Recruiting valuable participants in online IDEA generation: The role of brief instructions

Nadia Steils and Salwa Hanine

Journal of Business Research, 2019, vol. 96, issue C, 14-25

Abstract: Recruiting qualified participants becomes challenging in crowdsourcing initiatives that seek to attract a diverse crowd based upon an open call for participation online. Brief instructions often constitute the first contact point between the company and potential contributors. This research investigates how the design of brief instructions intervenes in the recruitment of people with highly creative profiles. The results from a survey and an experimental research indicate a triple-interaction effect between individuals' level of creativity and the design of instructions (number of instructions and provision of an expected example). These findings may encourage crowdsourcing organizers to provide sufficient instructions to attract people with highly creative profiles, especially when using prospective briefs. Moreover, while constraining briefs reduces the intention to participate for individuals who are reward-oriented, greater instructional constraints do not reduce the intention to participate and emotional engagement for intrinsically motivated contributors. The study results contribute to the marketing literature by understanding the underlying psychological role of brief instructions.

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Creative contests; Brief instructions; Participation; Participants' profile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318305198
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:96:y:2019:i:c:p:14-25

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.038

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().