How do gamification mechanics drive solvers’ Knowledge contribution? A study of collaborative knowledge crowdsourcing

Abstract

In recent years, gamification mechanics have been extensively adopted by crowdsourcing platforms to improve solvers’ participation and user experience. However, although gamified crowdsourcing on competitive platforms has frequently been investigated, gamified collaborative crowdsourcing platforms are poorly understood, especially platforms where solvers cooperatively contribute knowledge. It remains unclear how solvers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations mediate the relationship between gamification mechanics and solvers’ knowledge contribution. Based on self-determination theory and related literature, this study theorises the mediating roles of three intrinsic motivations (self-esteem, competence enhancement, and a sense of virtual community) and extrinsic motivations in the relationship between three typical gamification mechanics (immersion, social, and achievement) and solvers’ knowledge contribution. It then tests the hypotheses using survey data from 386 solvers from a large collaborative knowledge crowdsourcing platform. The empirical results show that self-esteem and competence enhancement positively mediate the impact of gamification mechanics on knowledge contribution, whereas extrinsic motivation negatively mediates this impact. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study are discussed.