Exploring Motivations for Contributing to Open Source Initiatives: The Roles of Contribution Context and Personal Values. Oreg, S. & Nov, O. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5):2055-2073, 9, 2008.
Exploring Motivations for Contributing to Open Source Initiatives: The Roles of Contribution Context and Personal Values [pdf]Paper  Exploring Motivations for Contributing to Open Source Initiatives: The Roles of Contribution Context and Personal Values [link]Website  abstract   bibtex   
We explore contextual and dispositional correlates of the motivation to contribute to open source initiatives. We examine how the context of the open source project, and the personal values of con- tributors, are related to the types of motivations for contributing. A web-based survey was admin- istered to 300 contributors in two prominent open source contexts: software and content. As hypothesized, software contributors placed a greater emphasis on reputation-gaining and self-devel- opment motivations, compared with content contributors, who placed a greater emphasis on altru- istic motives. Furthermore, the hypothesized relationships were found between contributors’ personal values and their motivations for contributing.

Downloads: 0