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Participation motifs and the emergence of organization in open productions

Participation motifs and the emergence of organization in open productions

Lomi, Alessandro, Conaldi, Guido ORCID: 0000-0003-3552-7307, Tonellato, Marco and Pallotti, Francesca (2013) Participation motifs and the emergence of organization in open productions. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 29. pp. 40-57. ISSN 0954-349X (doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.strueco.2013.01.002)

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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.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: [1] Accepted: January 2013. [2] First published online as "Article in Press": 23 January 2013. [3] June 2014. [4] Published as: Lomi, A., et al., Participation motifs and the emergence of organization in open productions. Struct. Change Econ. Dyn. (2013).
Uncontrolled Keywords: free/open source software, organization of production, bipartite networks, stochastic actor-oriented models, emergence of organization
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Business
Faculty of Business > Networks and Urban Systems Centre (NUSC) > Centre for Business Network Analysis (CBNA)
Faculty of Business > Department of International Business & Economics
Related URLs:
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2019 16:48
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/10321

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