Study On Incentive Mechanisms Of Smes Crowdsourcing Contest Innovation

Lack of essential resources for innovation is a bottleneck restricting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs).With the rise of Web 2.0,crowdsourcing innovation enables enterprises to use the wisdom of external networks to achieve a comprehensive improvement in the quality of innovative solutions at low cost and has gradually become an important way of open innovation practice.Moreover,crowdsourcing contest innovation(CCI)is one of the crowdsourcing modes that mostly caters to the characteristics of SMEs.The realisation of the value of CCI requires the active participation of the Internet users.However,due to the problems such as resource waste risk,winner-takes-all reward method,intellectual property risk,the incentive mechanism of SMEs CCI is currently unsatisfied,which lead to low performance of SMEs CCI.In addition,there are few literatures that focusing on the incentive mechanism of CCI of SMEs.Based on social exchange theory,principal-agent theory and incentive theory,starting with various ‘material'and ‘non-material' motivations for the mass participation in the SMEs CCI and comprehensively utilising field research method,structural equation model,decision optimisation method,mathematical deduction method,computer simulation and case analysis method,this thesis designs incentive mechanisms based on the factors such as material reward,reputation and knowledge sharing.Besides,examples are proposed to prove the validity of the designed mechanisms.Firstly,based on the theory of social exchange,the motivation factors and continuous participation behaviours of Internet users in participating in the SMEs CCI are explored from both the benefit perspective and cost perspective.Based on the conceptual model,the questionnaire data of the users participating in the third-party crowdsourcing platform is collected,and the structural equation model is used for empirical testing.We find that non-material factors such as knowledge sharing and reputation are positively related to the benefit perception of Internet users participation,and are significantly higher than material motivation;there is a positive relationship between intellectual property right,resource waste risk and cost perception;there is no significant correlation between social belongings and perceived benefit,as well as the complexity of crowdsourcing tasks and perceived cost;the participation willingness and the ease of use of the platform have a significant positive effect on continuous participation behaviour.Secondly,this thesis studies the material incentive mechanism of CCI for SMEs.The innovation task has the characteristic of modularity,and solvers participate in the task as a team.We establish and solve the incentive mechanism based on the total performance of the crowdsourcing team(called TR)and the incentive mechanism based on the individual performance output(called NR),and conducted a comparative study accordingly.This thesis also considers the moderating role of project retained tasks on the incentive mechanism,which is considerably novel.The results show that when the amount of retained tasks is higher than the equilibrium total performance output,altruistic and self-interested efforts increase with the increasing number of solverss(aka crowdsources).Risk factors and the number of solvers will certainly reduce the deterministic economic returns of the seeker(aka crowdsourcer),and the seeker always prefers the TR model;when the amount of retained tasks is lower than the equilibrium total performance output,self-interested efforts,altruistic efforts,and crowdsourcing performance all decrease with the increasing number of solvers and risk factors;whether the seeker's deterministic economic benefits will increase with the increasing amount of retained tasks depends on the size of the risk aversion factor,and there is uncertainty about the seeker's mode preference.The NR mode will not generate altruistic efforts,but under the condition of high retained tasks,it will motivate solvers to make higher self-interested efforts than the TR mode.Thirdly,a two-stage performance incentive mechanism of CCI in SMEs with the participation of a single solver considering the dynamic reputation effect is studied.We assume that the explicit reputation level of the second stage is modified based on the performance output of the solver in the first stage,and the implicit reputation will reduce the cost of crowdsourcing efforts in both stages.The results show that the reputation incentive mechanism can affect solver's deterministic returns of the second stage through two ways: the unit performance incentive intensity and the fixed reward,and it can have a ratchet effect on the solver in the first stage;the increase of participant's number will help reduce the ratchet effect;the implicit reputation will increase the innovation effort of the solver in each stage,and the uncertainty of the explicit reputation will reduce the innovation effort and task performance of the solver in both task stages;only when the explicit reputation uncertainty is low and the implicit reputation coefficient is high will the level of innovation effort and crowdsourcing performance in the first task phase be higher than the no reputation incentive model.Fourthly,due to the phenomenon that the lack of knowledge sharing behaviour among solvers in which leads to the decline of the CCI performance level,this thesis studies a knowledge sharing incentive mechanism by designing a crowdsourcing knowledge sharing community and considering the impact of solvers' fairness concern on incentive performance.The results show that the fairness concern helps to increase the motivation for the seeker to implement knowledge sharing incentive,and can increase the degree of linear incentives of knowledge sharing and the private solution effort of solvers,but reduce their knowledge sharing motivations;crowdsourcing performance and the relationship between the absolute economic benefits and the sensitivity of fairness concern of the seeker depend on the ratio between the performance conversion rate of private solution efforts and the performance conversion rate of knowledge sharing efforts;the absolute economic benefits of solvers are always negatively related to their fairness concern and the solvers' number;compared with non-knowledge sharing incentive,knowledge sharing incentive can significantly improve the performance of crowdsourcing projects and achieve a win-win situation for both the seeker and solvers,while the relative economic value of the incentive mechanism will always increase with the increase of solvers' fairness concern.Finally,through the method of web crawler + official website second-hand data collection + registration experience,we verify the effectiveness of the incentive mechanism of Zbj.com,a typical platform of SME CCI in China.The results show that the current operation modes of Zbj.com include Reward Contest,Bidding,Piece Counting and Collaborative “Challenge”.In terms of incentive mechanism,cash is the main incentive means,and both explicit and recessive effects are both important.Moreover,the preliminary,tactical and strategic synergy effects among trading entities are obvious.However,the effectiveness of reputation incentive remains uncertain.Furthermore,we put forward the guarantee measures from the aspects of optimizing pricing services,refining task allocation and segmentation,diversifying the evaluation mechanism and improving the intellectual property protection mechanism.