Participation motifs and the emergence of organization in open productions

Alessandro Lomi, Guido Conaldi, Marco Tonellato and Francesca Pallotti

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2014, vol. 29, issue C, 40-57

Abstract: We study how organization emerges from interdependent problem solving behavior of participants in an open production system. We consider individual problem solving attempts as acts of production embedded in an evolving bipartite network which affiliates organizational participants to organizational problems. We document how local configurations of network ties (or motifs) linking participants to problems emerge from – but at the same time sustain decentralized problem solving activities. Structural characteristics of the observed network suggest specific dependence hypotheses linking participants to problems. We explore these hypotheses by examining problem solving attempts performed by 135 participants in an open source software project on the 719 problems (software bugs) recorded during a complete release cycle of the software. Our empirical strategy relies on the specification and estimation of newly derived stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM) originally conceived for the analysis of social networks. We find that individual problem solving behavior is activated by the interaction between local configurations of network ties, the level of experience of problem solvers, and the level of difficulty of problems. The discussion focuses on the broad theoretical implications of the study for the relation between work practices and organizational structures.

Keywords: Free/open source software; Organization of production; Bipartite networks; Stochastic actor-oriented models; Emergence of organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 L17 L23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:40-57

DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2013.01.002

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