Users, standards and the economics of coalitions and committees

The goal of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, it attempts to demonstrate that the exclusion of users from the information technology standardization process results in losses as regards the social benefits of standardization. Secondly, the paper deals with two problems regarding the user's involvement in the standard-setting process: (1) involving users in IT standardization requires the creation of effective user coalitions; and (2) including users in the work of standardization committees introduces even more objective functions that must be accommodated.

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