Inspiring crowdsourcing communities to create novel solutions: competition design and the mediating role of trust

Online communities have become an important source for knowledge and new ideas. However, little is known about how to create a compelling virtual experience to inspire individuals to make novel contributions. This examination is crucial as participants’ time and attention have become increasingly scarce resources in an ever more crowded online space. Drawing from the motivation through job design theory, we develop and test a research framework to examine how motivation can be influenced or triggered by competition design characteristics to drive creativity in crowdsourcing communities. Specifically, we investigate the importance of task and knowledge design dimensions in eliciting levels of motivation leading to creative efforts. Additionally, we consider the mediating influence of trust in driving knowledge contribution behaviour. Our hypothesising suggests that trust in the hosting platform reduces uncertainty and fosters knowledge exchange. Based on an empirical study of Kaggle’s data scientists community, it reveals that intrinsic motivation exerts a strong effect on participation intention, which in turn positively impacts participant’s creative efforts. Highly autonomous competitions with special emphasis on problem solving that require solvers to perform a variety of tasks will further challenge contestants to apply their abilities and skills leading to greater enjoyment and sense of competence. Our findings provide important implications for Web platform managers for the successful management of crowdsourcing communities.