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Links to the source - a multidimensional view of social ties for the retention of FLOSS developers

Published: 31 May 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is of vital importance for the daily life of many private and corporate users. However, the majority of all FLOSS initiatives fail, most commonly due to a lack of sustained developers. In contrast to previous research which used an individual centric or a structural perspective, this dissertation combines motivational and relational aspects to build a comprehensive understanding for FLOSS developers' ongoing project commitment. A unified research model is developed by drawing on established theories from organizational and sociological literature, in particular by combining Self-Determination-Theory (SDT) and Social-Identity-Theory (SIT). Both SDT and SIT have been found valuable concepts for staffing decisions in organizations. In addition to the development and evaluation of the research model, this dissertation derives operational strategies for project managers of FLOSS initiatives on how to enhance the retention behavior of their contributor base.

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  • (2022)Understanding community participation and engagement in open source software Projects: A systematic mapping studyJournal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences10.1016/j.jksuci.2020.10.02034:7(4607-4625)Online publication date: Jul-2022
  • (2019)Open Science and Open Innovation in a socio‐political context: knowledge production for societal impact in an age of post‐truth populismR&D Management10.1111/radm.1237749:3(279-297)Online publication date: 29-May-2019

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGMIS-CPR '12: Proceedings of the 50th annual conference on Computers and People Research
    May 2012
    224 pages
    ISBN:9781450311106
    DOI:10.1145/2214091
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 31 May 2012

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    Author Tags

    1. it personnel
    2. job satisfaction
    3. open source
    4. retention
    5. self-determination-theory
    6. social-identity-theory
    7. turnover intention

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    SIGMIS-CPR '12
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    SIGMIS-CPR '12: 2012 Computers and People Research Conference
    May 31 - June 2, 2012
    Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA

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    • (2022)Understanding community participation and engagement in open source software Projects: A systematic mapping studyJournal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences10.1016/j.jksuci.2020.10.02034:7(4607-4625)Online publication date: Jul-2022
    • (2019)Open Science and Open Innovation in a socio‐political context: knowledge production for societal impact in an age of post‐truth populismR&D Management10.1111/radm.1237749:3(279-297)Online publication date: 29-May-2019

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