Crowdsourcing software requirements and development: A mechanism-based exploration of 'Opensourcing'

Many commercial software firms rely on open source software (OSS) communities as a source of innovation and skilled labor. One specific form of interaction with OSS communities, termed 'opensourcing', involves firms collaborating with an OSS community by 'crowdsourcing' software production. However, beyond the existence of the phenomenon, little is known about how opensourcing, as a model of software production, works. The objective of this study is to explore opensourcing arrangements in a vertical software domain with a view to delineating enabling mechanisms that explain how firms can collaborate with communities to crowdsource the production of software. Using an in-depth case study of the production of hospital software in Thailand, this study explores how opensourcing is used to determine requirements, identify bugs, and provide user-to-user support in addition to the more traditional approach of crowdsourcing software code. The analysis reveals the operation of six high-level mechanisms (motivation, coordination, effective communication, filtering, integration, and nurturing) and reveals how they operate in conjunction with each other to facilitate opensourcing.