The Evolution of Ideas by Crowds and
Communities: Competition vs. cooperation
Panel
Jeffrey V. Nickerson
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, NJ, USA
[email protected]
Sabine Brunswicker
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
[email protected]
Christian Wagner
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, China
[email protected]
Brian S. Butler
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland, USA
[email protected]
Abstract
Ideas evolve. Online idea generation systems accelerate this evolution. These systems range
from open source, communal sites to highly structured sites, run for profit. What are we
learning from these early examples of online idea generation? Two paradigms are at work in
these online systems, both embedded in the metaphor of biological evolution. The first is
competition. Inventors, often contest participants, compete for prizes. The competition provides
motivation for all participants, and offers hope for outsiders who want to establish a reputation.
The second is cooperation. Inventors share ideas with each other, thereby jointly exploring the
search space faster, the same way animals cooperate in collecting food and building shelter. The
panelists will contrast these paradigms, and in their discussion argue about the relative
importance of visibility, incentives, and co-creation in the structuring of creative work.
Keywords: Network organizations, innovation processes, CSCW, distributed collaboration,
creativity, idea generation, collective intelligence
Introduction
Ideas evolve. Online idea generation systems accelerate this evolution. These systems range from open
source, communal sites to highly structured sites, run for profit. What are we learning from these early
examples of online idea generation?
Two paradigms are at work in these online systems, both embedded in the metaphor of biological
evolution. The first is competition. Inventors, often contest participants, compete for prizes. The
competition provides motivation for all participants, and offers hope for outsiders who want to establish a
reputation. The second is cooperation. Inventors share ideas with each other, thereby jointly exploring the
search space faster, the same way animals cooperate in collecting food and building shelter.
These paradigms are reflected in the affordances of online systems. Numerous examples of competitive
and cooperative systems exist: there are even instances of the two intermingling. The literature of open
source (Lakhani and Von Hippel 2003), open standards (Lyytinen and King 2006), online communities
(Butler et al. 2013; Koh et al. 2007), and citizen science (Wiggins and Crowston 2010) provide useful
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background. Work on collaboration (Malone and Crowston 1994), peer production (Benkler 2006),
collective intelligence (Malone et al. 2010) and crowds (Afuah and Tucci 2012; Kittur et al. 2013) have
together raised an intriguing possibility: that new kinds of structures can be formed through the
confluence of organizational and technological features, and these structures may be deployed against a
range of social problems. These structures, though, will be influenced substantially by the basic
underlying paradigm chosen.
Arguments in favor of competition are rooted in economic theories, and, indeed, many commercial
systems are based on competitive models (Lakhani and Lonstein 2012). Arguments in favor of
cooperation many times make information-theoretic claims, and many open source systems provide
evidence for the effectiveness of collaboration (West and O'Mahony 2008). Empirical evidence exists in
favor of both approaches, and this evidence will be discussed by the panel. How to study this further? A
first step is to discover and describe the mechanisms used to create possibilities for action.
This approach is built on theories affordances developed in the IS literature (Leonardi 2011; Majchrzak
and Markus 2012; Markus and Silver 2008; Suthers 2006; Wellman et al. 2003; Zammuto et al. 2007),
with its roots in design (Norman 1999) and psychology (Gibson 1977). IS systems are constituted by
organizational and technological features (Zammuto et al. 2007). These features provide affordances,
possibilities for action, for the stakeholders in a system. The idea of affordances is useful because it
captures the uncertainty associated with systems. Designers can’t know entirely how a system will end up
being used. Because of this, many systems development methodologies encourage prototyping, time
boxing, sprints, spiral development and the like – all mechanisms that expose users to the system, and
allow reflection about, and modification of, the system over time. That is, they allow the system to evolve
through interactions with the environment, constituted by actors and other associated systems.
For example, a set of affordances related to innovation contests have been used to drive the growth of the
community. Innovation contests have been used in many settings, to foster both business and government
innovation (Boudreau et al. 2011; Hallerstede and Bullinger 2010; Terwiesch and Xu 2008). Affordances
relating to contests include not only the technical facilitation related to ICT, but also the social affordances
offered by, for example, control of contest visibility and feedback (Adamczyk et al. 2011). But contests are
not the only way of soliciting ideas: open source forges, suggestion boards, and Wikis all provide forums
for contribution that don’t rely on competition. Both competitive and cooperative systems have been
successful, and some of each type of system have failed. We need to look deeper at the mechanisms of
such systems to understand how to design them better.
