As discussed in The Free Software Vs Open Source Movement blog post, organizations must adopt OSS Ideology if they want to successfully participate and gain value from Open Source activities1.

The degree of OSS Ideology difference2 between the team members, the company and the OSS community can affect software teams and individual team members commitment to the company. Internal developers who embraces OSS ideology more than other OSS contributors tend to show less commitment to the company whereas team members who perceive others embracing OSS ideology more than they do tend to have an increased commitment to the company. It’s unclear how this dynamic can influence the employees commitment to the welfare of the Open Source project itself compared to the welfare of the company. This potential side effect of “ideology misfit”3 leading to an employee’s commitment favouring the OSS project more than the firm should be kept in mind when structuring projects and teams. Von Krogh et al. (2012)4 touched on a somewhat related risk of employees switching firms due to firms general failure to embrace Open Source ideology. One of the outcomes of Ågerfalk and Fitzgerald (2008)5 paper advocated assigning employees to an OSS project for longer periods than they would for a proprietary project in order to bolster the firm’s commitment to the OSS project. In light of the above, this action may not always be advisable when employees OSS Ideology is more strongly aligned with the OSS project than with the firm.

Next: Innovation within Open Source projects


  1. Stewart, K.J., Gosain, S., 2006. The Impact of Ideology on Effectiveness in Open Source Software Development Teams. MIS Q. 30, 291–314. ↩︎

  2. Daniel, S.L., Maruping, L.M., Cataldo, M., Herbsleb, J., 2018. The Impact of Ideology Misfit on Open Source Software Communities and Companies. MIS Q. 42, 1069–1096. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2018/14242 ↩︎

  3. Daniel, S.L., Maruping, L.M., Cataldo, M., Herbsleb, J., 2018. The Impact of Ideology Misfit on Open Source Software Communities and Companies. MIS Q. 42, 1069–1096. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2018/14242 PAGE 1071 ↩︎

  4. von Krogh, G., Haefliger, S., Spaeth, S., Wallin, M.W., 2012. Carrots and Rainbows: Motivation and Social Practice in Open Source Software Development. MIS Q. 36, 649–676. ↩︎

  5. Ågerfalk, P.J., Fitzgerald, B., 2008. Outsourcing to an Unknown Workforce: Exploring Opensourcing as a Global Sourcing Strategy. MIS Q. 32, 385–409. ↩︎