Table Of ContentInnovation, Entrepreneurship
und Digitalisierung
Dirk Homscheid
Firm-Sponsored
Developers in Open
Source Software
Projects
A Social Capital Perspective
Innovation, Entrepreneurship und
Digitalisierung
Reihe herausgegeben von
Mario Schaarschmidt, Institut für Management, Universität Koblenz-Landau,
Koblenz, Deutschland
Harald von Korflesch, Institut für Management, Universität Koblenz-Landau,
Koblenz, Deutschland
Kern dieser Schriftenreihe ist die empirische und praxisnahe Betrachtung des
Zusammenspiels von Innovation, Entrepreneurship und Digitalisierung in ver-
schiedenster Ausprägung. Dies beinhaltet Themen wie Geschäftsmodellinnova-
tion, Soziale Medien, Technologiemanagement sowie neuere Themenblöcke wie
beispielsweise Sharing Economy. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt bei der Bearbeitung
der Themen auf den Veränderungen, die durch Digitalisierung hervorgerufen
wurden. Ziel dieser Reihe ist es, insbesondere innovative Forschungsergeb-
nisse, welche zu neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen führen, gebündelt dem
geneigten Leser zu präsentieren. Publiziert werden nationale und internationale
wissenschaftliche Arbeiten.
Die Reihe Innovation, Entrepreneurship und Digitalisierung wird herausgegeben
von Mario Schaarschmidt und Harald von Korflesch.
Weitere Bände in der Reihe http://www.springer.com/series/16138
Dirk Homscheid
Firm-Sponsored
Developers in Open
Source Software Projects
A Social Capital Perspective
Dirk Homscheid
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Genehmigte Dissertation zur Verleihung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der
Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Dr. rer. pol.), Fachbereich 4: Informatik, Uni-
versität K oblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany, 2020.
ISSN 2524-5783 ISSN 2524-5791 (electronic)
Innovation, Entrepreneurship und Digitalisierung
ISBN 978-3-658-31477-4 ISBN 978-3-658-31478-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31478-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien
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To my Family
Foreword
Since early efforts in understanding open collaborative communities, researchers
have placed a premium in understanding the functioning of open source software
(OSS) communities. This interest mainly arises from its economic peculiarities:
Parties submit their resources (mostly time and human capital) to a project that
is freely available to anyone. While this form of private-collective innovation is
interesting per se, it becomes even more intriguing when firms with economic
interests start deploying resources to OSS projects. To this end, Dirk Homscheid
investigates the behavior of firm representatives in OSS projects by drawing on
the example of Linux kernel development.
Across three studies, Dirk Homscheid showed that developers that act on
behalf of a company differ significantly from average developers in aspects such
as network centrality, social capital, or opinion leadership. To arrive at mean-
ingful conclusions, Dirk Homscheid uses a plethora of different methods and
approaches such as social network analysis, survey, and regression analysis. The
results therefore provide meaningful hints for firms on how to engage with open
communities that complement their own research and development activities.
The focal thesis was conducted at University of Koblenz-Landau, Institute
for Management, in close collaboration with the Institute for Web Science and
Technologies (WeST). The thesis therefore nicely mirrors the multiple research
endeavors at these institutes at the intersection of digital technologies, business
strategies, and socio-economic change.
Personally, I have to thank Dirk Homscheid for a very fruitful and productive
period of close collaboration. He always was open to new suggestions and was
vii
viii Foreword
hard working towards getting the necessary data. It is my pleasure to honor his
achievements in this foreword.
For your career as well as for your personal life, dear Dirk, I wish you only the
best.
Koblenz, Germany Mario Schaarschmidt
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank JProf. Dr. Mario Schaarschmidt from the Institute for Man-
agement for the opportunity to do a doctorate under his supervision and for the
numerous thought-provoking impulses, which he has given me. Additionally, I
am very grateful for the financial support through the PhD scholarship offered by
Prof. Dr. Steffen Staab from the Institute for Web Science and Technologies.
I got into conversation with many people about my research while doing my
PhD thesis. All these people I would like to thank for their valuable feedback and
support. I would like to particularly mention the researchers from the Institute for
Web Science and Technologies, Koblenz, here especially Dr. Jerome Kunegis,
and the researchers from GESIS, Cologne, for sharing their thoughts with me.
Moreover, I would like to thank the faculty, particularly Prof. Dr. Jan Recker and
Prof. Dr. Marijn Janssen, of the 2015 European Conference on Information Sys-
tems Doctoral Consortium for their target-aimed feedback on my PhD research.
The same applies for the participants of the 2015 Developmental Workshop on
Open Research and Practice in Information Systems (AIS SIGOPEN) and in par-
ticular Prof. Dr. Joseph Feller and Prof. Dr. Matt Germonprez.
During my dissertation I have been very supported by my family. At this
point I would like to take the opportunity to warmly thank my parents, my
parents-in-law as well as my sister and especially my wife for their support and
patience.
Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany Dirk Homscheid
ix
Contents
1 Introduction ............................................... 1
1.1 Motivation ............................................ 1
1.2 Research Question and Dissertation Goal .................... 3
1.3 Coherence of the Dissertation Studies ....................... 6
1.4 Structure and Outline .................................... 8
2 The Social Capital View ..................................... 11
2.1 The Evolution of the Social Capital Concept ................. 12
2.2 Considering Social Capital Theorists ....................... 16
2.2.1 Pierre Bourdieu .................................. 17
2.2.2 James Samual Coleman ............................ 20
2.2.3 Robert David Putnam .............................. 21
2.2.4 Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal ............... 23
2.2.5 Nan Lin ........................................ 27
2.3 Defining Social Capital .................................. 34
2.4 Social Capital Research Today ............................ 40
2.5 Characteristics of Social Capital compared to other Forms
of Capital ............................................. 44
2.6 Drawbacks of Social Capital .............................. 47
2.7 Social Capital in the Context of Organizations ................ 49
2.8 Summary ............................................. 51
3 Open Source Software and Firm Involvement ................... 53
3.1 The Open Source Software Phenomenon .................... 54
3.1.1 A Comparison of Open Source Software and
Proprietary Software .............................. 54
3.1.2 An Outline of the Open Source Movement ............. 56
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