Crowding Effects in Open Source Communities: How does money influence open source projects and its contributors?
Matthias Stürmer · 2007
Company involvement in open source projects is rising and more financial assets are entering the realm of previously volunteer open source communities. Although economically counter-intuitive, scientific research has shown that under certain circumstances monetary incentives may negatively influence the motivation of volunteers (Frey and Oberholzer-Gee 1997, Gneezy and Rustichini 2000). Frey and Jegen (2001) conclude that intrinsic motivation may decrease because of lower selfdetermination and reduced self-esteem when rewards are offered.