Internal Incentive Mechanisms for Crowdsourced Participants in Creative Design Tasks

Abstract
Growth in crowdsourced web platforms has produced a wide variety of opportunities for matching skills with employers. Participants in crowdsourcing systems are experiencing an increasing degree of choice and control over the tasks available to them. If requesters can correctly determine a participant’s internal incentive mechanism, they will be more able to configure and assign tasks. Correctly configured and assigned tasks will result in improved outcomes from crowdsourced creative design projects.
This paper presents the results of a survey concerning crowdsource participant opinions on internal incentive mechanisms during the completion of creative design tasks. A survey was issued and consisted of four primary dimensions of internal motivation: entertainment, personal development, humanitarian, and status. Pearson’s Correlation coefficient and linear regressions were used to analyze the data and it was found that entertainment, was the most important dimension for participants to experience a feeling of reward. Gamification and fun appeared to be driving the primary incentive effect within the entertainment dimension.
Keywords: Crowdsourcing, Creative design tasks, Internal incentive mechanisms