ABSTRACT

Crowdsourcing contests allow organisations to engage with an external workforce. Over the years, the phenomenon has attracted considerable research interest. In the present review, we synthesise the crowdsourcing contest literature by adopting the social mechanism lens. We begin by observing that stakeholders in crowdsourcing contests range from individuals (solvers) to large-scale organisations (seekers). Given that such vastly different entities interact during a crowdsourcing contest, it is expected that their behaviour, too, can have a varying range of predictors, such as individual and organisational factors. However, prior reviews on Crowdsourcing contests and crowdsourcing, in general, haven't explored the phenomenon's multi-layered nature. In addressing this gap, we synthesise 127 scholarly articles and identify underlying social mechanisms that explain key behavioural outcomes of seekers and solvers. Our review makes two specific contributions. First, we determine three distinct tensions that emerge from the key design decisions that might be at odds with the central principle of crowdsourcing contests: broadcast search for solutions from a long-tail of solvers. Second, we provide three recommendations for future research that, we believe, could provide a richer understanding of the seeker and solver behaviour.

摘要

众包竞赛可让组织与外部员工互动。多年来，该现象引起了相当大的研究兴趣。在本文中，我们采用社会机制的视角综合了众包竞赛的文献资料。首先，我们观察到众包竞赛中的利益相关者从个人（解决者）到大型组织（寻求者）。鉴于在众包竞赛中存在如此巨大差异的实体会相互作用，因此预计它们的行为也可能具有各种预测因素，例如个人和组织因素。但是，总体而言，先前对众包竞赛和众包的评论并未探讨这种现象的多层次性质。在解决这一差距时，我们综合了127篇学术文章，并确定了解释寻求者和解决者的关键行为结果的潜在社会机制。我们的审查做出了两个具体贡献。首先，我们确定了可能与众包竞赛的中心原则相悖的关键设计决策中出现的三种不同的张力：广播式搜索，从长尾求解器中寻找解决方案。其次，我们为未来的研究提供了三项建议，我们认为这些建议可以对寻求者和解决者的行为提供更丰富的理解。从长尾求解器中广播搜索解决方案。第二，我们为未来的研究提供了三项建议，我们认为它们可以对寻求者和解决者的行为提供更丰富的理解。从长尾求解器中广播搜索解决方案。第二，我们为未来的研究提供了三项建议，我们认为它们可以对寻求者和解决者的行为提供更丰富的理解。