Abstract:

This study identified the common sources of conflict in the settings of virtual team and software engineering by narrative literature review and content analysis, and then summarized the potential sources of conflict in open source scenario by taking into account the triggering events that have been identified in the extant literature. Based on the common features of open source software development and the two perspectives mentioned above, we further proposed that the sources of conflict in open source software developing team lie in these potential sources. Then, we empirically examined the proposition by interviews. Five major sources of conflict in open source scenario have been confirmed, namely 1) disagreement on organizational rules, development procedure and budget planning; 2) confusion about task distribution among team members, such as roles and responsibilities; 3) information asymmetry among members; 4) different goals and motivations; 5) diversity of individuality and backgrounds. These findings can help project managers improve the efficiency of teamwork and the quality of open source software by resolving team conflict in terms of sources.

Key words: Sources of conflict, Open source software community, Virtual team, Task conflict, Process conflict, Relationship conflict