Impacts of Social Network Structure on Knowledge Sharing in Open Source Software Development Teams

摘要

The study examines the relationship between social network structure and knowledge sharing in Open Source Software (OSS) development teams. One hundred and fifty projects were selected from SourceForge.net using stratified sampling. Social network structure was measured by two indices: degree of centralization and core/periphery fitness. Knowledge sharing was measured from two aspects: the quality of knowledge sharing that is indicated by the helpfulness of messages and the quantity of knowledge sharing that is indicated by the number of messages. The results show that social network structure significantly affects the quantity of knowledge sharing. However, social network structure does not influence the quality of knowledge sharing. In addition to the contribution to OSS literature, the results of this study also inform OSS practice.