Organizational learning in health care: Situating free and open source software

Abstract

Free and open source software (FOSS) has been attracting the interest of organizations involved in the development and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing countries for years. ICTs for development initiatives often have public sector orientations, as governments' ICT policies are expected to shape and support socio-economical development. The usual mismatch between formal bureaucracies' functioning, the usual top-down software development schemes, and the actual trajectories of development initiatives (mostly run by international agencies) provides a promising empirical field. This paper intends to discuss the connection between FOSS and organizational learning in contexts where the usual assumptions about them cannot be taken for granted. It is argued that the relevance of open technologies as public goods is in allowing organizational learning in public administration. Such a focus on the organizational aspects would complement existing studies on the economical relevance of FOSS. © 2008 by International Federation for Information Processing.