Bit by Bit: Colocation and the Death of Distance in Software Developer Networks

Arbeitspapier

Digital work settings potentially facilitate remote collaboration and thereby decrease geographic frictions in knowledge work. Here, I analyze spatial collaboration patterns of some 191 thousand software developers in the United States on the largest code repository platform GitHub. Despite advanced digitization in this occupation, developers are geographically highly concentrated, with 79.8% of users clustering in only ten economic areas, and colocated developers collaborate about nine times as much as non-colocated developers. However, the colocation effect is much smaller than in less digital social or inventor networks, and apart from colocation geographic distance is of little relevance to collaboration. This suggests distance is indeed less important for collaboration in a digital work setting while other strong drivers of geographic concentration remain. Heterogeneity analyses provide insights on which types of collaboration tend to colocate: the colocation effect is smaller within larger organizations, for high-quality projects, among experienced developers, and for sporadic interactions. Overall, this results in a smaller colocation effect in larger economic areas.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Discussion Paper ; No. 422

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal, Professional, and Business Services ; Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure ; Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights: General ; Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis
• Subject: geography ; digitalization ; networks ; knowledge economy ; colocation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Goldbeck, Moritz
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition
• (where): München und Berlin
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/282114
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET