TY - JOUR
T1 - Fostering Customer Ideation in Crowdsourcing Community
T2 - The Role of Peer-to-peer and Peer-to-firm Interactions
AU - Chan, Wa Kimmy
AU - Li, Stella Yiyan
AU - Zhu, John Jian Jun
PY - 2015/8/15
Y1 - 2015/8/15
N2 - Firms increasingly engage customers in idea generation (or ideation) to sustain their competitive advantages. Drawing from social interaction literature, this study adopts a social network perspective to investigate empirically how the characteristics (i.e., direction, size, and strength) of customers' online peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-firm (P2F) interactions, moderated by customers' past efforts to post ideas (i.e., past ideation participation), influence their likelihood of generating ideas in an idea crowdsourcing community. With four years of data from a popular online crowdsourcing site, this study demonstrates the significant impacts of P2P and P2F online interactions on customers' likelihood of subsequent idea generation. In particular, a potential double-edged sword of past ideation participation emerges: A high level of past ideation participation strengthens (weakens) the impact of P2F (P2P) interactions on customers' subsequent idea generation. These findings suggest implications for how firms can cultivate customers' online social interactions with peers and firms and enhance their capabilities for capturing the wisdom of the crowd.
AB - Firms increasingly engage customers in idea generation (or ideation) to sustain their competitive advantages. Drawing from social interaction literature, this study adopts a social network perspective to investigate empirically how the characteristics (i.e., direction, size, and strength) of customers' online peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-firm (P2F) interactions, moderated by customers' past efforts to post ideas (i.e., past ideation participation), influence their likelihood of generating ideas in an idea crowdsourcing community. With four years of data from a popular online crowdsourcing site, this study demonstrates the significant impacts of P2P and P2F online interactions on customers' likelihood of subsequent idea generation. In particular, a potential double-edged sword of past ideation participation emerges: A high level of past ideation participation strengthens (weakens) the impact of P2F (P2P) interactions on customers' subsequent idea generation. These findings suggest implications for how firms can cultivate customers' online social interactions with peers and firms and enhance their capabilities for capturing the wisdom of the crowd.
U2 - 10.1016/j.intmar.2015.05.003
DO - 10.1016/j.intmar.2015.05.003
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1094-9968
VL - 31
SP - 42
EP - 62
JO - Journal of Interactive Marketing
JF - Journal of Interactive Marketing
ER -