Maha Shaikh

I hold a PhD in Information Systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science. My area of research is open source, the dynamics of learning and organizing in open source collectives, material agency, and open innovation. For the last few years I have concentrated on how, why, and under what conditions the public and private sector decides to adopt open source software and/or process. This latter work has focused my attention on coordination of open source activities when other organizations are involved, control of and by communities, and questions of the relevance of transparency in open source.

In the past I was a Research Fellow at the University of Limerick, where I worked on a number of projects, including the OPAALS project, with Professor Brian Fitzgerald (LERO Research Centre). I have also been a Research Associate in the Information Systems and Innovation Group, at the London School of Economics and Political Science where I worked alongside Professor Leslie Willcocks to study the relationship of open source to outsourcing, open innovation and open business models.

Research Interests:
Open source software and process, the dynamics of learning and organizing in open source collectives, material agency and STS, open innovation, and open innovation business models.