TY - JOUR
T1 - Selection of crowdsourcing formats
T2 - simultaneous contest vs sequential contest
AU - Deng, Wanjiang
AU - Guan, Xu
AU - Ma, Shihua
AU - Liu, Shan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.
PY - 2019/2/8
Y1 - 2019/2/8
N2 - Purpose: The online crowdsourcing has been widely applied in the practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the all-pay auction contest in crowdsourcing, wherein a seeker posts a task online and the solvers decide whether to participate in the contest and in what extent to spend efforts on their submissions. Design/methodology/approach: The authors specifically consider two classic contest formats: simultaneous contest and sequential contest, depending on whether the solver can observe the prior solvers’ submissions before making her own effort investment decision or not. They derive both seeker’s and solver’s equilibrium decisions and payoffs under different contest formats, and show that they vary significantly according to the number and the average skill level of solvers. Findings: The results show that a solver would always invest more on her submission under simultaneous contest than under sequential contest, as she cannot confirm how other solvers’ submissions would be. This subsequently intensifies the market competition and brings down a solver’s average payoff under simultaneous contest. Although the simultaneous contest gives rise to a higher expected highest quality of all submissions, it also requires the seeker to spend more search cost to identify the best submission. Therefore, when the number of solvers is high or the average skill level is low, the seeker prefers sequential contest to simultaneous contest. The results also show an analogous preference over two formats for the platform. Originality/value: This paper investigates two formats of all-pay auction contest in crowdsourcing and evaluates them from the perspective of solvers, seekers and platforms, respectively. The research offers many interesting insights which do not only explain the incentive mechanisms for solvers under different contest formats, but also make meaningful contributions to the seeker’s or the platform’s adoption strategies between two alternative contest formats in crowdsourcing practice.
AB - Purpose: The online crowdsourcing has been widely applied in the practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the all-pay auction contest in crowdsourcing, wherein a seeker posts a task online and the solvers decide whether to participate in the contest and in what extent to spend efforts on their submissions. Design/methodology/approach: The authors specifically consider two classic contest formats: simultaneous contest and sequential contest, depending on whether the solver can observe the prior solvers’ submissions before making her own effort investment decision or not. They derive both seeker’s and solver’s equilibrium decisions and payoffs under different contest formats, and show that they vary significantly according to the number and the average skill level of solvers. Findings: The results show that a solver would always invest more on her submission under simultaneous contest than under sequential contest, as she cannot confirm how other solvers’ submissions would be. This subsequently intensifies the market competition and brings down a solver’s average payoff under simultaneous contest. Although the simultaneous contest gives rise to a higher expected highest quality of all submissions, it also requires the seeker to spend more search cost to identify the best submission. Therefore, when the number of solvers is high or the average skill level is low, the seeker prefers sequential contest to simultaneous contest. The results also show an analogous preference over two formats for the platform. Originality/value: This paper investigates two formats of all-pay auction contest in crowdsourcing and evaluates them from the perspective of solvers, seekers and platforms, respectively. The research offers many interesting insights which do not only explain the incentive mechanisms for solvers under different contest formats, but also make meaningful contributions to the seeker’s or the platform’s adoption strategies between two alternative contest formats in crowdsourcing practice.
KW - All-pay auction
KW - Crowdsourcing
KW - Game theory
KW - Sequential contest
KW - Simultaneous contest
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85055286438
U2 - 10.1108/IMDS-09-2017-0433
DO - 10.1108/IMDS-09-2017-0433
M3 - 文章
AN - SCOPUS:85055286438
SN - 0263-5577
VL - 119
SP - 35
EP - 53
JO - Industrial Management and Data Systems
JF - Industrial Management and Data Systems
IS - 1
ER -