How to present ideas in idea crowdsourcing communities? Pathways for idea convergence and divergence performances

Currently, idea crowdsourcing communities are widely used for solving problems and fostering innovation. However, when encountering substantial ideas delivered by idea crowdsourcing communities, individuals are hard to generate novel ideas (i.e., idea divergence) and evaluate the appropriateness of the delivered idea (i.e., idea convergence). To address this challenge, platform operators tend to improve the idea presentation design. However, the effectiveness of these idea presentation designs for idea crowdsourcing community users remains unclear. Therefore, we tend to uncover the influencing mechanism of four types of idea presentation design (idea tree, slides, lists, and grids) on idea divergence and convergence outcomes. Accordingly, we adopt dual pathway to creativity model as our theoretical framework and propose an experimental research design. This study will provide insights into platform attribute design and design strategies for improving idea divergence and convergence outcomes

Modeling the Motivation of Users’ Sharing Option: A Case Study Based on A Car-Sharing Digital Platform

Sharing economy is associated with a series of economic activities in terms of renting, lending, trading, bartering and swapping of goods, service, space or money, that take place in organized systems or digital platforms. In this research, we interviewed 50 drivers, a kind of users type who provides cars and service from a car-sharing digital platform. Based on the prior studies of motivation, we combined Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to identify salient motivators in this context. Furthermore, building on Self-determination Theory (SDT), we propose a motivation model of users’ sharing option in digital platform. The findings extend literatures of motivation researches in the context of sharing economy as well as help guide the development and operation of sharing economy digital platform

Exploring Trust in Online Ride-sharing Platform in China: A Perspective of Time and Location

Trust is a key issue to be considered deliberately in the online ride-sharing platform to reduce risk and ensure transactions. In this paper, trust-in-platform is explored from these two perspectives to fill the research gaps. A ride-sharing platform in China was investigated. Results show that trust-in-platform in economically developing districts is slightly higher than that in economically developed districts. At the same time, trust-in-platform level differs in time, trust-in-platform levels are obviously lower between 19’o clock and 23’o clock. Moreover, machine learning is employed to predict the relationships between time/location and trust-in-platform. The result is that recall is 78.3%, precision is 57.3%, and F1 is 66.2%. The result shows trust-in-platform has an obvious correlation with time and location, thus further consolidates the findings. This study contributes to the existing knowledge on trust in the ride-sharing platforms and has practical implications for platform operators

Investigating the Relationship among Characteristics of Social Commerce, Consumers’ Trust and Trust Performance

Social commerce as a subset of e-commerce, popularizes rapidly with an increasing number of users, and consumers’ trust has become a crucial factor in the success of social commerce firms, and impacts on their decision on purchasing. In this regard, the study tries to research the characteristics of social commerce (transaction safety, concentration and enjoyment, communication and information quality) that influence consumers’ trust and assess the effects of trust on trust performance (purchase and word-of-mouth intentions), and trust performance will provides a basis for consumers to decide to purchase, and put forward feasible suggestions to social commerce firms. The results of an empirical analysis based on a sample of 133 users indicate that all the characteristics of social commerce involved had significant effects on trust, and then will positively influence trust performance

Can Process Facilitation Improve Globally Distributed Collaboration? An Action Design Research

Distributed collaborators still face problems to organize, to coordinate, and to build consensus. Collaboration tools still have difficulty to configure, to use, and to help facilitate collaboration management. In this study, we conducted an action design research on Company A that relies on distributed collaboration for their business activities. Based on the design theory of collaboration engineering, we designed a process facilitation support application to address the problems identified from Company A with real organizational problems. After rounds of iteration, we proposed two artifacts including facilitated collaboration process and collaborative tools for applications of process guidance. Findings suggest the benefits of facilitated process guidance on globally distributed collaboration. The results of survey show consistently high satisfaction towards the tool and process guidance from the employees. Our research serves as an exploratory investigation in the field of distributed collaboration, and provides evidence regarding the organizational challenges in a business context

Selecting Open Innovation Ideas in Teams vs. Nominal Groups: Exploring the Effects of Idea Quantity and Idea Assignment on Idea Selection Quality and Satisfaction with Process

