Title: Motivating participation in online innovation communities

Authors: Mercedes Paulini; Mary Lou Maher; Paul Murty

Addresses: Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, 148 City Rd., Chippendale, 2120, Australia ' Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, 148 City Rd., Chippendale, 2120, Australia ' Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, 148 City Rd., Chippendale, 2120, Australia

Abstract: Understanding what motivates participation in online innovation communities is now a high priority given the recent interest in crowdsourcing as an approach to increasing diversity and creativity in innovation. This article reports on the results of a survey of participants in an online innovation community to characterise and find correlations between motivation and participation styles. An analysis of the survey results show: the majority of participants were contributors or collaborators, not readers or leaders; reasons for joining collective innovation communities can be different to the reason for continuing to participate; primary motivations for participation are fun and challenge; intrinsic motivations rated higher than extrinsic; and the participants that are passionate about the online community are either new members, < one month, or long standing members, > six months.

Keywords: collaborative design; online communities; innovation communities; web based communities; virtual communities; product design; collective intelligence; crowdsourcing; motivation; participation styles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2014.058388

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2014 Vol.10 No.1, pp.94 - 114

Published online: 17 May 2014 *

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