The Effects and Antecedents of Conflict in Free and Open Source Software Development

Conflict is an important group process, and more so in self-organizing teams with fluid boundaries and high possibility for turnover. We empirically investigate different types of conflict in Free and Open Source Software development teams, their antecedents and impact on developers' sustained participation. Following a survey of 222 FOSS developers, we find conflict to have an overall negative effect on developer retention. Furthermore, different types of conflict have varying impact on outcomes. In particular, only normative conflict levels negatively impact intention to remain in a FOSS project. Both normative and process conflict negatively affect perceptions of team performance, while the co-occurrence of task and process conflict exacerbate negative effects on outcomes. Though we find structural factors like task interdependence and geographical distribution increase overall conflict levels in FOSS teams, participatory decision-making and a transformational leadership style have an ameliorating effect. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.