A Conceptual Framework for Investigating Organizational Control and Resistance in Crowd-Based Platforms

This paper presents a research agenda for crowd behavior research by drawing from the organizational control literature. It addresses the need for research into the organizational and social structures that guide user behavior and contributions in crowd-based platforms. Crowd behavior is situated within a conceptual framework of organizational control. This framework helps scholars more fully articulate the full range of control mechanisms operating in crowd-based platforms, contextualizes these mechanisms into the context of crowd-based platforms, challenges existing rational assumptions about incentive systems, and clarifies theoretical constructs of organizational control to foster stronger integration between information systems research and organizational and management science

Introduction to Collective Intelligence and Crowds Minitrack

N/

Trade-offs in motivating volunteer effort: Experimental evidence on voluntary contributions to science.

Digitization has facilitated the proliferation of crowd science by lowering the cost of finding individuals with the willingness to participate in science without pay. However, the factors that influence participation and the outcomes of voluntary participation are unclear. We report two findings from a field experiment on the world's largest crowd science platform that tests how voluntary contributions to science are affected by providing clarifying information on either the desired outcome of a scientific task or the labor requirements for completing the task. First, there is significant heterogeneity in the motivations and ability of contributors to crowd science. Second, both of the information interventions lead to significant decreases in the quantity and increases in the quality of contributions. Combined, our findings are consistent with the information interventions improving match quality between the task and the volunteer. Our findings suggest that science can be democratized by engaging individuals with varying skill levels and motivations with small changes in the information provided to participants