Managing while invisible: how the gig economy shapes us and our cities

By making themselves invisible, platforms cast themselves as digital infrastructures without responsibilities or agency, write Daniel Curto-Millet and Roser Pujada

Of Founders and Contributors: The Construction of Authority through Personal Data Digitalization

Autocratic governance structures are prevalent in open source projects. One key figure in such a structure is the project founder, often called ‘Benevolent Dictator for Life.’ These benevolent dictators typically engage in autocratic decision-making by virtue of having founded the project or holding gatekeeping roles. However, research has overlooked how autocratic governance is formed around the Benevolent Dictator for Life and the enduring appeal of this figure in open source projects. To this end, this study aims to explore the way autocratic structures in open source projects are sustained or changed and the roles that autocratic founders play in this process. Drawing upon the CARE theory, which theorises the relationship between personal data digitalization and human dignity, we propose a conceptual model that highlights the formation of autocratic structures and the distinct roles that founders can play during this process

The emergence of openness in open source projects : the case of openEHR

The meaning of openness in open source is both intrinsically unstable and dynamic, and tends to fluctuate with time and context. We draw on a very particular open-source project primarily concerned with building rigorous clinical concepts to be used in electronic health records called openEHR. openEHR explains how openness is a concept that is purposely engaged with, and how, in this process of engagement, the very meaning of open matures and evolves within the project. Drawing on rich longitudinal data related to openEHR we theorise the evolving nature of openness and how this idea emerges through two intertwined processes of maturation and metamorphosis. While metamorphosis allows us to trace and interrogate the mutational evolution in openness, maturation analyses the small, careful changes crafted to build a very particular understanding of openness. Metamorphosis is less managed and controlled, whereas maturation is representative of highly precise work carried out in controlled form. Both processes work together in open-source projects and reinforce each other. Our study reveals that openness emerges and evolves in open-source projects where it can be understood to mean rigour; ability to participate; open implementation; and an open process. Our work contributes to a deepening in the theorisation of what it means to be an open-source project. The multiple and co-existing meanings of ‘open’ imply that open-source projects evolve in nonlinear ways where each critical meaning of openness causes a reflective questioning by the community of its continued status and existence

To be or to become? An enquiry into the changing nature of requirements in open source health IT

This thesis develops a contemporary problematisation of software requirements. It departs from traditional conceptions of requirements as simple, tamed objects with deterministic force over socio-technical actors and based on assumptions of stability. Such views can lead to a narrow, ultimately unfruitful understanding of the significance of requirements and denied wider consequences of their modes of articulation. Instead, the thesis builds on perspectives where requirements are complex and interactive actors. The thesis uses openEHR—an open source health IT project aiming to build interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHRs)—as a case study. Studying open source practice offers a good opportunity to consider the nature of requirements because there is an ongoing debate about requirements’ role and influence on development activities and project organisation. The analysis uses Deleuzian concepts of assemblage, multiplicity and becoming. These themes align with a larger body of work influenced by STS and process oriented theorisations, which see the world as dynamic and performative. The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari in particular provides a counter-balance to any assumed stability in the world. The thesis presents a new account of the nature of requirements, one that reflects their complex entanglement within software development and open source in particular. Requirements are not insipid descriptive statements that abstract and simplify the world deterministically. They have an intricate existence which serves to hold the potential in the assemblage to become many things. In particular, requirements insinuate themselves into a project’s identity, guide a project through territories—some to be explored, some to be disregarded—and demand specific ways to be recognised, engaged, and cared for. The thesis argues that requirements are more virtual than originally thought, having a subtle, not necessarily visible influence on their assemblages and the way socio-technical actors can potentially relate to the project itself

Sustained participation in open source: A psychological contract approach

We propose the use of the psychological contract as an alternative theoretical lens to study sustained participation and engagement in open source, which is often used as an example of new forms of digitized independent work. Psychological contracts are the set of beliefs held by individuals of their personal exchange with an organization and other actors with which they work. While previous literature has tended to study inducements (e.g., intrinsic or extrinsic motivation) on its own, the psychological contract studies the relation between an individual’s expected inducements and contributions. If these expectations are unmet, a breach can take place that will affect contributor engagement. We suggest the usefulness of this theory in understanding why and how open source participants decide to stop or reduce their involvement. Participants hold multiple psychological contracts with the project, fellow developers, and users. The findings show that breach can be experienced with all of them either due to unmet contributions or inducements. We suggest further research into such breaches is required to understand their consequences on the sustainability of open source projects

“The Voices of the Subjugated” - A Feminist Critique of Information Systems Research

In this research-in-progress paper, we argue that feminist epistemologies can greatly benefit Information Systems research as it tries to grapple with societal issues of marginalization, emancipation, and distribution of power associated with digital technologies. Indeed, Information Systems scholars’ growing focus on “doing good” requires us to think carefully not only about who the subject and objects of study are, but also on our own privileges as researchers. By drawing on Spivak and Deleuze and Guattari, we propose that feminist perspectives can play a key role in researching marginalized voices. We engage in asking questions and emphasize the need for IS research to (1) locate experiences of alternative subjectification done in environments where people are subjugated or obliged to conform to an imposed identity; and (2) enter a dialog with major theories to showcase the contradictions within dominant discourse

Challenge 8: Digital Citizenship

Digital relations are deeply transforming our lives : from the nature of political participation to the relationship between digital and non-digital environments ; from the reorganization of the public sphere to the ethics of responsibility, transparency or inclusiveness. We are witnessing fundamental changes in the infrastructures of democracy and the emergence of new forms of digital citizenship.Peer reviewe

Sustainability and Governance in Developing Open Source Projects as Processes of In-Becoming

Sustainability is often thought of as a binary state: an open source project is either sustainable or not. In reality, sustainability is much more complex. What makes this project more sustainable than that one? Why should it be assumed in the first place that sustainability is a prolonged state of an ingraced project? The threads are pulled from their yarns in many directions. This article attempts to reconceptualize some assumed notions of the processes involved in developing open source software. It takes the stance in favour of studying the fluctuant nature of open source and the associated artefacts, not as well-defined objects, but as commons that are continually built upon, evolved, and modified; sometimes in unexpected ways. Further, the governance of these commons is an ongoing process, tightly linked with the way in which these commons are allowed to further develop. This perspective of "in-becoming" is useful in understanding the efforts and processes that need to be provided to sustainably govern the development of open source projects and the advantages for managing requirements derived therein

The design of social inclusion interventions: A paradox approach

Are social inclusion and social exclusion opposed? Through a three-year ethnography of an open source civic crowdsourcing platform aiming for generalized social inclusion, we show they are not. We argue that social inclusion and exclusion have a paradoxical relationship: ongoing tensions exist between them, and information systems shape those tensions. We find that design choices have crucial influence over information systems interventions’ capacity to include and exclude and propose a framework for designing IS-based social inclusion interventions. The framework encompasses four types of strategies (positive discrimination, integrative oscillation, equitability and iterative inclusivity) for managing the paradoxical link between inclusion and exclusion through IS design. We also present the notion of ‘collectives’ as a new way of thinking about exclusion criteria