H. Colleen Stuart

Social coding in GitHub: transparency and collaboration in an open software repository

Social applications on the web let users track and follow the activities of a large number of others regardless of location or affiliation. There is a potential for this transparency to radically improve collaboration and learning in complex knowledge-based activities. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with central and peripheral GitHub users, we examined the value of transparency for large-scale distributed collaborations and communities of practice. We find that people make a surprisingly rich set of social inferences from the networked activity information in GitHub, such as inferring someone elses technical goals and vision when they edit code, or guessing which of several similar projects has the best chance of thriving in the long term. Users combine these inferences into effective strategies for coordinating work, advancing technical skills and managing their reputation.

The Oscar Curse: Status Dynamics and Gender Differences in Marital Survival

We analyzed the marital histories of all Best Actor and Best Actress Academy Award nominees from 1936 to 2010 to determine the effect of a sudden status shift on marriage survival. We find that Oscar wins are associated with a greater risk of divorce for Best Actresses, but not for Best Actors. This asymmetry is consistent with gender dynamics documented in marriages among the general population.

A network perspective on membership change: Structural disruption and adaptation in hockey teams

Changes in membership can be disruptive to team functioning and outcomes. It is not clear, however, how the impact of membership change on performance is affected by the way interdependent work is ...