The document summarizes research on supporting user-driven innovation in a crowdsourcing community. It studies how norms of collaboration, trust in the hosting company, perceived ease of use, and support for knowledge integration affect intentions to share knowledge. A survey of users of an idea crowdsourcing community found that intentions to share knowledge were mostly driven by trust in the hosting company and community support, but not norms of collaboration for newcomers. The results provide insight into what newcomers value in online innovation communities and how to better support knowledge creation.

1. Supporting user-driven innovation activities in
a crowdsourcing community
Post-doctoral researcher Miia Kosonen
PhD student Chunmei Gan
Post-doctoral researcher Heidi Olander
Professor Kirsimarja Blomqvist
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland &
Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
ISPIM symposium, 10.12.2012

2. Research gaps
Most of the current research on online innovation communities (OICs)
focuses on individual users and their characteristics such as lead
users, not the features of the actual community
Research questions: How does 1) norms of collaboration 2) trust in
hosting company 3) perceived easiness of use and 4) support for
knowledge integration drive the intentions to share knowledge in an
idea crowdsourcing community?

3. Key concepts
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

4. Theoretical background for studying
OICs
Community trust – perceived properties of or reliance on a social
system constituting a community.
• Collaborative norms – expectations of collaborative values and
behavior
• Trust in the community sponsor – beliefs of its goodwill and
integrity
Community support – providing the necessary conditions for sharing
and creating knowledge.
• Technology-based support – perceived easiness of use, making
the community more comprehensive and usable
• Knowledge-based support – inspiring creativity and helping users
to formulate their thoughts

5. Research model and hypotheses
Norms of
collaboration
Trust in hosting
company
Perceived
easiness of use
Intention to
share knowledge
Support for
knowledge
integration
Community trust
Community support
-technology-based
-knowledge-based
H2
H1
H3
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 241 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
− More than 1.500 Chinese users - 23.000 users worlwide at the time
− More than 11.000 ideas altogether

7. Analysis
Norms of
collaboration
Trust in hosting
company
Perceived easiness
of use
Intention to share
knowledge
(R2
=0.377)
0.017
0.354***
0.186**
0.161*
GenderAge
-0.082* -0.003 -0.001
Control variables
*** ＜ .001; ** ＜ .05; * ＜ . 10.
Membership
Support for
knowledge
integration
Figure. Results of PLS analysis
• Partial Least Squares (PLS) method was used to test the theoretical model
• Reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity were assessed
• Factor analysis and correlation analysis were conducted
• 37.7% (R2
)

8. Results
1. Knowledge sharing intentions are mostly driven
by trust in the hosting company
2. Community support also affects knowledge
sharing intentions
3. In contrast, norms of collaboration did not have
a significant effect due to the newness of the
community

9. Conclusions
Results give valuable input of what OIC newcomers value in the
community
− Positive intentions to share even if not yet collaborative
− Role of community organizer and its fair practices, care-taking
− Paying attention to how to support the actual knowledge creation:
providing more constructive feedback, offering a broader set of channels
for user-to-user interaction
− Contributes by unraveling two focal constructs for OIC research:
community trust and community support, which deserve further
investigation

10. Conclusions
Results give valuable input of what OIC newcomers value in the
community
− Positive intentions to share even if not yet collaborative
− Role of community organizer and its fair practices, care-taking
− Paying attention to how to support the actual knowledge creation:
providing more constructive feedback, offering a broader set of channels
for user-to-user interaction
− Contributes by unraveling two focal constructs for OIC research:
community trust and community support, which deserve further
investigation