Abstract
Crowdsourcing ideation contests allow solution-seeking firms (seekers) to solicit ideas from external individuals (solvers). Contest platforms often recommend seekers to provide examples of solutions (i.e., seeker exemplars) to guide and inspire solvers in generating ideas. In this study, we delve into solvers’ ideation process and examine how different configurations of seeker exemplars affect the quantitative outcomes in solvers’ scanning, shortlisting, and selection of ideas. Results from an online experiment show that solvers generally search for, shortlist, and/or submit fewer ideas when shown certain seeker exemplars. In addition, solvers who submit fewer ideas tend to submit lower-quality ideas, on average. Thus, a key insight from this study is that showing seeker exemplars, which contest platforms encourage and seekers often do, could negatively affect quantitative ideation outcomes and thereby impair idea quality. To help mitigate these adverse ideation outcomes, we propose a few areas of which seekers should be mindful. We also suggest ways that contests’ platforms can contribute to the idea generation process that solvers undertake.
Highlights
Information technology (IT) is an important facilitator of idea sourcing, supporting channels such as electronic brainstorming among employees (Dennis et al 1999, Potter and Balthazard 2004) and online user communities (Di Gangi et al 2010, Hwang et al 2019) through which organizations acquire ideas to address their problems
We argue that the solvers’ use of local and/or distant seeker exemplars in the respective search and evaluation activities is affected by their belief and emphasis in contests as well as the influences of processing fluency and confirmation bias during idea generation
To investigate the possibility of the priming effect, we examine the cognitive process of solver in the distant exemplars and mixed exemplars conditions by analyzing the concepts that they searched for, as these solvers were shown at least one seeker exemplar that was inconsistent with the problem domain
Summary
Seekers often show examples of ideas that they like in the project briefs; we term these “seeker exemplars.” (Online Appendix A shows a project brief and seeker exemplar in an image contest on Foap, a crowdsourcing platform for visual content.) Solvers must generate and submit their ideas for seekers’ consideration before the deadlines. Research shows that seekers can mobilize the crowd to develop valuable ideas (Bayus 2013, Franke et al 2014), and solvers in ideation contests can come up with solutions for problems that firms could not solve (Jeppesen and Lakhani 2010) or generate ideas that outperform those by firms (Poetz and Schreier 2012, Nishikawa et al 2013). One way to increase the likelihood of attaining good ideas is to encourage solvers to generate and submit more ideas; prior studies show that this strategy of achieving idea quality through idea quantity could be effective
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
