Identity construction and sustained participation in an open source software project

The viability of open productions depends critically on their ability to attract and retain voluntary contributors. This study shifts attention from the principal focus of existing research, on ex-ante motivations – intrinsic and extrinsic – for this voluntary participation, to examine the nature of contributions over time and the consequences for sustaining participation. We suggest that participant retention is critically impacted by the social dynamics of open productions through the progressive socialization and legitimation of participants in the course of their work. Individuals construct their identity profiles as specialists or generalists by narrowly focusing or widely dispersing their efforts across knowledge domains. Drawing from the literature on the sociology of categories, we argue that the expertise of specialist contributors is more easily evaluated by fellow participants, aiding integration and fostering sustained participation. However, we propose a moderating mechanism inherent in the collaborative nature of open productions, whereby the beneficial effect of a specialist identity is diminished as contributors engage and re-engage in collaborative practices. This allows repeat collaborators to broaden their identity profile without damaging their standing within the community, on which their continued participation relies. We test our hypotheses using data on problem-solving in the form of source code contributions to the Apache HTTP Server repository. We examine the duration of the participation of 82 individuals who contribute 1425 commits, involving 10757 files over the time period 1996-2013. The results support our arguments. We discuss the broader implications for the literature on sustained participation in open productions and on the sociology of categorization processes.