Collaboration for Success in Crowdsourced Innovation Projects: Knowledge Creation, Team Diversity, and Tacit Coordination

Abstract

When innovation projects are crowdsourced, individuals are allowed to form teams and collaborate to develop a successful solution. In this environment, teams will be competing with each other, as only the winning ones take the award home. Should a worker work alone, so that she or he does not need to share the award when she or he wins, or should she or he form a team for a better chance to win? In this paper, we studied the behaviors of workers in the context of crowdsourced innovation projects (CIPs). Building upon the theoretical framework of the organizational knowledge creation theory (OKCT), we linked team performance to team formation factors, including team diversity, team coordination, and task complexity. Our preliminary analysis showed that team coordination was an important factor for success. Team diversity in terms of connectivity was a positive factor towards better performance, whereas other factors were not significant. Our study indicates that workers in CIPs are likely to benefit from collaborations, connectivity diversity, and role diversity.