Heterogeneous Submission Behavior and its Implications for Success in Innovation Contests with Public Submissions

Innovation contests are increasingly adopting a format where submissions are viewable by all contestants and the information structure changes during the contest. In such an “unblind” format, contestants must weigh the costs of revealing their submissions against the benefits of improving their submissions through emerging information. We take a closer look at how contestants solve problems in innovation contests with public submission of solutions—that is, unblind contests, by examining the implications of their submission behavior for contest outcomes. We analyze the submission behavior in terms of three dimensions: the position of first submission by the contestant, the number of submissions the contestant makes, and the length of active participation by the contestant. The econometric analysis of a large dataset of unblind innovation contests and participating contestants indicates that, despite the potential for free riding and intellectual property loss from disclosure of submissions, contestants who have a lower position of first submission are more likely to succeed in the contest. Further, we find some evidence of a curvilinear relationship between a contestant's number of submissions and her likelihood of success, indicating a potential “quality–quantity” trade‐off in unblind innovation contests. Finally, our findings indicate that increasing the length of participation in a contest has a positive effect on a contestant's likelihood of success. Departing from prior studies on innovation contests, where a contestant's success is assumed to be a function of her prior experience and problem‐solving skills, our study provides new empirical evidence that, in innovation contests with public submissions, the submission behavior of a contestant also plays an explanatory role in a contestant's success.     

Idea Generation and the Role of Feedback: Evidence from Field Experiments with Innovation Tournaments

In many innovation settings, ideas are generated over time and managers face a decision about if and how to provide in‐process feedback to the idea generators about the quality of submissions. In this article, we use design contests allowing repeated entry to examine the effect of in‐process feedback on idea generation. We report on a set of field experiments using two online contest websites to compare the performance of three different feedback treatments—no feedback, random feedback, and directed feedback (i.e., in‐process feedback highly correlated with the final quality rating of the entry). We posted six logo design contests for consumer products and accepted submissions for 1 week. We provided daily feedback during the contest period using one of the three treatments. We then used a panel of target consumers to rate the quality of each idea. We find that directed feedback is associated positively with agent participation. For outcome, while directed feedback benefits the average quality of entries submitted, we don't find that relationship for the best entries—indeed, no feedback or random feedback may produce better top‐end entry quality. We also find that, under directed feedback, the variance in quality declines as the contest progresses.     

众包供应链基于On/OffLine混合定制设计生产决策模型分析

互联网平台经济（Platform Economy）正颠覆传统企业商业模式，众包供应链（Crowdsourcing Supply Chain，CSC）作为一种新型的"互联网平台+设计创新"供应链，也正成为人们关注和研究的热点。本文在订单定制设计模式（Engineering to Order，ETO）的基础上，将定制设计和订单生产两环节相结合，并以交货期为驱动，按常规生产时间和加班生产时间来优化生产流程。在此框架下，建立了线下（Offline）自行定制设计的供应链生产模型；接着结合互联网众包平台的特点，以及众包线上（Online）和线下（Offline）的互补性，将众包线上定制设计环节有机嵌入融合到线下自行定制设计供应链中，以此优化和构建出基于众包的线上线下混合定制设计的供应链生产决策模型，设计出众包线上定制设计和线下定制设计动态切换条件；并通过粒子群算法（Particle Swarm Optimization，PSO）对上述模型进行求解；最后通过实例进行分析，发现定制订单数量不多时，线上线下混合定制设计对成本的降低不是很显著，但随着订单数量越多，线上线下混合定制设计优势将显著变化，并且具有一定程度的抗风险性；通过这个转换点也发现，众包定制设计的订单生产最好安排在期初和期末，众包线上定制设计订单应尽可能减少挤占线下自行设计的常规生产时间，而应转向在加班时间生产更为经济；同时，通过增加对众包设计者的设计报酬，发现不仅对整个供应链的成本影响不大，反而对众包设计者形成较大激励作用，进一步证明该模式的可行性和实用性。     

POST-PANOPTIC SURVEILLANCE THROUGH HEALTHCARE RATING SITES

This article examines websites where patients rate and evaluate healthcare services as mechanisms for transforming citizens into surveillers of public services in order to generate knowledge about the everyday performance of professionals and institutions. Using post-panoptic theories about the use of information and communication technologies in daily life, it questions how such sites, and the knowledge they generate, relate to existing surveillance structures. It begins with a review of current surveillance literature before turning to the empirical case of the Dutch website Zoekdokter. It situates the site in its specific national health and policy context, which enables not only an analysis of the site, but also the existing rules, norms and structures for monitoring performance and the dynamic between multiple types of surveillance that occur simultaneously in practice. Zoekdokter.nl is one of six cases in this research project and is the only case where patients are encouraged to evaluate individual professionals identified by name and location. I analyze website texts and 15 stakeholder interviews using the post-panoptic concepts of sousveillance, coveillance and infoveillance. In the discussion, I use the case to reflect on several assumptions made in current post-panoptic theory and, more specifically, on the transferability of these ideas to specific sectors, such as healthcare.     

知识型众包社会大众参与行为动机及激励机制

基于知识型众包的参与者动机,研究设计符合知识型众包参与的激励机制。首先在对相关理论进行了简单阐述基础上提出了研究假设,从而构建概念模型。然后以知识型网络众包平台的参与者为分析对象,采用问卷调查和在线访谈相结合的方式,针对知识型众包的参与者动机开展调研,并运用结构方程模型进行了实证检验。检验结果表明:参与者沉浸愉悦、自我完善及外在奖励与感知收益具有正向关系,执行成本与感知风险也是正向关系,感知收益与参与意愿之间有正向关系,感知风险与参与意愿具有负向关系,参与意愿正向作用于参与行为。结合动因及其对参与者的影响程度分析,提出基于互联网众包模式特征的激励机制。     

众包的行业应用研究述评

近年来互联网的高速发展以及智能手机的普及,为众包模式的快速发展创造了有利条件,推动了众包模式在国内各行各业中的广泛应用。鉴于众包模式在物流、新闻和翻译行业中得到了较好的应用,采用文献分析法在分析众包模式在物流、新闻和翻译行业应用的优劣势的基础上,分析了近几年有关众包模式研究的热点问题。研究发现,众包模式能够提高这些行业的运作效率、降低成本、提高社会综合效益,但也存在着缺乏法律监管、信用体系不健全、信息容易泄漏等问题;当前众包模式研究的热点问题主要集中在众包质量、众包任务分配、用户参与意愿和众包风险等4个方面,未来众包模式研究应该关注新技术的应用对众包的影响、众包任务的高效分配、相关法律制度的完善等方面。