Open‐source software development projects are well suited for exploring new ideas and acquiring knowledge from developers outside of the project. In this paper, we examine the impact of external developers on innovation in open‐source software development from the perspective of organizational learning theory. We examine the roles of external and internal developers, who “explore” and “exploit,” respectively, on the innovation performance of 17 691 open‐source software development projects whose data is stored in the GitHub platform. The results indicate that a multi‐faceted strategy, in which the exploitation successfully supports the exploration, is most effective for their success. The results also indicate that the role of exploration decreases after the release of the software.

中文翻译：

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开放性在开放式协作中的作用：以开放源代码软件开发项目为重点

开源软件开发项目非常适合探索新想法并从项目外的开发人员那里获取知识。在本文中，我们从组织学习理论的角度研究了外部开发人员对开源软件开发创新的影响。我们检查了分别“探索”和“利用”外部和内部开发人员在17 691个开源软件开发项目的创新绩效中的作用，这些项目的数据存储在GitHub平台中。结果表明，从多方面进行的战略可以成功地进行勘探，这是成功进行勘探的最有效方法。结果还表明，在软件发行后，探索的作用降低了。