What does really matter? Determinants of the Decision to Participate in IT-Standardization Project Groups

Why do members of IT-standardization organizations participate in project groups? So far participation decisions have found little interest in research, even though IT-standardization and the membership decision are well discussed. The focus of this paper will be on product data standardization (PDS) organization. Two main factor groups can be identified that influence the participation decisions: (a) member-specific factors as R&D intensity or company size and (b) project-specific factors as liaison-orientation, life-cycle stage or influence of project leaders. The theory will be tested on decisions made in the automotive product data standardization organization ProSTEP iViP. The results show evidence of both member-specific and project-specific coefficients as significant predicting factors of the participation decision.