The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies (한국전자거래학회지)

Society for e-Business Studies (한국전자거래학회)
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Role of Project Owner in OSS Project: Based on Impression Formation and Social Capital Theory

오픈소스 소프트웨어 운영자 역할이 성과에 미치는 영향: 인상형성과 사회적 자본 이론을 중심으로

  • Lee, Saerom (College of Business Administration, Seoul National University) ;
  • Baek, Hyunmi (Department of Information Sociology, Hanyang University) ;
  • Jahng, Jungjoo (Graduate School of Business Seoul National University)
  • Received : 2016.02.17
  • Accepted : 2016.03.24
  • Published : 2016.05.31
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Abstract

With the increasing socio-economic value of an open collaboration over the Internet, it has become significantly important to successfully manage open source software development program. Most of the previous research have focused on various factors that influence the performance of the project, but studies on how the project owners recognized as "leader" affect the outcome of the project are very limited. This research investigates how individual and governance characteristics of an owner influences the performance of project based on impression formation and social capital theory. For a data set, we collect 611 Repositories and the owner's data from the open source development platform Github, and we form knowledge sharing network of an each repository by using social network analysis. We use hierarchical regression analysis, and our results show that a leader, who exposes a lot of one's personal information or who has actively followed and showed interests to communicate with other developers, affects positive impacts on project performance. A leader who has a high centrality in knowledge sharing network also positively affects on project performance. On the other hand, if a leader was highly willing to accept external knowledge or is recognized as an expert in the community with large numbers of followers, the result show negative impacts on project performance. The research may serve as a useful guideline not only for the future open source software projects but also for the effective management of different types of open collaboration.

인터넷을 통한 개방적 협업의 가치가 사회 경제적으로 증가하고 있는 가운데, 오픈소스 소프트웨어 개발 프로젝트의 성공적인 운영의 중요성 또한 증가하였다. 기존의 연구들이 프로젝트 성과에 영향을 미치는 다양한 요인들을 검증하였으나 프로젝트 운영자가 프로젝트 성과에 어떤 영향을 미치는지에 대한 연구는 한정적이다. 따라서 본 연구는 운영자의 특성을 개인의 특성과 운영 방식의 특성으로 나누어 인상형성 및 사회적 자본 이론을 중심으로 그 영향을 검증하였다. 이를 위하여 대표적인 오픈소스 소프트웨어 개발 플랫폼인 깃허브(Github)에서 611개의 리퍼지토리(Repository)와 리퍼지토리 운영자의 데이터를 수집하였으며, 사회 연결망분석을 통해 각 리퍼지토리의 지식공유 네트워크를 구축하였다. 위계적 회귀분석을 통해 프로젝트 성과에 영향을 미치는 명시적 리더의 특성을 분석한 결과, 운영자가 개인의 정보를 많이 공개하여 신뢰성을 확보하고자 노력하거나, 적극적으로 팔로잉을 하여 외부 개발자에 대한 관심이 높거나, 지식공유 네트워크에서 중심적인 역할을 할 경우 성과에 긍정적인 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 반면, 코드의 수용비율이 높거나, 깃허브 내에서 전문가로 인지되어 있을 경우 오히려 성과가 낮은 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 향후 오픈소스 소프트웨어뿐만 아니라 다양한 형태의 개방적 협업의 성공적 운영을 위한 운영자 가이드라인으로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

Keywords

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