The insider’s dilemma: employed open source developers’ identification imbalance and intentions to leave
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Date
2025
Authors
Schaarschmidt, Mario
Stol, Klaas-Jan
Fitzgerald, Brian
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Published Version
Abstract
In corporate-sponsored open source software development, company-employed developersbecome “insiders” to the OSS community, and therefore have two roles: they serve asa representative of their employing company, but may also identify as a member of theopen source community. This study investigates what happens when identification with thecompany exceeds identification with the community (and vice versa), and also focuses onconsequences when these insider roles come in conflict. Informed by social identity theory andorganization-profession conflict theory, we report on two studies that predict identificationimbalance to affect company turnover intention. Our first study is based on a survey ofemployed Linux kernel developers and uses polynomial regression to assess the effect ofidentification imbalance (and congruence) on company turnover intention. The second studyextends our investigation beyond Linux and demonstrates that the effect of identificationimbalance on turnover intention is mediated by role conflict. The findings suggest that turn-over intention is lowest, when company and community identification match at high ratherthan low levels. We also find developers’ company career ambition influences how role conflictrelates to company turnover intention. This study holds implications for theory and formanagers in companies who engage with OSS communities.
Description
Keywords
Open source software , Organizational identification , Turnover intention , Responsesurface method
Citation
Schaarschmidt, M., Stol, K.-J. and Fitzgerald, B. (2025) ‘The insider’s dilemma: employed open source developers’ identification imbalance and intentions to leave’, European Journal of Information Systems, pp. 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2025.2463984