Idea selection is a critical activity in open innovation crowdsourcing projects. Yet, the generation of vast amounts of ideas makes it cognitively challenging to identify the subset of ideas that are worthy of further consideration. We conducted an experiment to explore the influence of idea quantity and idea sharedness on idea selection outcomes evaluated by crowds in the form of teams and nominal groups. We found that higher idea quantity is positively associated with idea selection quality and negatively associated with satisfaction with process. Further, team idea selection quality outperformed individual idea selection quality in both shared information groups and low idea quantity groups. We did not find significant differences between group idea selection quality and individual idea selection quality in the heterogeneous information groups and high idea quantity groups. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed

Investigating the individual trust and school performance in semi-virtual collaboration groups

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between individual trust of students in computer supported semi-virtual collaboration groups and student’s performance in school. Design/methodology/approach: Longitudinal questionnaires and interviews are conducted during the case study. By analyzing the data from the questionnaires and the grade earned by the students, the sample students are ranked with respect to the trust level and individual performance. Furthermore, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test is used to compare individual trust level and performance in the computer supported semi-virtual collaborative environment. Findings: The distribution of an individual’s trust level is roughly consistent with the distribution of the individual’s performance in the collaboration. Besides, the relationship between a student’s trust level and the student’s performance is positively correlated. Research limitations/implications: This study integrates the issues of trust, school performance, and collaboration in an educational context. Furthermore, the conclusions drawn from this paper extend the literature of multiple disciplines including education, management, and psychology. Practical implications: The conclusions could apply in the fields of education and management since the analysis revealed the relationship between an individual’s trust level and their performance. Originality/value: This study contributes to the field of trust and collaboration research with a link to trust development and performance. The study also provides an insight into how to successfully improve the performance of student semi-virtual collaboration groups

Exploring Idea Convergence and Conceptual Combination in Open Innovative Crowdsourcing from a Cognitive Load Perspective

Open innovative crowdsourcing has received increasing attention. This study sets out to investigate idea convergence and generation in open innovative crowdsourcing communities from a cognitive load perspective to explore aspects of cognitive idea processing. We have conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of three manipulations (task complexity, idea presentation, and procedural guidance) on three types of cognitive load and the following idea convergence and generation quality. We have also examined the influencing mechanisms of cognitive loads on satisfaction with process and satisfaction with outcome. Our results show that the three cognitive loads have significant effects: Higher intrinsic cognitive load significantly leads to lower satisfaction with process and outcome. Higher extraneous cognitive load significantly leads to satisfaction with process. Higher germane cognitive load significantly leads to higher convergence quality and lower new idea generation quality

Evidence for Majorana bound state in an iron-based superconductor

The search for Majorana bound state (MBS) has recently emerged as one of the most active research areas in condensed matter physics, fueled by the prospect of using its non-Abelian statistics for robust quantum computation. A highly sought-after platform for MBS is two-dimensional topological superconductors, where MBS is predicted to exist as a zero-energy mode in the core of a vortex. A clear observation of MBS, however, is often hindered by the presence of additional low-lying bound states inside the vortex core. By using scanning tunneling microscope on the newly discovered superconducting Dirac surface state of iron-based superconductor FeTe1-xSex (x = 0.45, superconducting transition temperature Tc = 14.5 K), we clearly observe a sharp and non-split zero-bias peak inside a vortex core. Systematic studies of its evolution under different magnetic fields, temperatures, and tunneling barriers strongly suggest that this is the case of tunneling to a nearly pure MBS, separated from non-topological bound states which is moved away from the zero energy due to the high ratio between the superconducting gap and the Fermi energy in this material. This observation offers a new, robust platform for realizing and manipulating MBSs at a relatively high temperature.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures, supplementary information include

Nearly quantized conductance plateau of vortex zero mode in an iron-based superconductor

Majorana zero-modes (MZMs) are spatially-localized zero-energy fractional quasiparticles with non-Abelian braiding statistics that hold a great promise for topological quantum computing. Due to its particle-antiparticle equivalence, an MZM exhibits robust resonant Andreev reflection and 2e2/h quantized conductance at low temperature. By utilizing variable-tunnel-coupled scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we study tunneling conductance of vortex bound states on FeTe0.55Se0.45 superconductors. We report observations of conductance plateaus as a function of tunnel coupling for zero-energy vortex bound states with values close to or even reaching the 2e2/h quantum conductance. In contrast, no such plateau behaviors were observed on either finite energy Caroli-de Genne-Matricon bound states or in the continuum of electronic states outside the superconducting gap. This unique behavior of the zero-mode conductance reaching a plateau strongly supports the existence of MZMs in this iron-based superconductor, which serves as a promising single-material platform for Majorana braiding at a relatively high temperature