How innovation tournaments promote makers' product innovation: economic or social incentives?

Abstract

PurposeResearch on makers and innovation has been equivocal regarding whether maker innovation is driven by internal motivation or external incentives. The motivation view favors the intrinsic motives of makers, whereas the incentive view supports external economic incentives. The authors combine both views to explore how innovation tournaments promote the product innovation outcomes of different creative and entrepreneurial makers, using economic incentives (money) or social incentives (love).Design/methodology/approachThe authors interviewed 42 makers and collected a panel dataset of 29,823 makers from the largest digital maker community in China using a Python crawling program. The authors analyzed the data using multiple methods, including cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, factor analysis and negative binomial regression.FindingsCompared with entrepreneurial makers, the product productivity of creative makers is inferior, but their product popularity is greater. The social incentive of innovation tournaments promotes the product productivity and popularity of creative makers compared with that of entrepreneurial makers, but the economic incentive is contradictory. In addition, social and economic incentives interact to generate inconsistent influences.Originality/valueThe study identifies creative and entrepreneurial makers and contributes to user innovation and innovation tournaments by integrating motivation and incentive views.

Board's informal hierarchy: influences on enterprise innovation quality

“…Under the impetus of China's current innovation-driven development strategy, the innovation quality of enterprises is incrementally drawing the attention of more and more theoretical and practical perspectives (Liang et al, 2023;Liu et al, 2021;Xiao et al, 2023). The quandary of how to crack the problem of prioritizing quantity over quality in innovation becomes an imperative issue that enterprises urgently need to address.…”

“…Innovation, as the crucial determinant of an enterprise's core competitiveness, has garnered increasing attention in both theoretical and practical circles (Luong et al, 2017;Lyandres and Palazzo, 2016;Yuan and Cao, 2022;Xiao et al, 2023). In recent years, under the guidance and implementation of innovation-driven development strategies, China's innovative accomplishments have made significant strides, with patent applications and ownership skyrocketing to the forefront globally.…”