Introducing Contests to a Social Community: The Effects of Contest Participation on a User-Generated Content Platform

Abstract

Contests represent a core element in firms’ online platform operations for problem-solving and innovation. Yet, the effects of contests, when introduced to an established community of users, are unclear. Traditionally, firms have pursued firm-led contests as open approaches to innovation, separate from the operations of managing the user community. In this study, we combine two different data sources stemming from the 3D printing platform Thingiverse, which allows us to compare a) regular content creation activities shared with the existing platform community with b) content creation activities explicitly pertaining to the contests launched in the existing platform community. Our empirical analyses show that contests increase community reaction as humans are drawn to contests and as contests incentivize increasing efforts. Second, in response to ambiguous findings in prior studies as to whether competition is beneficial or detrimental to creative outcomes, we find a negative effect on future content creation. Supplementary analyses show that contest-induced pressure of social comparison among contributors creates negative incentives for future content generation if contest contributors do not achieve relatively high levels of community reaction. Third, our results show that contestants develop more exploratory outcomes both immediately and in the long run, suggesting that contests may redirect participants’ attention to venture into new, more unfamiliar domains when problem-solving. Our study provides relevant insights pertaining to the operations management of digital platforms. It highlights important implications on the role of technologies in facilitating social interactions between and among users and the firm more broadly.

Keywords: contests, user generated content, platforms