The boundary of crowdsourcing in the domain of creativity✰

Jie Ren, Yue Han, Yegin Genc, William Yeoh and Aleš Popovič

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2021, vol. 165, issue C

Abstract: Studies promote crowdsourcing as an alternative source of creativity for companies. By investigating whether a boundary exists in crowdsourcing for innovation, we aim to identify the conditions under which the generic crowd (mainly consisting of novices, instead of professionals) is less creative. Based on the componential theory of creativity, we compare the crowd's and professionals’ creativity, focusing on generalist versus specialist tasks. Leveraging online experiments and semantic analysis, we find that the crowd is more creative than professionals in solving generalist tasks. However, the crowd is less innovative than professionals in solving specialist tasks, thereby suggesting a boundary to crowdsourcing. Nevertheless, to solve specialist tasks, members of the crowd can gain relevant knowledge by exposing themselves to each other's ideas, thereby suggesting an attempt to break the boundary. This study offers new insights into the boundary of crowdsourcing for innovation.

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Boundary; Creativity; Specialist task; Generalist task; System design; Componential theory of creativity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:165:y:2021:i:c:s0040162520313561

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120530

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