Management Science and Information Systems' Seminar（2017-09）

Topic: Expert Rating versus Crowd Voting: Impact of Selection Mechanisms on Crowdsourcing Contests

Speaker: De Liu, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

Time: Monday, July 3rd, 10:30-12:00 a.m

Place: Room 217, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

While expert rating is the default selection mechanism for many crowdsourcing contests, crowd voting is emerging as a new alternative. Using a novel database of crowdsourcing contests that allow independent expert rating and crowd voting in the same contest, we evaluate the impact of selection mechanisms on participation and winner determination. We find that including crowd voted prizes increases the odds of overall participation by 15%. It attracts those who are better equipped to win crowd-voted prizes and discourages those who are better equipped to win expert-rated prizes. An analysis of winner determination confirms that contestants who have performed well in crowd prizes are more likely to rank higher in crowd voting but not in expert rating. Furthermore, contestants who engage peers by praising their entries tend to rank higher in crowd voting, but not in expert rating. Overall, our findings suggest that crowd voting has an added benefit of encouraging broader participation and impacts the way winners are selected.

Introduction:

Dr. De Liu is an associate professor of Information and Decision Sciences and 3M fellow in business analytics at Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He received his PhD from University of Texas at Austin and his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Tsinghua University. His general research interests lie in combining economic thinking with sociological and psychological perspectives in analyzing and designing mechanisms for digital markets and platforms. His current research deals with economics of Internet auctions & contests, gamification, social media and social commerce, and crowdfunding and Internet finance. His research has appeared in in leading business journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Market Research. He currently serves as an associate editor for Information Systems Research and Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. He is the program director for the Master of Science in Business Analytics at Carlson School and the PhD coordinator for Information and Decision Sciences.

https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/faculty/de-liu

Your participation is warmly welcomed!