Motivation and Contribution in Open Source Software: A Meta-Analytic Investigation

Overview & Synopsis

Research on why people contribute to open source software (OSS) and related open collaboration platforms spans more than two decades, but its findings conflict, and studies often treat the work people contribute and their intention to keep contributing as interchangeable. Drawing on self-determination theory and motivation crowding theory, we meta-analyze 41 studies. The main analysis pools 178 correlations of eight antecedents with contribution effort and continuance intention from 29 independent samples (N = 9,632). Seven antecedents relate positively to effort, all eight relate positively to intention, and each relates at least as strongly to intention as to effort. Contrary to a common assumption, intrinsic motivation is not more strongly related to effort than extrinsic motivation, but its gap between intention and effort is larger. Reputation relates to effort mainly on platforms with a reputation system, and we find no sign that monetary rewards crowd out enjoyment. The findings inform how platforms can turn contributors' intentions into work.