Abstract
This paper studies the emergence of entrepreneurs and their skill profile in the open source software (OSS) community. We test the hypothesis that entrepreneurs, carrying out complex, multitask activities, have more balanced skill sets compared with individuals who are less involved in project management activities.Our empirical analysis employs the SourceForge dataset containing information on 77,039 individuals working in 54,229 OSS projects. We estimate logit and ordered logit models to explore the likelihood that an individual is a project founder or manager. Our main regressors include individual attributes like skill level and diversity, and project-level controls. Results support our hypothesis.
A shorter version of this paper has been published in Information Economics and Policy 2008 with the title “Explaining leadership in virtual teams: the case of open source software.”
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- 1.
An example of research in this sense is Dahlander (2007).
- 2.
Empirical papers on the benefits of heterogeneous workforce mainly provide evidence of positive or curvilinear (inverted U-shape) relations between skill diversity and performance. See Bantel and Jackson (1989), Hamilton et al. (2003), Laursen et al. (2005), Carbonell and Rodriguez (2006). See also Hambrick et al. (1996) on the impact of heterogeneity of top management teams on firms competitive actions.
- 3.
The variable captures the requests made to SF.net to found a project. Thus, it captures the initial act of foundation irrespectively of its postentry performance.
- 4.
The same variables have a negative marginal effect on other roles such as “No role” and “Other roles.”
- 5.
Results are available upon request from the authors.
- 6.
Using ordered probit regressions, results are qualitatively similar. Generalized ordered logit (gologit), for which the proportional odds assumption (POA) is relaxed, produce a certain number of observations with predicted probability less than 0. The reported ologit coefficients have been preferred even in absence of POA, as they represent a sort of compromise between all the categories’ coefficients. Notice that they are highly consistent with gologit for N_SKILLS e 1-HERF, but supportive for N_SUBPROJECT and SIZE only for “No-role” and “Other.”
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Acknowledgments
Salvatore Torrisi acknowledges the financial support of the University of Bologna (Progetto strategico Nascita e sviluppo di imprese ad alta tecnologia in Europa (STARTUP).
Francesco Rullani gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Fondazione IRI (“Programma di perfezionamento all’estero in discipline manageriali”).
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Appendix. Roles reported in SF.Net
Appendix. Roles reported in SF.Net
Role | Share (%) |
|---|---|
Developer | 28.09 |
Project Manager | 10.57 |
All-Hands Person | 3.77 |
Web Designer | 1.02 |
Tester | 0.85 |
Graphic/Other Designer | 0.77 |
Advisor/Mentor/Consultant | 0.58 |
Doc Writer | 0.57 |
Doc Translator | 0.46 |
Unix Admin | 0.42 |
Analysis/Design | 0.34 |
Packager (.rpm,.deb etc) | 0.29 |
Editorial/Content Writer | 0.21 |
Porter (Cross Platform Devel.) | 0.19 |
Content Management | 0.17 |
Support Manager | 0.16 |
Distributor/Promoter | 0.09 |
Requirements Engineering | 0.08 |
No role | 51.37 |
Total | 100.00 |
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Giuri, P., Rullani, F., Torrisi, S. (2009). A Test of Lazear’s Theory of Entrepreneurship in the Open Source Software Virtual Community. In: Audretsch, D., Dagnino, G., Faraci, R., Hoskisson, R. (eds) New Frontiers in Entrepreneurship. International Studies in Entrepreneurship, vol 26. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0058-6_10
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