ISPIM Conference, Barcelona, Spain, 19.6.2012

1. Users’ motivations and knowledge sharing in
an online innovation community
Post-doctoral researcher Miia Kosonen
PhD student Chunmei Gan
Prof. Kirsimarja Blomqvist
Post-doctoral researcher Mika Vanhala
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland &
Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
ISPIM, Barcelona 19.6.2012

2. Background and research gaps
Getting valuable user input into the innovation process – consumerism & co-
innovators
What motivates users to participate in a crowdsourcing community and
openly share their knowledge
- Online communities studied since 1990s, but online crowdsourcing a more
novel phenomenon – do user motivations differ, and if so, how?
- Practical relevance: very few empirical studies in real-life, firm-hosted
crowdsourcing communities
Research questions:
- How individual members’ propensity to trust, intrinsic motivation and
extrinsic motivation drive the intentions to share knowledge in a
crowdsourcing community?
- Does the intention to share knowledge become manifested as actual
knowledge-sharing behaviour?

3. Key concepts
Propensity to trust – general expectancy of trust based on individual
socialization and personality (Rotter, 1967, McKnight et al., 1998)
Motivation – psychological state describing how one focuses attention
towards certain task elements, and how much effort people dedicate
towards that task (Mitchell and Daniels, 2003)
Intrinsic motivation – performing an activity or task for its own sake
rather than means to an end (Deci and Ryan, 2000)
• expected internal benefits such as learning, socializing, enjoyment – the
so-called Uses & gratifications approach (Katz et al., 1974)
Extrinsic motivation – performing an activity or task to attain an
outcome stemming from external sources (Ryan and Deci, 2000)
• expected external benefits such as rewards or recognition

4. Key concepts & research context
Online (innovation) community – a group of voluntary members
sharing a certain interest and collaborating around such interest
using online communication technologies
Crowdsourcing – outsourcing a task by making an open call to an
undefined but large group of people
Idea crowdsourcing – soliciting and facilitating user input to develop
or modify products and services
Crowdsourcing community – online innovation platform where ideas
or other input by identifiable users is provided in an on-going basis,
in contrast to temporary groups

5. Research model and hypotheses
Propensity to trust
Intrinsic motivation
- learning benefits
- social benefits
- hedonic benefits
Extrinsic motivation
- recognition from
peers
- recognition from the
host company
Intention to share
knowledge
Knowledge
sharing behavior
H1
H2a
H2b
H2c
H3a
H3b
H4

6. Research methods and data collection
Web-based survey among Chinese users of IdeasProject
− Idea crowdsourcing community powered and hosted by Nokia, launched in
2011
− Open idea space & periodic idea challenges around specific themes
Data collected in February-April 2012, resulting in 283 responses, of
which 244 were valid for further analysis
− 84 % of respondents were male
− 74,2 % of respondents were between 18 and 28 years old
− Mostly newcomers – 73 % has been a member for less than one month

7. Results
1. Knowledge sharing intentions are driven by
expected social and learning benefits
2. Also recognition from the host company plays
an important role
3. Hedonic benefits, e.g. enjoyment of developing
ideas, and propensity to trust did not have a
significant effect on sharing intentions
4. Intentions to share knowledge lead to actual
knowledge sharing behaviour

8. Conclusions
”Soft” issues such as socializing and helping others emphasized in
knowledge sharing
…at the expense of concrete rewards and esteem
− It is not enough to measure one’s attitudes or intentions towards sharing
knowledge; you also need to take into account the expected benefits
and actual levels of knowledge sharing
− propensity of trust did not play a role; as in Ridings et al. (2002) study in
online communities, propensity to trust could affect perceived trust
towards other users but not sharing knowledge

9. Conclusions
− Contributes by bringing the literature of motivation and Uses &
gratifications (U&G) into the novel context of idea crowdsourcing
and providing empirical evidence
− Unravels the different types of benefits members expect when
sharing product-related ideas – it is not just ”when we build it,
customers will come”

10. Thank you!
Contact details
Miia Kosonen
PhD, Senior researcher
Lappeenranta University of Technology
P.O.Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta
Finland
miia.kosonen@lut.fi