The Relationship of Website Environments and Individual Creativity of Users in Crowdsourcing: An Abstract

Abstract

Crowdsourcing was defined in 2008 and has become a trend in new product development (Bayus 2013; Carson 2007; Howe 2008; Raassens et al. 2012). An organization operates an online crowdsourcing website to “outsource” ideas of new products and services to “crowd” of consumers these days (Bayus 2013). Firms run a crowdsourcing website to receive ideas from consumers, which can be influenced by the website’s environmental cues. Because a website has significant influence on users (Ahn et al. 2007; Kaplan and Kaplan 2008; Schlosser et al. 2006; Zeng at al. 2009, 2012), creative environments are found to have positive impact on creativity of workers (Aaker 1982, 1989; Elam and Meed 1990). However, the relationship between website environments on user creativity has not yet been studied. If individual creativity of the user is affected by a website’s environments, firms can gain enhanced chances to generate more creative ideas in crowdsourcing projects. The purpose of this study is to figure out the relationship between the environments in a firm’s crowdsourcing website (novelty, meaningfulness, aesthetics, and simplicity) and the website users’ creativity. The study clarifies the relationship through perceived playfulness and ease of use of the website as the underlying mechanism. An online survey was collected through Amazon MTurk. Two studies are analyzed for our hypotheses. First, the structural equation modeling results significantly indicate that novelty, meaningfulness, and aesthetics of the website affect playfulness positively, whereas playfulness negatively impacts divergent thinking creativity. Website simplicity positively influences perceived ease of use, while aesthetics negatively affect perceived ease of use. But, perceived ease of use enhances convergent thinking creativity. Lastly, hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to find any variability between platforms. But, significantly small variances existed between and within websites. In conclusion, the results indicate that website environments have different impacts on users’ divergent and convergent thinking creativity. The study contributes to human-computer behavior and creativity literatures by indicating the impact of website environments on users’ creativity. Also, it suggests guidelines to firms on how to design a website to collect more creative ideas for the success of crowdsourcing programs.