Technological Factors Facilitating B40's Motivation in Malaysia to Continue Using Online Crowdsourcing Platform

Abstract

The increasing number of retrenchments because of the current global pandemic, Covid-19, has led many to shift to the digital economy, especially among the low-income group (B40) in Malaysia. Crowdsourcing is the collection of information, opinions, or work from a group of people, usually sourced via the Internet. Fueled by the development of Internet-based platforms that provided its technological foundation, and the need for an agile and uniquely skilled workforce, crowdsourcing has grown from the grassroots, with a burgeoning body of research investigating its many aspects. However, very few studies examined crowd workers' motivation for continuous participation on online crowdsourcing platforms. Thus, this paper aims to explore the technological factors that facilitate B40's group motivation in Malaysia to continue to participate in online crowdsourcing platforms. This paper employed a qualitative approach, using a semi-structured interview. The thematic analysis method was used to decode the data extracted from the interview transcript. The finding of this study identified four main themes and seven sub-themes: (1) Technology efficacy, (2) Platform Management: client-worker management, safety net, payment mechanism, (3) Platform Design: Ul design, rating feature and (4) Infrastructure: Internet connection, technology infrastructure. This study can provide a guideline for managing crowdsourcing practices in Malaysia, especially for the crowdsourcing platform developer.