aoir conference presentation dany & jijesh

8/14/2019 AOIR Conference Presentation Dany & Jijesh

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Socialization in Open Source Software

Development Communities:

A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Jijesh Devan and Dany Di Tullio

Recipient of The Monieson Centres Research Travel Award

2nd Place Winner of the 2007 Carl J. Couch Internet Research Award

AOIR 2007 Conference, Oct. 17 - 19, Vancouver, BC

[email protected] and [email protected]

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Socialization in Opensource Software CommunitiesCarl J. Couch Internet Student Research AwardOct 17 - 19, AOIR, Vancouver, 2007

Devan & Di Tullio 2

Overview of open source software (OSS) development

Problem, motivation, and question Open source software communities and socialization

The Symbolic Interactionist perspective

The theoretical model Theory development Proposed methodology

Anticipated results & contribution

Limitations and conclusion

Q&A

Presentation Overview

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Internet-based communities of softwaredevelopers who voluntarily collaborate to developsoftware

Massive parallel development and debuggingOpen source software licenses

Overview of OSS

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From Duchenaut (2005)

Overview of OSS

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Practical Problem: High developer turnoverrates and loss of developers in OSS communities(von Krogh et al. 2003)

Academic Motivation: Lack of research on

socialization in virtual teams (Ahuja and Galvin2003, Martins et al. 2004) and normative teams(Lois 1999).

OSS communities = virtual and normative Question: How do individuals socialize intoOSS communities?

Problem, Motivation, and Question

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OSS Communities and Socialization [1/2]

Community is a fabric of relationships held together by acommon interest in a brand or product. (McAlexander et al.2002; Muniz and Guinn 2001)

Socialization "prepares the individual for the roles he is toplay, providing him with the necessary repertoire of habits,

beliefs, and values, the appropriate patterns of emotional

response and the modes of perception, the requisite skills and

knowledge." (Chinoy, 1961 P.75)

King and Sethi (1998) underscore the importance ofsocialization - role clarity and improved performance for IS

professionals.

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OSS Communities and Socialization [2/2]

We define an OSS community is a fabric ofrelationships held together by a common ideology(Stewart and Gosain 2006).

We define socialization as the degree of

correspondence between personal meanings of

an individual and shared meanings of the

community.

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State of Socialization-Type Research inOSS

Extant OSS research has identified the pattern of activity

members undertake while participating in open sourcesoftware development (e.g., von Krogh et al. 2003)

Studies fall short because they neither explicate thesocialization process, nor address the actions individualstake to derive meaning from communities (Ducheneaut2005)

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Symbolic Interactionism

An interpretive/social constructionist approachAccording to SI, people act toward other (people and)artifacts based on the dynamic and emergent meanings ofthese artifacts.

These meanings are derived through interaction whichconsist of both action and meaning making."A well-done symbolic interactionist study would not seekto understand either meanings or action in isolation, but asa jointly produced dynamic reality" (Gopal and Prasad2000, p. 515).

Therefore, using SI will help overcome the shortfall inOSS socialization literature.

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The Theoretical Model

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Explicating the Model [1/3]

Defining key concepts: KS: Those activities through whichindividuals are soliciting meaningabout an artifact of interest.

KP: Those activities through which

individuals are providing meaningabout an artifact of interest toanother individual.

Action: The set of all activitiesundertaken by individuals in a

community. Activities are groupedinto two categories: knowledgeseeking and providing.

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Personal meaning: personalmeanings are meaningsindividuals assign to objectsand events based on theactions that they undertake

( with respect to thecommunity they are a part of).

Shared meaning: sharedmeanings consist of the

negotiated and mutuallyagreed upon meanings thatemerge within the community.

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Defining key concepts:

Meaning making: Emergence ofboth personal understanding andshared understanding through aninterpretive process and action.

The socialization process is a

dynamic activity through whichpersonal and shared meanings areformed and modified simultaneouslythrough a play of action andmeaning allowing forcorrespondence between the two.

The increasing overlap betweenpersonal & shared meanings.Comparable to Nonakas (1994)concept of socialization.

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Socialization in Opensource Software Communities

Carl J. Couch Internet Student Research AwardOct 17 - 19, AOIR, Vancouver, 2007Devan & Di Tullio 14

Proposed Methodology

Inductive approach and thick description (Gopal and

Prasad 2000)

Interviews with individuals at various stages ofmembership as conducted and suggested by Stewart

and Gosain (2003, 2006)

Participant observation/archival data, as conductedand suggested by Ducheneaut (2005)

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Anticipated Results & Contributions

New theory thatexplicates thesocialization process inOSS communities

A dynamic view ofOSS communities

Potential insights into

OSS developerturnover/retention

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Limitations & Conclusion

Our thesis needsto move to thenext stage, that isdata collection

and analysis.

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Carl J. Couch Internet Student Research AwardOct 17 - 19, AOIR, Vancouver, 2007

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Q & A

Thank you!

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aoir conference presentation dany & jijesh

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