[Gfoss] Research Study: Open Source Developers on the fence between company and community

Ciao a tutti

Vi giro questa interessante proposta (ovviamente con il consenso del mittente) :).
Sentite liberi di girarla a chiunque riteniate opportuno.

Saluti

Piergiovanna

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Zerbach <tzerbach@uni-koblenz.de>
Date: 2013/3/12
Subject: Research Study: Open Source Developers on the fence between company and community
To: Competence Center - Italy2 <info@softwarelibero.it>

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

I am contacting you as I found you listed as a national competence centre by the Joinup platform of the European Commission. My Name is Thomas Zerbach, I'm a research assistant at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany) currently working on a research study which revolves around the job situation of (professional) open source developers. The goal of the study is to gain insights on the effect of developers' double commitment to the open source community and the organization.

In the literature, this specific situation has gained hardly any attention so far. Yet after starting to contact developers I so far earned only positive feedback and respondents indicated that this topic is highly relevant to them.

I am contacting you with the hope of getting any kind of support in order to reach a bigger target audience that could contribute to the research. Here are some main facts about the study:

Who is the target group?

The study is aimed at employed software developers who also work with open source code and therefore are to some extent dependant on the open source community.

Why should developers participate?

1. They can support social projects and a startup company at the same time!

As an incentive, the University of Koblenz-Landau offers participants the opportunity to donate real money invested by the University to social projects after completing the survey. This offer is part of a collaboration with the startup company socialfunders, which specializes on corporate giving processes. More information on the socialfunders can be found here: https://www.socialfunders.org/.

2. They can make their voice heard!

The research study aims at deriving managerial implications for organizations to improve their employees' job situation. Participants can also gain insights in the situation of fellow open source developers if they want to receive a rehashed version of the research results after the completion of the study.

How much effort is required?

Only about 10 minutes of their time. All information will of course be treated anonymously and solely be used for scientific purposes.

Link to the research study:

http://ww2.unipark.de/uc/kb_uni_koblenz_kilian_ls/d20b/

I hope I was able to catch your interest. If you can think of a way how to support me with my research (e.g. by forwarding this message or incorporating this information in a newsletter/ internal forum) or if you have any questions regarding the research study feel free to contact me.

I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards,

Thomas Zerbach
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E-Mail: tzerbach@uni-koblenz.de
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Universität Koblenz-Landau
Lehrstuhl für Informationsmanagement und Organisation
Universitätsstr. 1
56070 Koblenz
www.uni-koblenz.de