Abstract
This research investigates how women’s groups facilitate people’s participation in the open source community by examining the joining activities in KDE Women. Leveraging literatures on group membership roles and socialization, and adopting a qualitative research method, a joining script of different kinds of participants was identified. It is found that members developed organizational and leadership skills and were engaged in defining group norms and values upon joining KDE Women. This study extends prior literature on socialization and provides better understanding of women’s groups in open source.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahuja, M.K.: Women in the Information Technology Profession: A Literature Review, Synthesis and Research Agenda. European Journal of Information Systems 11(1), 20–34 (2002)
Ashford, S.J.: The Role of Feedback Seeking in Individual Adaptation: A Resource Perspective. Academy of Management Journal 29(3), 465–487 (1986)
Ashford, S.J., Taylor, M.S.: Adaptation to Work Transitions: An Integrative Approach. In: Ferris, G.R., Rowland, K.M. (eds.) Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, pp. 1–39. JAI Press, Greenwich (1990)
Bartol, K.M., Aspray, W.: The Transition of Women from the Academic World to the IT Workplace: A Review of the Relevant Research. In: Cohoon, J.M., Aspray, W. (eds.) Women in Information Technology: Research on Underrepresentation, pp. 377–419. MIT Press, Cambridge (2006)
Bartol, K.M., Williamson, I.O., Langa, G.A.: Gender and Professional Commitment among IT Professionals: The Special Case of Female Newcomers to Organizations. In: Cohoon, J.M., Aspray, W. (eds.) Women in Information Technology: Research on Underrepresentation, pp. 421–438. MIT Press, Cambridge (2006)
Benne, K.D., Sheats, P.: Functional Roles of Group Members. Journal of Social Issues 4(2), 41–19 (1948)
Chatman, J.A.: Matching People and Organizations: Selection and Socialization in Public Accounting Firms. Administrative Science Quarterly 36(3), 459–484 (1991)
Chen, G., Klimoski, R.: The Impact of Expectations on Newcomers on Newcomer Performance in Teams as Mediated by Work Characteristics, Social exchanges, and Empowerment. Academy of Management Journal 46(5), 591–607 (2003)
Chen, G.: Newcomer Adaptation in Teams: Multilevel Antecedents and Outcomes. Academy of Management Journal 48(1), 101–116 (2005)
Crowston, K., Annabi, H., Howison, J.: Defining Open Source Software Project Success. Paper presented at the International Conference on Information Systems, Seattle, WA (2003)
Duriau, V.J., Reger, R.K., Pfarrer, M.D.: The Content Analysis of Content Analysis. Organizational Research Methods 10(1), 5–34 (2007)
Feldman, D.C.: A Contingency Theory of Socialization. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(3), 433–452 (1976)
Ghosh, R.A., Glott, R., Krieger, B., Robles, G.: Free/Libre Open Source Software: Survey and Study. In: Workshop on Advancing the Research Agenda on Free/Open Source Software, International Institute of Infonomics, University of Maastricht, Brussels, Netherlands (2002)
Graen, G.: Role Making Processes Within Complex Organizations. In: Dunnette, M.D. (ed.) Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, pp. 1201–1245. Rand McNally, Chicago (1976)
Hare, A.P.: Roles, Relationships, And Groups In Organizations: Some Conclusions And Recommendations. Small Group Research 34(2), 123–154 (2003)
Hars, A., Ou, S.: Working for Free? Motivations for Participating in Open Source Projects. International Journal of Electronic Commerce 6(3), 25–39 (2002)
Hennig-Thurau, T., Walsh, G.: Electronic Word-of-Mouth: Motives for and Consequences of Reading Customer Articulations on the Internet. International Journal of Electronic Commerce 8(2), 51–74 (2003)
Katz, R.: Time and Work: Toward an Integrative Perspective. In: Staw, B.M., Cummings, L.L. (eds.) Research in Organizational Behavior, pp. 81–127. JAI Press, Greenwich (1980)
Louis, M.R.: Surprise and Sense-making: What Newcomers Experience in Entering Unfamiliar Organizational Settings. Administrative Science Quarterly 25(2), 226–251 (1980)
Louis, M.R.: Newcomers as Lay Ethnographers: Acculturation During Socialization. In: Schneider, B. (ed.) Organizational Climates and Cultures, pp. 85–129. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1990)
Maloney-Krichmar, D., Preece., J.: A Multilevel Analysis of Sociability, Usability, and Community Dynamics in an Online Health Community. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 12(2), 1–32 (2005)
Morrison, E.W.: Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Information Seeking on Newcomer Socialization. Journal of Applied Psychology 78(2), 173–183 (1993)
National Center for Educational Statistics, Table 46, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04311/pdf/sectb.pdf (2004)
Nafus, D., Leach, J., Krieger, B.: Gender: Integrated Report of Findings. Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Policy Support FLOSSPOLS. Deliverable D 16, cover page (2006)
Roberts, J.A., Hann, I.-H., Slaughter, S.A.: Understanding the Motivations, Participation, and Performance of Open Source Software Developers: A Longitudinal Study of the Apache Projects. Management Science 52(7), 984–999 (2006)
Tilly, C.: Durable Inequality. University of California Press, Berkeley (1999)
Von Krogh, G., Spaeth, S., Lakhani, K.R.: Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: a Case Study. Research Policy 32(7), 1217–1241 (2003)
Weiss, T.R.: Panel: Open-Source Needs More Women Developers. Computerworld (2005)
White House Council of Economic Advisors. Opportunities and Gender Pay Equity in New Economy Occupations. Available in the National Archives (2000)
Wu, C., Gerlach, J.H., Young, C.E.: An Empirical Analysis of Open Source Software Developers Motivations and Continuance Intentions. Information & Management 44(3), 253–262 (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 IFIP
About this paper
Cite this paper
Qiu, Y., Stewart, K.J., Bartol, K.M. (2010). Joining and Socialization in Open Source Women’s Groups: An Exploratory Study of KDE-Women . In: Ågerfalk, P., Boldyreff, C., González-Barahona, J.M., Madey, G.R., Noll, J. (eds) Open Source Software: New Horizons. OSS 2010. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 319. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13244-5_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13244-5_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13243-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13244-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)