Crowd Experience and Performance: An Empirical Analysis of Crowdsourced New Product Development

Crowdsourcing has widely been used as a strategy for sourcing ideas and efforts to facilitate innovation and new product development. However, research into to the value creation of crowdsourcing and the efficacy of the crowd is still limited. In this study, we investigate a crowdsourced new product development context and apply the framework of collective intelligence to understand the crowd co-creation process. Based on the theory of diversity about generalists vs. specialists, we examine the role of prior experience in affecting crowd performance. Our empirical analysis shows that participants with both diverse and specialized experience are helpful in enhancing crowd performance in terms of efficient product development. We also find participants with T-shaped experience in non-focal tasks are beneficial. Contrary to other group contexts, generalists do not seem to be a valuable type in our study context. The findings provide insights for understanding collaboration and value co-creation in crowdsourcing communities