Rewarding in open innovation communities – how to motivate members

In order to attract and enhance users' commitment to participate in online open innovation communities, it is important to know what types of motivators are important for the members. Both monetary and non-monetary rewards can be used for motivating participation. In this study we focus on studying the role of rewarding in online open innovation intermediaries. The data was collected by interviews with the community maintainers of three open innovation intermediaries and by a web survey in the communities maintained by them. In the studied communities, the web survey respondents found monetary rewarding important, as well as non-monetary rewarding based on the quality of ideas. According to the maintainers' interviews, combinations of monetary and non-monetary rewarding are important. In addition, we analysed the rewarding mechanisms in 12 open innovation communities. We found that both monetary and non-monetary rewarding methods are used in the studied open innovation intermediaries.

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