Crowdsourcing for ideas: a review of motivational factors and challenges in open innovation communities

Crowdsourcing introduces new perspectives in = innovation, allowing for new products and services to shift away from the traditional manufacture-centric model to a more user-centric one. In order for businesses to reap the benefits of open innovation, it is necessary to understand the factors that motivate ideators to contribute valuable ideas. Equally, there is an urgency to identify the challenges faced by ideators in crowdsourcing for open innovation to retain the participants of crowdsourcing communities. This paper presents a structured review to address the aforementioned issues. Our findings reveal that the intrinsic factors that drive participation in open innovation are related to the learning experience that results from sharing ideas. Extrinsic factors like social motivation are frequently mentioned in different studies. This study also highlights the need for organisations to develop strategies for interacting with their contributors in order to sustain their participation and idea contribution. In conclusion, this paper can serve as a guideline for practitioners to improve crowdsourcing platforms with the inclusion of important motivational features. It can also serve as reference for organisations for formulating policies to regulate idea contribution