We use variation in wind speeds at sur…ng locations in Switzerland as exogenous shifters of users'propensity to post content about their sur…ng activity onto an online social network. We exploit this variation to test whether users'social ties on the network have a causal e¤ect on their content generation, and whether conent generation in turn has a similar causal e¤ect on the users'abilty to form social ties. Economically significant causal e¤ects of this kind can produce positive feedback that generate multiplier e¤ects to interventions that subsidize tie formation. We argue these interventions can therefore be the basis of a strategy by the …rm to indirectly faciliate content generation on the site. The exogenous variation provided by wind speeds enable us to measure this feedback empirically and to assess the return on investment from such policies. We use a detailed dataset from an online social network that comprises the complete details of social tie formation and content generation on the site. The richness of he data enable us to control for several spurious confounds that have typically plagued empirical analysis of social interactions. Our results show evidence for signi…cant positive feedback in user generated content. We discuss the implications of the estimates for the management of the content and the growth of the network.Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Bern, Email: Reto.Hofstetter@imu.unibe.ch y Doctoral Student in Marketing, Stanford GSB,

Open innovation contests that display all submitted ideas to participants are a popular way for firms to generate ideas. In such contest-based ideation, the authors show that seeing numerous competitive ideas of others harms, rather than stimulates, creative performance (Study 1). Others’ competitive prior ideas interfere with idea generation, as new ideas need to be differentiated from the preceding ones to be original. Exposure to an increasing number of prior ideas thus heightens individuals’ perceived constraints of expressing ideas and harms creative performance (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, creative performance monotonically reduces with an increasing number of prior ideas (Study 4). A final study demonstrates that showing only a limited number of ideas as well as grouping prior ideas offer actionable ways to reduce prior ideas’ harmful influence (Study 5). These results illustrate viable ways to improve contest-based ideation outcomes merely by changing how competitive prior ideas are presented.

Firms increasingly deploy algorithmic pricing approaches to determine what to charge for their goods and services. Algorithmic pricing can discriminate prices both dynamically over time and personally depending on individual consumer information. Although legal, the ethicality of such approaches needs to be examined as often they trigger moral concerns and sometimes outrage. In this research paper, we provide an overview and discussion of the ethical challenges germane to algorithmic pricing. As a basis for our discussion, we perform a systematic interpretative review of 315 related articles on dynamic and personalized pricing as well as pricing algorithms in general. We then use this review to define the term algorithmic pricing and map its key elements at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels from a business and marketing ethics perspective. Thus, we can identify morally ambivalent topics that call for deeper exploration by future research.

We use variation in wind speeds at sur…ng locations in Switzerland as plausibly exogenous shifters of users'propensity to post content about their sur…ng activity onto an online social network. We exploit this variation to test whether users'online content generation activity a¤ects their social ties, and whether ties in turn a¤ects content generation. Under weak monotonicity assumptions, we also estimate nonparametric bounds on these e¤ects. Economically signi…cant e¤ects of the type above can produce positive feedback that generates local network e¤ects in content generation. When quantitatively signi…cant, the increased content and tie density arising from the network e¤ect induces more visitation and browsing on the site, which fuels growth by generating advertising revenue. We …nd evidence for such network e¤ects.

Open innovation contests are a popular way to tap into the creativity of customers. Many firms host multiple, successive open innovation contests in response to different, creative challenges they face. To encourage customers to participate and make an effort in such contests, they offer monetary rewards of varying sizes. Although prior research has investigated the optimal reward design for one‐time contests, little is known about how the rewards offered in a contest can influence individuals’ ongoing level of participation and their creative effort in subsequent contests. Receiving a reward is a form of positive competence feedback that influences individuals’ feelings of competence and intrinsic motivation. Based on cognitive evaluation theory, we argue that these feelings can persist after a contest ends, influencing positively participation and creative efforts in later contests. Our online experiment and also our analysis of the data from an actual open innovation platform show that individuals tend to cease participating in subsequent contests, significantly reducing the size of the crowd over time. Receiving a reward and positive competence feedback alleviates this tendency. Therefore, offering more prizes motivates more high‐performing individuals to participate again and to put in more creative effort, which in turn raise the average quality as well as the best quality in subsequent contests. These findings suggest that in successive open innovation contests, multiple rewards not only encourage greater participation, but also promote better quality outcomes. Thus, firms are well advised to expand the positive reward feedback in contests, as doing so will help them to maintain a sizable and motivated crowd of contestants.