Social Capital and Clan Control on Software Platforms

Abstract

Although platform operators such as Google or Apple are facing a trade-off between retaining and relinquishing control to manage a myriad of third-party developers and development projects, little is known about how clan control—a particularly relevant informal control mode in decentralized multi-project software development—can be facilitated on software platforms and how it affects developer performance. Drawing on control literature and social capital theory, we conducted an online survey with 218 app developers of Google’s Android platform in which we examined how social capital facilitates the exercise of clan control to enhance crucial developer performance outcomes. Our study not only shows that all three dimensions of social capital (i.e., structural, cognitive and relational social capital) are critical levers for exercising clan control on software platforms, but also that clan control leads to higher development performance and app ratings on the platform. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.