Diversity’s role in collaboration and conflict: a case-study of React.js

Diversity and collaboration are critical elements that shape innovation within open source projects. Research shows that diversity brings broader perspectives and more creative solutions, yet it can cause unique challenges, such as higher levels of conflict and the need for effective resolution strategies. Understanding how diverse contributors interact and collaborate is essential for creating an inclusive open source community that retains minorities and leverages the benefits of diversity. In this paper, we report from a case study of a large open source project, React.js. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed contributor discussions in 4,211 pull requests and 26,681 individual comments in the last ten years (117 versions). We identify themes in the contributors’ collaboration, leveraging both manual and automated approaches, and observe that more diverse, collaborative groups that experience conflict work together longer, and merge more pull requests than groups without conflict. Our longitudinal analysis of collaborations spanning multiple versions indicates that they did not experience contributor attrition and appear to have successfully navigated conflict through higher levels of inquisitive and interdependent behavior. A deeper qualitative analysis of conflictual conversations allows us to reflect on how psychological safety may have allowed teams to engage in "productive conflict" and leverage contrasting perspectives in diverse collaboration. Our work brings timely insights into how diverse contributors interact in open-source projects, with potential implications to managing collaboration in diverse open-source communities.