Abstract
The success of firms’ participation in open source software (OSS) development depends heavily upon their ability to maintain a constant flow of voluntary contributions. The emerging literature on contributors’ continued participation suggests that contributors’ willingness to stay in OSS projects is shaped by their experience of prior participation. We extend this literature by examining how gatekeepers’ interactions with contributors influence their continued participation in firm-hosted OSS projects. Predictions are formalized in an analytical model that analyzes how contributors’ belief updating process is affected by gatekeepers’ code acceptance and knowledge sharing activities. By utilizing data on 9,271 newcomers’ participation in Google-owned OSS projects on GitHub, we find that gatekeepers’ knowledge sharing and code acceptance in initial interactions have positive effects on newcomers’ continued participation in OSS projects. In addition, these effects persist among newcomers who work for the OSS firms and are magnified if gatekeepers have high expertise.
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