Leveraging Crowdsourcing: Activation-Supporting Components for IT-Based Ideas Competition

TLDR

Ideas competitions are promising for crowdsourcing and open innovation in B2B software, yet many IT‑based competitions fail to engage lead users, which is essential for success. The paper aims to systematically design and implement activation‑enabling functionalities in an IT‑based ideas competition for enterprise resource planning software. It proposes a two‑step model that provides incentives and motives to activate users and sustain participation throughout the competition. The model successfully supports participation, leading to effective competition implementation and fostering innovative ideas, and the study identifies additional activation components for future research.

Abstract

Ideas competitions appear to be a promising tool for crowdsourcing and open innovation processes, especially for business-to-business software companies. Active participation of potential lead users is the key to success. Yet a look at existing ideas competitions in the software field leads to the conclusion that many information technology (IT)-based ideas competitions fail to meet requirements upon which active participation is established. The paper describes how activation-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in an IT-based ideas competition for enterprise resource planning software. We proceeded to evaluate the outcomes of these design measures and found that participation can be supported using a two-step model. The components of the model support incentives and motives of users. Incentives and motives of the users then support the process of activation and consequently participation throughout the ideas competition. This contributes to the successful implementation and maintenance of the ideas competition, thereby providing support for the development of promising innovative ideas. The paper concludes with a discussion of further activation-supporting components yet to be implemented and points to rich possibilities for future research in these areas.