What Sustains Individuals' Participation in Crowdsourcing Contests?

Crowdsourcing contests have become widely adopted for idea generation and problem-solving in various companies in different industries. The success of crowdsourcing depends on the sustained participation and quality-submissions of the individuals. Yet, little is known about the factors that influence individuals' continued participation in these contests. We address this issue, by conducting an empirical study using data from an online crowdsourcing contest platform, Kaggle, which delivers data science and machine learning solutions and models to its clients. The findings show that the community activities and team activities do not contribute to motivating the continued participation, but tenure does significantly affect the continued participation. We also found statistically significant effects of amount of prize, number of competitions, previous team performance, and competition duration on individuals sustained participation in crowdsourcing contests. This research contributes to the literature by identifying the factors influencing individuals' sustained participation in crowdsourcing contests.