Designing the Next-Generation Crowd Platforms (Crowd Platforms)

Abstract:

Despite the growth of crowdsourcing as a de facto practice for organizations to leverage the collective strength of online communities in tackling business problems, it is often plagued by challenges in retaining contributors and fraudulent behaviors of requesters. To this end, this research aims to conduct a cross-country comparison of contributors’ behavior on existing crowd platforms in both Denmark and Hong Kong in order to uncover factors that incentivize or disincentize contributors. In doing so, this study endeavors to develop a comprehensive and robust theory that is essential for: (1) ascertaining individuals’ motivation for contributing to crowd platforms; (2) determining the types of risks encountered on crowd platforms, and; (3) devise mechanisms for capturing the benefits from individuals’ contribution to crowd platforms while mitigating the risks involved in contributing to these platforms.