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Community joining, progressing and leaving: developing an Open Source participation lifecycle model
Publikationstyp
Book Part
Date Issued
2015-02-11
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Start Page
115
End Page
136
Citation
Open Source Innovation: The Phenomenon, Participant's Behaviour, Business Implications: 115-136 (2015-02-11)
Publisher DOI
Scopus ID
Publisher
Routledge
ISBN
978-1-317-62424-0
978-1-138-80202-5
978-1-138-62404-7
Open collaborative innovation communities, such as open source projects, established themselves as new organizational form and unite numerous people. A key challenge for these open initiatives is to attract participants and realize their subsequent community progression, termination and re-joining. Yet, membership dynamics are not well understood nor concepts put in relationship. We pursue to provide an overview of different participation phases and antecedents of progression of members. Our analysis of present research identifies four key participation phases, representing member 'landing' points, and two core concepts explaining contribution and latent activities on how, and why participants advance. Based on these findings and led by the theory of social learning we develop a participation model describing a consistent framework for community joining, contributing and leaving. This model is able to combine latest research and identify influences affecting progression. We highlight socialization and alliance building among volunteers, and provide insights into causes for membership dynamics. Moreover, we propose a yet lacking pre-participation phase highlighting community selection before joiners interact with the community. Our model solves the puzzle of an end-to-end membership perspective, and helps guiding researchers and community managers in understanding member management and participation behavior.
Subjects
Community joining
Individual behavior
Lifecycle perspective
Member management
Membership dynamics
Participation model
Volunteer advancement
DDC Class
330: Wirtschaft
600: Technik