Paper Type

Short

Paper Number

1649

Description

Winning is a key but challenging objective for solvers competing in crowdsourcing contests. Given solvers’ low winning prospects in individual contests, they could win one contest but still perform poorly on the whole due to their results in other contests. Hence, it is important to know how solvers can improve their overall earnings performance across contests. This longitudinal research theorizes how solvers’ contest portfolio diversification affects their performance in terms of the amount of prize won. We also examine how the effect of diversification is moderated by contest portfolio size and idea quantity submitted. To validate our theorizing, we analyze solvers' contest participation and earning performance over 32 weeks on a design contest platform. We find that the contest diversification positively affects solvers’ earnings. Furthermore, participating in more contests concurrently weakens whereas submitting more ideas strengthens the effect of diversification. We discuss the theoretical and practical contributions of this research.

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Jul 2nd, 12:00 AM

Contest Diversification and Solvers’ Earning Performance

Winning is a key but challenging objective for solvers competing in crowdsourcing contests. Given solvers’ low winning prospects in individual contests, they could win one contest but still perform poorly on the whole due to their results in other contests. Hence, it is important to know how solvers can improve their overall earnings performance across contests. This longitudinal research theorizes how solvers’ contest portfolio diversification affects their performance in terms of the amount of prize won. We also examine how the effect of diversification is moderated by contest portfolio size and idea quantity submitted. To validate our theorizing, we analyze solvers' contest participation and earning performance over 32 weeks on a design contest platform. We find that the contest diversification positively affects solvers’ earnings. Furthermore, participating in more contests concurrently weakens whereas submitting more ideas strengthens the effect of diversification. We discuss the theoretical and practical contributions of this research.

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