Controversial Issues and Panelists' Positions
Each panelist will lead a discussion around a particular aspect of crowd and community idea generation,
by first making a provocative short presentation in less than 5 minutes, and then asking other panelists,
and the audience, to respond. In a 90 minute panel, then, about 20 minutes will involve presentation, and
about 20 will involve panel interaction, and about 50 minutes will involve audience interaction. The
audience will have its first chance to interject after 10 minutes, and we will bias toward audience
interaction versus panel talks and panel discussion; the panel’s role is to be a catalyst
We hope to recapitulate the contrast between competition and cooperation in the panel itself, with
competitive approaches among panelists at the beginning leading to strongly diverse ideas, which are
recombined and synthesized through cooperative co-creation in the last segment of the panel.
The initial presentation will quickly define what we mean by idea generation, crowds, competition, and
cooperation. In particular, we will point out that idea generation is distinct from crowd sourcing;
crowdsourcing includes repetitive, close-ended tasks, whereas the panel will focus on open-ended creative
tasks, a less studied phenomenon in the crowdsourcing-related literature.
The first specific theme related to idea generation will be visibility (Nickerson 2014). In most contests,
entries are developed independently of each other, in secret, prior to submission. But in most open source
environments all creative output is visible to all who is interested. Visibility is good because people can
build on each other’s work, through remixing (Figure 1).
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Figure 1A. isolated ideas, each visible to
only its inventor
Figure 1B. Shared ideas, recombined from
other visible ideas
But it is bad because it demotivates people: once a good idea is seen, others think their chances of winning
a contest are reduced (Wang et al. 2014). The argument oscillates: visibility is good because it stimulates
new associations. But it is bad because it can cause fixation (Zahner et al. 2010). It would seem that
visibility is incompatible with competition. But this is not true. The Matlab contests provide full visibility,
but participants compete with each other to be the last person to make an improvement (Gulley 2001).
The second theme discussed will be incentives, and in particular the contrast between paid and unpaid
crowd work (Kittur et al. 2013). This theme is a crucial underlying issue in any idea generation system. A
debate is ongoing in the marketplace, with companies offering various ways of compensating crowd
workers – or not compensating crowd workers. When for-profit companies don’t compensate their
workers, they are accused of exploitation. But when open source communities do not offer compensation,
they are lauded for their far-sightedness and cooperative spirit. Some, though, are now arguing that all
crowd contributed work should be compensated in some way, in order to insure sustainability of the
efforts, and to provide livelihoods to participants (Lanier 2013; Loebbecke 2013). The exact schemes for
doing this, however, are still unclear. As can be seen, this topic can excite much debate over the
mechanisms of compensation in online systems. Money is good because it fosters completion. But it is bad
because it corrupts. There are more points to be made: money is good because it allows a community to be
sustainable. But it is bad because it takes away intrinsic incentives. These oversimplified arguments will
be expressed, and then the subtleties explored. It is far from clear that money leads to competition: there
are other factors at work in online environments.
Now that incentives and visibility have been discussed, the contrast between competition and cooperation
can be drawn. Competitive sites usually provide low visibility and monetary incentives; Cooperative sites
provide high visibility and no monetary incentives. Competition is good because it motivates. It is bad
because it wastes effort. What does the empirical research say? There is a tradeoff: one study shows that
more people will spend time in competitive environments, but people’s time is best utilized in cooperative
environments (Boudreau et al. 2011). Some environments have tried using both (Introne et al. 2013).
Moreover, users can appropriate competitive contest structures in order to promote essentially
cooperative work (Nickerson and Monroy-Hernández 2011). And environments that initially look
cooperative upon further examination reveal built-in selection mechanisms; a sharing veneer may belie a
competitive core. Boundaries, then, are more porous than they may initially seem.
One way to make sense of all this is through the concept of co-creation (Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013).
Crowds and communities function not just at the individual level, but also at dyadic, group, and collective
levels. It is possible to see competition at one level resulting in co-creation at a higher level, especially in
environments where there are incentives disclose new inventions – either initially or eventually.
Competitive constructs such as patent systems eventually encourage co-creation as inventors build on
each other’s work. Co-creation, then, may call upon a wide range of affordances in a system: some
affordances for individuals, some for teams, some for the collective itself. Indeed, these affordance can
even be sequenced in time, just as some contests start competitive, then change the rules to encourage
merging of teams toward the accomplishment of a common goal (Villarroel et al. 2013). Controversial
here is the issue of control and reward. Co-creation systems can potentially reward all contributors
proportional to their contribution – or they can appropriate the inventions through legal constructs such
as work for hire. The panel may weigh on these issues related to organizational affordances of idea
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generation systems: at what stage does the emergence of an idea belong to the crowd itself, rather than to
an initial requester or funder? How should such systems be designed? These systems can be applied to egovernment (Wagner et al. 2003; Wagner et al. 2006), and to the design of policy (Introne et al. 2013).
Panel Structure
Each panelist will lead a discussion around a particular aspect of crowd-related idea generation, by first
making a provocative short presentation, and then asking other panelists, and the audience, to respond.
In this way, the panelists will engage in entertaining verbal jousting - and intellectual co-creation, from
the inception of the contest. The audience will be called upon to interact early in the panel, at the end of
the first segment, and then called upon for further participation at the end of every segment.
