noch offene Fragen im dynamischen Kontext. Hier untersuchen wir, inwieweit die Standardargumente gegen Bundling an Gültigkeit verlieren. Wir kommen zum Schluss, dass Wettbewerbspolitik in Softwaremärkten in einem dynamischen Kontext Bundling durchaus in Betracht ziehen sollte. Empirischer Teil: Wir untersuchen, ob der zunehmende Einsatz von Schutzrechten durch KMUs dazu führt, dass der Wettbewerb im Bereich der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IuK) zunimmt. Diese empirisch fundierte Arbeit analysiert einen Datensatz von KMUs aus der IuK-Industrie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Softwareherstellern. Mit Hilfe einer Varianzanalyse untersuchen wir den Einfluss von vier Faktoren auf den Einsatz von Schutzrechten, nämlich: Globalisierung, rechtliches Umfeld, kooperative Forschung und Open Source Software-Nutzung. / This dissertation focuses on competition within the software market. Specifically it aims to provide further understanding and insights to the following question: In the context of intellectual property rights (IPR), what impact do small and medium sized enterprises (SME) have on competition in the software industry? Normative contribution to the dynamic policy literature: Bundling and the resulting competition policy measures are well understood under static conditions. In this essay, we theoretically examine the spillover exchange between SME and large software firms in the context of bundling. Based on the findings of our static model, we suggest that competition policy in the software market should consider bundling under dynamic competition because it could lead to a different conclusion resulting from the factors unique to the software market e.g., OSS programmers. Positive contribution to IPR literature: We empirically examine whether increased IPR adoption by small and medium sized enterprises enables greater competition within the information and communications sector. The analysis is based on a dataset of SME in the information and communications sector which also includes the software industry. We make use of the analysis of variance in order to study the impact of four factors on SME adoption of intellectual property rights, namely; globalization, legal frameworks, cooperative research and open source software use and development. i