A Study on the Impact of Values on the Open Source Design Decision-making Process

The effect of the personal values such as trust or a desire for privacy of users and developers of open source software (OSS) on the development and use of the software developed by OSS projects is a topic of growing interest in the Information Systems (IS) field. This topic has been investigated in proprietary IS development, but a limiting factor in many of these studies is a lack of theoretical support for the values measured. Drawing on a large body of existing personal value research in social psychology, built on a foundation of over 30 years of research, this study will attempt to map personal values currently defined in IS research to the decision making behavior in OSS project communities. In particular, this research maps values, beliefs and norms defined by Stewart and Gosain (2006) and other descriptions of the ideologies driving OSS teams onto the value constructs measured by the Theory of Universals in Values (TUV). By using a common theoretical basis for values research, connections across seemingly unrelated values research may be found. Propositions for the first part of a two-staged exploratory study are proposed to test whether the TUV better defines the values, beliefs and norms found in the OSS community and provides a richer picture of what may, in part, drive decision-making behavior in the OSS community. The methodology for such a study is presented and possible contributions for researchers and practitioners are presented.