Location
260-051, Owen G. Glenn Building
Start Date
12-15-2014
Description
Recent advances in information technology bring significant changes to the nature of work by allowing companies to tap “wisdom of the crowd” beyond their own workforce. In particular, organizations increasingly seek solutions to their business problems using online crowdsourcing contests that are open to the public. Motivated by this new phenomenon, this research investigates how the social network structure of a virtual team impacts its performance in the context of online crowdsourcing contests. Specifically, we empirically assess the impacts of member centrality, skill levels, and the alignment of these two measures within a virtual team on team performances. Our analysis suggests that the centrality and skill levels of members of different roles are related to team performance. We further show that the alignment of member centrality and skill may be positively or negatively related to team performance, depending on competition intensity and the time pressure of the project.
Recommended Citation
Dissanayake, Indika; Zhang, Jennifer; and Gu, Bin, "Virtual Team Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: A Social Network Perspective" (2014). ICIS 2014 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2014/proceedings/SocialMedia/5
Virtual Team Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests: A Social Network Perspective
260-051, Owen G. Glenn Building
Recent advances in information technology bring significant changes to the nature of work by allowing companies to tap “wisdom of the crowd” beyond their own workforce. In particular, organizations increasingly seek solutions to their business problems using online crowdsourcing contests that are open to the public. Motivated by this new phenomenon, this research investigates how the social network structure of a virtual team impacts its performance in the context of online crowdsourcing contests. Specifically, we empirically assess the impacts of member centrality, skill levels, and the alignment of these two measures within a virtual team on team performances. Our analysis suggests that the centrality and skill levels of members of different roles are related to team performance. We further show that the alignment of member centrality and skill may be positively or negatively related to team performance, depending on competition intensity and the time pressure of the project.