Personal And Social Proximity: Shaping Leadership In A Free Software Project

Clement Bert-Erboul (clementberterboul@gmail.com) and Nicholas Vonortas (vonortas@gwu.edu)
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Clement Bert-Erboul: University of Campinas
Nicholas Vonortas: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Open software projects are usually portrayed by focusing on charismatic leaders, friendly communities, and meritocratic language. We dig under the surface of this stereotypical picture and analyse the social relationships of the people involved; specifically, whether they are related through personal proximity or they are distant social partners. We contribute to the literature on free/open source innovation in three ways. First, we highlight the continuum of roles played by individual leaders in the open source project, as brokers and/or initiators. Second, we delve deeper in the social networks of the Videolan software community to layout where and how leaders are organised in groups and play the role of brokers and initiators. We study leadership emergence over time by taking into account the context of activities. Finally, we produce a typology of three Videolan communities with specific social networks that evolved over time in terms of leaders and social structure

Keywords: Open source; community; leadership; social network; proximity; computer software (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cse, nep-ppm, nep-soc and nep-ure
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Published in WP BRP Series: Science, Technology and Innovation / STI, September 2018, pages 1-30

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:84sti2018

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