Location

260-051, Owen G. Glenn Building

Start Date

12-15-2014

Description

There is growing interest in the potential of Internet-enabled crowdsourcing platforms to leverage distributed collective intelligence for innovation purposes. Central to the promise of such platforms is the broad participation of self-selecting innovators. However, the factors affecting solver engagement with specific challenges remains only partially understood. This paper presents a study of the engagement of 15 contestants with 5 different challenges on InnoCentive. The results reveal the effects of a solver’s attitude, their assessment of risk, expected value, challenge characteristics, coping mechanisms and the characteristics of the intermediaries’ website on a solver’s engagement with specific challenges. The analysis reveals that the decision making of solvers can be characterized as an ‘attitude vs. risk’ calculus rather than a ‘cost vs. benefit’ calculus. Given these results, the paper concludes by discussing our conceptualization of the solver as a “Speculative Freelancer,” which we posit represents a unique emergent form of knowledge work.

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Dec 15th, 12:00 AM

Leveraging Distributed Collective Intelligence: An Investigation of Solver Engagement with Innovation Challenges

260-051, Owen G. Glenn Building

There is growing interest in the potential of Internet-enabled crowdsourcing platforms to leverage distributed collective intelligence for innovation purposes. Central to the promise of such platforms is the broad participation of self-selecting innovators. However, the factors affecting solver engagement with specific challenges remains only partially understood. This paper presents a study of the engagement of 15 contestants with 5 different challenges on InnoCentive. The results reveal the effects of a solver’s attitude, their assessment of risk, expected value, challenge characteristics, coping mechanisms and the characteristics of the intermediaries’ website on a solver’s engagement with specific challenges. The analysis reveals that the decision making of solvers can be characterized as an ‘attitude vs. risk’ calculus rather than a ‘cost vs. benefit’ calculus. Given these results, the paper concludes by discussing our conceptualization of the solver as a “Speculative Freelancer,” which we posit represents a unique emergent form of knowledge work.