Motivation and Sorting in Open Source Software Innovation

Mark Schankerman and Sharon Belenzon

No 7012, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper studies the role of intrinsic motivation, reputation and reciprocity in driving open source software innovation. We exploit the observed pattern of contributions - the 'revealed preference' of developers - to infer the underlying incentives. Using detailed information on code contributions and project membership, we classify developers into distinct groups and study how contributions from each developer type vary by license (contract) type and other project characteristics. The central empirical finding is that developers strongly sort by license type, project size and corporate sponsorship. This evidence confirms the importance of heterogeneous motivations, specifically a key role for motivated agents and reputation, but less for reciprocity.

Keywords: Incentives; Innovation; Intrinsic motivation; Motivated agents; Open source software; Reciprocity; Reputation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L14 L17 L41 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-ppm and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7012 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Motivation and Sorting in Open Source Software Innovation (2008)
Working Paper: Motivation and Sorting in Open Source Software Innovation (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7012

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7012
orders@cepr.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).