Information technology standards development in virtual communities: An empirical study

Information technology standards development processes have been influenced by a multitude of factors, thus making one view the process as black box. Current trends in the IT industry have contributed to the complexity of the process, including the rapid development of IT, diverse standards orientations, and the ever complex standards development environment. While much research using different perspectives has been conducted to examine business rationale and factors associated with standards development, adoption and diffusion, little attention has been paid to understanding the process of standards development.; This dissertation aims at contributing to the literature by investigating IT standards development processes from a sociological perspective. By combining both process and sociological approaches, this study attempts to gain an understanding of the standards development process in industry consortia. A series of three studies using longitudinal email archives extracted from the ebXML standards process are conducted and presented as essays to address transitions in standards processes; group dynamics among online participants; and evolutionary patterns in standards groups. In the first study, a model is developed using a process-centric approach to empirically reveal change points in standards development processes. Next, communication patterns in standards groups are evaluated using a social network analysis approach. Finally, the concluding essay integrates both process and social network analyses to investigate evolutions of group dynamics in online standards groups.; The findings suggest that the orientation of standards being developed is the key determinant of standards development processes. Furthermore, even in the presence of open standards processes, online standards groups continue to consistently be cohesive and centralized. There are, however, functional distinctions between infrastructure standards groups, who are typically closer to core-periphery structure, and business process standards groups, who tend towards a regional decentralized structure. Finally, this research illustrates that the evolution of group dynamics are a function of both task structure and process characteristics.; This comprehensive research study provides valuable insights for the evolution in standards development via virtual communities. As one of the first empirical undertakings to examine underlying process mechanisms of standards development in online standards groups, this study should prove useful to both academics and practitioners.