Measuring the effects of explicit instructions and incentives on the idea generation rate of a crowd-based population
Name
890934151-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
7.08 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0c14e2cca5fd4abdcfa33a7a35a73e6e
Author(s)
Donnelly, Allan R. (Allan Richard)
Advisor(s)
Thomas W. Malone.
Alternative Title
Measuring creative idea generation rates of crowd based populations
Date Issued
2013
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Management researchers have long sought strategies for increasing the rate and quality of ideas generated among workers. Additionally, the advent of internet-based communications has created opportunities for valuable ideas to be generated - and harnessed - from crowds of individuals. The first section of this paper reviews the early and recent literature on measuring creativity, focusing specifically on the effects of incentives and explicit instructions on the rate of idea generation. The following section describes the crowdsourcing platform through which the research was conducted - Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) - and reviews recent work that has utilized this platform for experimental research. The project at hand engages participants in a divergent thinking exercise to measure the rate of idea generation for the crowd-based population. The findings show more unique ideas occur later in the response period, demonstrating the presence of the serial order effect; that explicitly instructing respondents to "Be Creative" increases the rate of idea generation; and that offering a bonus incentive for "especially creative ideas" decreases the rate of idea generation for specific demographics of respondents. The paper continues with a discussion of research limitations and areas for further exploration. Conclusions and insights are offered at the end.
Description
Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-60).
Subjects
Engineering Systems Division.
System Design and Management Program.
MIT Department
System Design and Management Program.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division
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