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Harnessing the creative potential of consumers: money, participation, and creativity in idea crowdsourcing

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  • Oguz Ali Acar

    (City, University of London)

Abstract

Given the growing importance of innovation and consumer engagement, many firms are strongly interested in finding ways to encourage their consumers to generate creative new product ideas for them in their crowdsourcing initiatives. To that end, managers often use monetary rewards—one of the most commonly used managerial tools to stimulate desired behaviors. A critical question in this respect is whether the use of monetary rewards is effective in stimulating creativity and, if so, how large those rewards should be. This study aims to answer these questions. The results of an experiment suggest that introducing monetary rewards does not contribute to the number of new product ideas generated by a single consumer or the novelty of his/her ideas, and when the reward is relatively small, it can even be harmful. Monetary rewards, however, are effective in encouraging widespread participation in crowdsourcing initiatives and improving the appropriateness of the new product ideas. As a whole, these findings take us a step further toward better understanding the motivational mechanisms of consumer creativity in new product ideation.

Suggested Citation

  • Oguz Ali Acar, 2018. "Harnessing the creative potential of consumers: money, participation, and creativity in idea crowdsourcing," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 177-188, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:29:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-018-9454-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-018-9454-9
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    6. Moghaddam, Ehsan Noorzad & Aliahmadi, Alireza & Bagherzadeh, Mehdi & Markovic, Stefan & Micevski, Milena & Saghafi, Fatemeh, 2023. "Let me choose what I want: The influence of incentive choice flexibility on the quality of crowdsourcing solutions to innovation problems," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
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    8. Swanand J. Deodhar & Samrat Gupta, 2023. "The Impact of Social Reputation Features in Innovation Tournaments: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 178-193, March.
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