Within-individual Increases in Solver Participation Level on Crowdsourcing Contests Platform: A Social Cognitive Perspective

Abstract

Crowdsourcing has exploded on a worldly level accompanying the ubiquity and flexibility of internet access, yet there is still room for its growth. Solvers' sustained participation level, especially in crowdsourcing contests, remains low. Therefore, this study focuses on identifying the factors that facilitate solvers' participation level. As per the social cognitive perspective, self- efficacy belief was proposed as the dictating factor of solvers' behavior. We propose a typology of solvers' self-efficacy belief in crowdsourcing contests, which includes work-domain knowledge self-efficacy and online strategic behavior self-efficacy. Meanwhile, we identified the factors that decrease solvers' emotional barriers in self-efficacy construction. To test our hypothesis, we will employ the dynamic research design by collecting data from solvers over ten months to test the changes in the constructs. The results will contribute to extending the current understanding of solvers' behavior and highlight the factors that facilitate solvers' participation.