What determines the successfulness of a crowdsourcing campaign: A study on the relationships between indicators of trustworthiness, popularity, and success

Abstract

Crowdsourcing has risen as a prominent way to outsource work to people reachable online. A critical predictor for the success of crowdsourcing campaigns on the market depends on the crowdsourcer’s ability to signal credibility towards the potential workers. Therefore, this study investigates which indicators of trustworthiness on crowdsourcers' profiles (gamification-based, transparency, and experience) and level of monetary compensation predict crowdsourcee participation and consequent crowdsourcing campaign success. This study analyzes data of 101 crowdsourcing tasks from a popular Chinese crowdsourcing platform “Xiao Yu’er”. We employ the methods of Structural Equation Modelling and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to find out that gamification-based indicators of trustworthiness were positively associated with task popularity and further successfulness of the crowdsourcing task. Furthermore, in addition to profile credibility based on gamification-based indicators being sufficient, combinations of money with transparency and money with experience can substitute lack of other indicators as way to signal sufficient credibility.