Crowdsourcing : Vad motiverar studenter till att delta?

Sammanfattning: Abstract Title: Crowdsourcing – What motivates students to participate? Level: Bachelor thesis, 15 credits. Authors: Sara Örås & Tomas PetterssonSupervisor: Martin Amsteus Date: June 2013 Introduction: More and more companies realize the importance of using external resources to generate the best possible developmental outcomes for their particular business. The probability that all the smart people work for your company is not very big, therefore it is wise to use the public and take advantage knowledge, ideas and expertise of the public. Crowdsourcing is when a group of people is challenged to solve a problem for a company or to generate solutions and innovative ideas in exchange for compensation. A key issue is the question of what motivates individuals to participate in crowdsourcing. It is important to make people want to participate and it is very important to motivate the public in the right way. The purpose of the study is to investigate motivational factors in regard to crowdsourcing participation. Methodology: Method: A quantitative research approach has been chosen for this particular study as it aims to investigate and study the information in an objective perspective and thus creates an objective view of the reality. To examine the motivational factors, that are the most important to students when they participate in crowdsourcing, the study has been carried out in two steps, a focus group and a questionnaire-based survey. Since it is not reasonable to get in touch with the total population of university students, the population delimited to students at Linnaeus University in Växjö. Two selection methods are categorized as non-probability sample was used, convenience sampling and snowball sampling. Results: The three hypotheses of this study was rejected since the results of the analysis of the combined motivational factors did not demonstrate statistic significance. Statistical significance could however be demonstrated for individual motivational factors. Practical implications: The purpose of the study is to help companies while choosing incentives, and how to best motivate participants, in crowdsourcing projects. Key words: Crowdsourcing, Motivation