Feedback types and users’ behavior in online innovation contests: Evidence of two underlying mechanisms

Abstract

Online innovation contests (OIC) provide companies, via a dedicated community, an important means to access remote knowledge and ideas of users and thereby a creative playground for fueling innovation. Our literature review shows that our understanding of the impact of diverse types of feedback on user participation, especially continued participation, and success in OIC is at a nascent stage. The present study therefore seeks to examine why and how different types of feedback influence users’ behavior in OIC, and the detailed mechanisms underlying such influences. While our results do not show a significant relationship between receiving peer dynamic feedback and user success, we find that receiving sponsor static feedback in users’ first submission is positively associated with their continued participation in OIC. Also, when compared to peer dynamic feedback, sponsor static feedback has a stronger effect on users’ continued participation. Our goal is to confer a holistic picture of how the timing, source, and form of feedback shape user continuous participation and success in OIC.