Motivating continued knowledge sharing in crowdsourcing: The impact of different types of visual feedback

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of system-generated visual feedback and continued contribution on individuals’ motivation to share knowledge in a crowdsourcing environment.

An experimental setting was designed to investigate participants’ motivation to contribute knowledge in a crowdsourcing environment. Responses from a total of 101 participants were analyzed. The independent variables were visual feedback and time. The dependent variable was the participants’ self-expressed willingness to further contribute in the experimental knowledge-sharing activity.

A significant main effect of time was found, showing overall gains in the mean willingness to participate over time. It was also found that the mean willingness of the control and top assimilation groups were higher than the mean willingness of the rank contrast and status groups. The mean difference obtained for the control group was mainly during the first half of the knowledge-sharing tasks, while the mean difference obtained for the top assimilation group was mainly during the second half of the knowledge-sharing tasks.

This study contributes to the literature related to motivation in knowledge sharing by providing theory-based, empirical evidence of the potential for external interventions to improve willingness to contribute and sustain knowledge sharing. The findings additionally provide practical implications for motivating and sustaining knowledge sharing.