Understanding the mediating role of trust in explaining initiators' signing intentions on crowdsourcing platforms

As the most promising and emerging Web 2.0-based application, crowdsourcing has attracted considerable attention over the years, thus facilitating the connectivity and collaboration of societies. However, despite the continuous implementation, a common phenomenon exists, i.e. lack of trust among crowdsourcing participants. Such lack may result in a lower rate of contract signing. The purpose of this study is to identity cognitive and affective determinants of initiators' willingness to sign a contract towards trust, and to understand the process of trust model in determining the trust formation mechanism. Results indicate perceived accreditation, network externality, absorptive capacity, track record and social capital are important in forming initiators' trust towards crowdsourcing platforms and bidders, which in turn will promote their signing intention. This study is unique in that it applies trust theory to propose a crowdsourcing trust model that incorporates bidder- and platform-related variables as determinants to predict initiators' willingness to sign a contract.