On the Role of Structural Holes in Requirements Identification

Abstract

Requirements identification is a human-centric activity that involves interaction among multiple stakeholders. Traditional requirements engineering (RE) techniques addressing stakeholders’ social interaction are mainly part of a centralized process intertwined with a specific phase of software development. However, in open-source software (OSS) development, stakeholders’ social interactions are often decentralized, iterative, and dynamic. Little is known about new requirements identification in OSS and the stakeholders’ organizational arrangements supporting such an activity. In this article, we investigate the theory of structural hole from the context of contributing new requirements in OSS projects. Structural hole theory suggests that stakeholders positioned in the structural holes in their social network are able to produce new ideas. In this study, we find that structural hole positions emerge in stakeholders’ social network and these positions are positively related to contributing a higher number of new requirements. We find that along with structural hole positions, stakeholders’ role is also an important part in identifying new requirements. We further observe that structural hole positions evolve over time, thereby identifying requirements to realize enriched features. Our work advances the fundamental understanding of the RE process in a decentralized environment and opens avenues for improved techniques supporting this process.