Jeffrey Nickerson will provide a brief introduction to the panel, and then lead a discussion on visibility,
discussing the various models available in existing systems. He will argue for limited visibility, and the
panel will respond, arguing back both in favor of full visibility – for purely cooperative behavior – or no
visibility – for purely competitive behavior.
Sabine Brunswicker will lead a discussion related to incentives, discussing first the alternative models of
paid crowd work, contests, and peer production. She will argue that the existing literature is has limited
application to crowds, because it has focused on either individual needs (monads) or reciprocity (dyads).
This theorizing has not moved beyond the hackneyed and problematic distinction between intrinsic and
extrinsic motives. Such a distinction cannot be applied to open innovation because crowds consist of
strangers who do not establish strong social ties. Since bonds are not formed, there is a more fluid
dynamics at work, a dynamics in which both cooperation and competition can emerge and retreat at the
individual, dyadic, group and crowd level.
Christian Wagner will show that crowds and communities exhibit greatest effectiveness on medium
difficulty problems, and that they are best used within the same knowledge domain, as crowd expertise
transfers poorly. He will point out different theoretical perspectives that can be brought to bear on the
study of collective intelligence, and will explain the limits of collective intelligence in highly consensus and
hierarchy focused environments, found for instance in older style Asian management systems. He will
also stress limits of collective intelligence in silo-ed management systems often found in government
units.
Brian Butler will then discuss how competition or cooperation can be conceptualized in terms of different
combinations of incentives portfolios, visibility schemas, and selection mechanisms. He will argue for
competition as a simpler and ultimately more sustainable model, but the panelists will fight back, raising
examples from open source and citizen science projects that operate successfully in a cooperative manner.
He will show these environments are more competitive than they appear at first blush. The conversation
will resolve with a consideration of some principles of design, the affordances that systems designers
might want to put in place in order to encourage co-creation in a way that will be satisfactory to both
inventors and sponsors. After further audience participation, ach of the panelists will briefly weigh in with
final thoughts.
Participation Statement
All participants have made a commitment to attend the conference and serve on the panel if the panel is
accepted.
Biographies
Jeffrey V. Nickerson is a Professor and the Director of the Center for Decision Technologies in the
Howe School of Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology. His research and teaching
interests include decision making, information systems design, and collective intelligence. He is currently
the principal investigator of several NSF-funded projects researching crowd creativity, including work
analyzing 3D printing communities. He is engaged with research related to time banks and situated
collaborative behavior in mobile environments. In addition, he is applying experts and crowd to address
large-scale social problems. He has published in MISQ, Decision Support Systems, ACM Transactions on
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Computer-Human Interaction, and ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems. Recent work
includes an article entitled the Future of Crowd Work at CSCW, and a book chapter on Human-based
Evolutionary Computing in the Springer Handbook of Human Computation.
Sabine Brunswicker is an Associate Professor for innovation and Director of the Research Center for
Open Digital Innovation (RCODI) at Purdue University. She serves as strategic advisor of Open
Innovation at the Fraunhofer Society and is a senior research fellow at the Innovation and Knowledge
Management Institute (IIK) at ESADE Business School. Sabine’s general research interests lie in
understanding collaborative models of innovation and value creation in today’s global and digital
economy. Today, Sabine is highly interested in how information and communication technologies afford
new modes and outcomes of innovation and value creation. In particular, she studies the socio-technical
design of digital innovation ecosystems and related emerging innovation architectures, smart services,
products, and business models. Overall, her research is inspired by real world phenomena and informs
both academics as well as practitioners. She has published in academic journals and the business press.
Christian Wagner is the Chair Professor of Social Media at City University of Hong Kong's Information
Systems Department. Professor Wagner specializes in the study of knowledge management with wikis and
weblogs, collective intelligence, creativity, and use of games in learning and knowledge transfer.
Consistent with the theme of this panel, he has studied wiki models from the perspective of critical mass
theory and media choice theories. He also has written on ways of evaluating the wisdom of the crowds. He
has published in MISQ, Communications of the ACM, JASIST, and the International Journal of Human
Computer Studies. His work has been informed by his engagement with E-government projects in
developing countries and with the Hong Kong government.
Brian S. Butler is a Professor in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland where
is he is the Director of the Master of Information Management (MIM) Program and the Director of the
Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information (CASCI). He has worked with online
communities and social computing since the mid-1990’s. His work, which has appeared in Information
Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, and
the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), combines theories and
methods from organizational theory and management to better understand how emerging technologies
alter the way teams, communities, and organization function. Current projects include studies of policy
formation and application in Wikipedia, social media use in local food systems, the design of online
communities for large-scale education initiatives, and models and metrics for systems of online groups.
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants 0968561,
1211084 and 1219832.
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