Leadership Emergence in OSS Communities: Evidence from the Linux Kernel Development Project

In open-source software (OSS) communities, core developers—e.g., maintainers for a specific subcomponent—play a crucial role in community governance. Previous research has mainly described the characteristics and functional roles of core developers, but few have examined the drivers of progression from peripheral roles to core roles. Our theoretical model deviates from previous research by emphasizing the moderating role of developers’ span of contributions. Specifically, we suggest that the positive effect of code contributions on developers’ progression is weakened, due to productivity losses and higher marginal costs of learning, when their technical span is broader. By contrast, the positive effect of communication with community members on progression is amplified when developers’ communicative span is broader, given the benefits of cross-functional thinking and community integration. Our theory is supported in a longitudinal study of 29,818 developers in the Linux kernel development project. Our paper introduces a novel mechanism for explaining the emergence of lateral governance mechanisms in OSS communities and contributes to the more general debate on the benefits of specialization in the context of organizational governance.