Research On The Promotion Of Crowdsourcing Performance Based On Crowdsourcing Participants’ Network

Crowdsourcing, as a business model, came out to help enterprises(or individuals) to deal with difficult problems by using crowd wisdom, which saves the enterprises’ operation cost and expands their sources of innovation. With the development of interactive function of computer network, crowdsourcing appears to show the great power of creation and innovation among the crowd and the rise of co-creation value. A group of people take part in crowdsourcing activities, but usually one of them wins in the competition. Crowdsourcing participants’ motivation of engaging in crowdsourcing activities decreases a lot. This paper’s interest lies in exploring the promotion of crowdsourcing participants’ working level in order to enhance their participating motivation and working enthusiasm.By exploring the features and the definition of participants’ network, crowdsourcing performance and with the explorative research on the factors influencing crowdsourcing outcomes by content analysis(using qualitative analysis software QSR Nvivo10.0 and IBM SPSS 22), the research assumptions of promoting crowdsourcing performance from the perspective of crowdsourcing participants’ network come out based on the previous research on collective wisdom, open innovation, crowdsourcing, the relationship between enterprise network and performance, and coordinative ability of information platform. The empirical study includes the design of the measurement questionnaire of the variables, namely participants’ network, crowdsourcing performance and coordinative ability of crowdsourcing platform, which was tentatively distributed to participants for design tasks on Witmart crowdsourcing platform on small scale. After the explorative factor analysis(EFA) and reliability analysis of the small sample data(using IBM SPSS 22) followed by the revision of questionnaires, the questionnaires for the survey on a bit larger scale was given out to the participants for design tasks on three of famous Chinese crowdsourcing platforms, namely Witmart, Epweike and 680. After the confirmatory factor Analysis of survey data of large scale by AMOS 22.0, the first order and second order structural equation models, the moderation model of the participants’ network effect on crowdsourcing performance(moderator is coordinative ability of crowdsourcing platform) is established to test the hypertheses. The findings include that particpants’ network has a significant positive effect on crowdsourcing performance; the crowdsourcing platform plays a positive moderating role between participants’ network and crowdsourcing performance; the increasing frequency of interaction of the participants with the crowdsourcing actors, the trust enhancement of participants’ in crowdsourcing activities, the improving relationship of participants with crowdsourcers and crowdsourcing platform are key factors influencing crowdsourcing performance; the participants had better avoid the interaction with other participants with different knowledge background and keep a competitive mind in order to promote crowdsourcing performance.This paper focuses on how to improve the working efficiency of the crowd in value creation(crowdsouring) from the perspective of crowdsourcing participants. It not only reinforces but also puts forward something new to network theory, performance theory and the theory of coordinative ability of information platform. The findings call our attention to crowdsourcing participants’ network made by participants themselves, crowdsourcers and crowdsourcing platform, and to dealing appropriately with the network member relationships. The paper offers theoretical and practical guidelines to promote crowdsourcing performance, reduces the risk of participants’ labor offer but without pay, and keeps their high spirit of continuous participation in crowdsourcing.