Creative crowdsourcing: understanding participation barriers and levers from a heterogeneous crowd perspective

Attracting a sufficiently diverse number of participants for the success of firms' creative crowdsourcing is a critical and persistent issue. Our analysis of 40 in-depth interviews capturing crowd heterogeneity (ordinary consumers and creative professionals), highlights seven barriers to participation. For example, ordinary consumers highlight scepticism towards the firm's genuine willingness to concede power and perceived illegitimacy; professionals complain about governance unfairness and the lack of regulation. Grouping these barriers into three higher-order themes (crowd-, process- and context-related) creates a novel perspective that encompasses the empowerment-related concerns of heterogeneous crowds better than previous research. The analysis reveals both specific and common (higher purpose) levers that can alleviate these concerns, and it also questions the empowerment promise of creative crowdsourcing and has important implications for business and policymakers.