Does Collaboration among Participants Lead to Better Ideas in IT-based Idea Competitions? An Empirical Investigation
ISSN
1530-1605
ISBN
978-0-7695-3869-3
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2010-01-01
Author(s)
Research Team
IWI6, Crowdsourcing, CCC
Abstract
Research has shown that idea competitions are a promising approach for integrating customers into open innovation activities. Furthermore research on open innovation shows that most innovations are the result of intensive collaboration processes in which many individuals contribute according to their specific strengths. So, fostering collaboration among idea contributors in idea competitions might be a very fruitful approach for unleashing the customers' entire creative potential for "open R&D" and thus making idea competitions even more successful.
This paper reports on a field study in which idea contributors could collaborate during idea generation and idea elaboration in an IT-based idea competition using the wiki technology. In order to test whether this kind of user collaboration positively influences the quality of the ideas submitted we conducted an empirical in-depth analysis of idea quality in an idea competition. Our results show that user collaboration enhances idea quality and that inducing user collaboration is a viable design element for making idea competitions more effective. This can contribute to a more successful design, implementation and operation of idea competitions as well as to better outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of customer groups collaborating in idea competitions (more extrinsically and more intrinsically motivated customers) and shows possibilities for future research in this area.
This paper reports on a field study in which idea contributors could collaborate during idea generation and idea elaboration in an IT-based idea competition using the wiki technology. In order to test whether this kind of user collaboration positively influences the quality of the ideas submitted we conducted an empirical in-depth analysis of idea quality in an idea competition. Our results show that user collaboration enhances idea quality and that inducing user collaboration is a viable design element for making idea competitions more effective. This can contribute to a more successful design, implementation and operation of idea competitions as well as to better outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of customer groups collaborating in idea competitions (more extrinsically and more intrinsically motivated customers) and shows possibilities for future research in this area.
Language
English
Keywords
collaboration among participants
better ideas in IT-based idea competitions
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SoM - Business Innovation
Refereed
Yes
Book title
Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2010 (HICSS-43)
Publisher
IEEE Computer Society
Publisher place
Los Alamitos
Start page
1
End page
10
Pages
11
Event Title
43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Event Location
Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii
Event Date
05.-08.01.2010
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
220669
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
open.access
Name
JML_249.pdf
Size
629.83 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
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