CARROTS AND RAINBOWS: MOTIVATION AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

Author List: Krogh, Georg von; Haefliger, Stefan; Spaeth, Sebastian; Wallin, Martin W.;
MIS Quarterly, 2012, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 649-676.
Open source software (OSS) is a social and economic phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the motivations of contributors to information systems development. Some developers are unpaid volunteers who seek to solve their own technical problems, while others create OSS as part of their employment contract.For the past 10 years, a substantial amount of academic work has theorized about and empirically examined developer motivations. We review this work and suggest considering motivation in terms of the values of the social practice in which developers participate. Based on the social philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we construct a theoretical framework that expands our assumptions about individual motivation to include the idea of a long-term, value-informed quest beyond short-term rewards. This motivation-practice framework depicts how the social practice and its supporting institutions mediate between individual motivation and outcome.The framework contains three theoretical conjectures that seek to explain how collectively elaborated standards of excellence prompt developers to produce high-quality software, change institutions, and sustain OSS development. From the framework, we derive six concrete propositions and suggest a new research agenda on motivation in OSS.
Keywords: Free software; incentives; MacIntyre; motivation; open source software; innovation; social practice
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#273 0.214 source open software oss development developers projects developer proprietary community success openness impact paper project associated activity phenomenon peripheral variety
#15 0.193 motivation intrinsic theory social extrinsic expectancy motivations motivate usage enjoyment rewards consequences reciprocity organizational motivational focus helping system's exploratory substantial
#292 0.166 information research literature systems framework review paper theoretical based potential future implications practice discussed current concept propositions findings provided extant
#279 0.101 field work changes new years time change major period year end use past early century half traditional areas established strong
#111 0.068 e-government collective sociomaterial material institutions actors practice particular organizational routines practices relations mindfulness different analysis ways draw agencies drawing ideas
#246 0.066 strategic benefits economic benefit potential systems technology long-term applications competitive company suggest additional companies industry operating costs difficult substantial total
#219 0.054 response responses different survey questions results research activities respond benefits certain leads two-stage interactions study address respondents question directly categories