Understanding sustained participation in crowdsourcing platforms: the role of autonomy, temporal value, and hedonic value
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 5 April 2022
Issue publication date: 21 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Crowdsourcing platforms have emerged as an innovative way to generate ideas and solving problems. However, promoting sustained participation among crowdworkers is an ongoing challenge for most crowdsourcing platform providers. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates the impacts of job autonomy on crowdworkers' sustained participation intention.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of 212 crowdworkers from a leading crowdsourcing platform in China was conducted to empirically validate the model.
Findings
The empirical results lead to several key findings. First, the taxonomy of job autonomy in crowdsourcing contains three archetypes: work-scheduling autonomy, work-task autonomy, and work-method autonomy. Second, work-scheduling autonomy and work-method autonomy have more significant positive effects on temporal value than work-task autonomy, and this increase in temporal value increases crowdworkers' sustained participation intention. Third, work-task autonomy exerts a stronger influence on hedonic value than work-scheduling autonomy or work-method autonomy, and this increase in hedonic value also increases crowdworkers' sustained participation intention.
Originality/value
This study extends the crowdsourcing literature by examining the formation of crowdworkers' sustained participation and highlighting the role of differential effects of multidimensional job autonomy on crowdworkers' sustained participation. We believe that this study provides actionable insights into measures that promote crowdworkers' sustained participation in the crowdsourcing platform.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71902080; 72001168; 72032006) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2020M673431).
Citation
Wu, W., Yang, Q., Gong, X. and Davison, R.M. (2023), "Understanding sustained participation in crowdsourcing platforms: the role of autonomy, temporal value, and hedonic value", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 734-757. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-09-2019-0502
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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