Exploring the Effects of Contest Mechanisms on Idea Shortlisting in an Open Idea Competition

Picking the most promising from a multitude of crowd-generated ideas challenges organizations that employ open idea competitions. Hence, hosts of such contests often filter submitted ideas into shortlists to help juries selecting the winning ideas. While contest communities and rewards have been conceptually associated with advancing idea development, the effect of IT-enabled contest mechanisms on idea shortlisting lacks empirical assessment. We draw on data from an online idea competition to improve our understanding of determinants for idea shortlisting. We conceptualize and operationalize three contest mechanisms: idea development, community appreciation, and early host appreciation. We find that these contest mechanisms are associated with the likelihood of an idea being shortlisted. Our findings help to better understand what determines idea shortlisting and may also lay the foundation for designing IT-enabled contest mechanisms so that they allow the efficient identification of promising ideas out of large idea sets.