But What Will It Cost Me? Private Costs of Participation and Open Source Software Development
Mazhar Islam, Jacob Miller · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2013
In this paper, we examine how the private costs of participation for an Open Source Software (OSS) project influences the number of participants the project receives and their level of contribution. By studying the private costs considered by participants, we provide a better understanding of how participants are motivated to contribute. We develop a theoretical framework that identifies three private costs of participation that affect participants’ decisions, and how these private costs may vary between OSS projects. Based on panel data of monthly data from 10,381 OSS projects from January 2007-June 2011, we use a random effects model and study the adoption of a new design of collaboration technology that lowers participants’ private costs of participation. We find that lowering private costs of participation increases the number of participants, but decrease their average contributions. We also find that younger projects benefit more from reducing participants’ private costs. The findings of the paper advance the existing theories of OSS by providing a complementary view based on the cost side of participants’ decision. It also adds to our understanding of how to motivate external participants in specific open innovation settings.