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The Effect of Knowledge Sharing on Open Source Contribution: a Multi- Platform Perspective

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The Effect of Knowledge Sharing on Open Source Contribution: a Multi- Platform Perspective Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2020 The Effect of Knowledge Sharing on Open Source Contribution: A Multi- platform Perspective Vivek Kumar Singh Saurav Chakraborty Arjun Kadian University of Missouri-St. Louis University of South Florida University of South Florida [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract are adopting open source model to build software in these fields. However, even after decades of prior Open source software (OSS) community plays a key research, understanding the factors, which motivate role in contemporary software development. However, individuals to contribute towards open source software, there is a need to better understand the factors which is a key research question [6]. Specially, there is paucity influence individuals’ voluntary contribution on open of research in understanding how voluntary knowledge source platforms. In this paper, we investigate how sharing affects contribution in open source community. different types of knowledge sharing affect an Knowledge sharing has always been important to individuals’ contribution towards open source projects. information technology (IT) organizations and IT We further refine knowledge sharing taxonomy by knowledge workers. For IT organizations, effective classifying explicit knowledge sharing into two sub- knowledge sharing can lead to improved work types – strong explicit knowledge sharing and weak performance and competitive advantages [7] [11]. explicit knowledge sharing, depending on the extent of Despite the rich literature on knowledge sharing within interpersonal interaction required for knowledge organizations and open source communities [17] [21] transfer. In this paper, we take a multi-platform [11] [12] [15] [23] [38], very little attention has been perspective – we collect data from GitHub – the biggest paid to the sharing of tacit knowledge. Furthermore, the online platform to host open source software interaction between the different knowledge sharing development, and Gitter – an open source instant types and its impact on individual’s contribution have messaging and chat room application designed for not been studied. developers. We map the user identities across these two Knowledge sharing in organizations [11] [12] and platforms. We analyze monthly panel data for the year virtual communities [15] have always been of interest to 2017 consisting of 3,695 individuals. The results information systems (IS) researchers [11] [12] [8] [9]. demonstrate that both strong and weak explicit Open source development communities are different knowledge sharing have positive relationship with open from traditional IT organizations in that members self– source contribution. Moreover, the tacit knowledge identify into them and make decisions without reference sharing positively moderates these relationships. Our to any legally binding rules or obligations [10]. In paper extends the theoretical understanding of different essence, knowledge owners may participate in such knowledge sharing types and their inter-relationship, communities without any obligations to engage in and their respective impact on contribution. Our knowledge sharing. However, the effect of voluntary findings have important implications for the OSS knowledge sharing on contribution has not been community, and especially help OSS platform designers examined in the prior research. This research is get a better understanding of the symbiosis between important and helps develop a theoretical understanding different OSS platforms. of voluntary knowledge sharing in online communities. There are two types of knowledge sharing presented in the literature – explicit knowledge sharing and tacit 1. Introduction knowledge sharing [37]. Explicit knowledge sharing refers to sharing of knowledge that can be codified and Open source software (OSS) development market is written in symbolic or written form [11]. For example, expanding and is presenting an important software sharing of knowledge through manuals and reports via development model for emerging computing fields such knowledge management systems (KMS) is a form of as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Organizations explicit knowledge sharing. On the other extreme, tacit URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/64088 978-0-9981331-3-3 Page 2835 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) knowledge sharing refers to knowledge that still resides landscape [24]. The rise of open source has led to a with the knowledge owner and has not yet been manifold increase in collaboration within the expressed or codified [11]. For instance, the experiences technology developer community [19]. Thus, the of a knowledge owner finishing a task, requiring commercial aspect of open source software has been of interpersonal communication for its transfer is a form of interest to researchers, leading to OSS 2.0 phenomenon tacit knowledge sharing. [1]. The three key components of OSS ecosystem Individuals share knowledge voluntarily in online identified are software, community, and license [2]. communities. However, the knowledge sharing is There has been a significant amount of research, which limited by the functionalities of the computer mediated has examined the role of developers in organizations communication system. The individuals can transfer and their participation in external open source projects explicit knowledge more easily than tacit knowledge. [3]. There have been studies, which investigated specific The explicit knowledge can be easily codified and open source software [4]. Thus, understanding the expressed in form of posts without any requirement for motivation of open source developers is an important a real-time conversation. On the other hand, tacit aspect of OSS research [5]. knowledge needs more effort and requires real-time One of the fundamental questions pertaining to OSS conversation between individuals for its transfer to take development has been to identify the factors motivating place. Traditionally, open source platforms provide developers to participate in OSS. Past researchers have tools for explicit knowledge sharing such as project employed surveys to study this dynamic. Hertel et al. Wikipedia page (also commonly known as wiki page). [25] conducted a survey of 141 web participants to Recently, these platforms also provide integration with uncover three kinds of motivation: pragmatic, social and external applications such as online chat applications for hedonic. Other studies [26] also found economic factors, tacit knowledge sharing. However, there is a paucity of such as profit motivations, hierarchical co-ordination research examining the effect of these large-scale without proprietary rights and diffusion in environments integration of platforms for efficient and effective dominated by proprietary standards, to be a strong knowledge transfer, on the contribution in open source motivating factor for developers to collaborate on OSS community. Therefore, we address following research projects. question in this paper: Considering the development of software to be a Research Question: How different forms of creative problem, finding a solution requires significant voluntary knowledge sharing types impact open source amount of time and effort [30] [27] [28] [29]. It is often contribution? called ‘collective invention’ via collaboration [29]. Our study has both theoretical and practical Thus, it often leads to knowledge creation and/or implications. We extend the knowledge sharing augmentation. There is a definite benefit when taxonomy and refine our understanding of how different developers collaborate and come up with better knowledge sharing types affects contribution in OSS. solutions. Singh [30] claim that even though open Moreover, we also examine the interaction among source projects are public, it is the partaking developers’ different knowledge sharing types. In practical relationship within the open source forum or implication, ours is the first study to empirically community, which determines the project’s success and demonstrate that there is need to integrate multiple OSS application. Therefore, it can be argued that the platforms for different forms of knowledge sharing. developers are often selective about which projects they participate in and in turn, contribute to. 2. Literature Review and Background Although different facets of the OSS environment have been studied and analyzed, there is still a lack of Our study draws mostly upon three streams of consensus on what motivates developers to participate research, namely open source software development, in OSS. We believe that this may be due to the strong knowledge contribution, and knowledge sharing in heterogeneity of projects on these platforms. Little is online communities. Each of these streams of literature known regarding the intrinsic nature of such platforms share many commonalities, our aim is to extract the and how developers interact with each other. Our study dynamics of the inter-connectedness of the topics under aims to bridge this gap by analyzing the factors affecting investigation. We present our findings in the sub- how individual developers contribute, using two of the sections below. biggest OSS platforms in the world. The dataset thus generated, enables us to study how knowledge is created 2.1. Open Source Software Development: and shared using these platforms, which to the best of our knowledge has not been studied before. The emergence of open source as a platform has changed how developers
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