Understanding the relationships between motivators and effort in crowdsourcing marketplaces: A nonlinear analysis

• Reward valence and trust have linear impacts on effort.
• There will be a nonlinear relationship between self efficacy and effort.
• The nonlinear relationship between self efficacy and effort is moderated by task complexity.

Crowdsourcing marketplace as a new platform to source ideas or works from the public has become popular in the contemporary world. However, the predictors of user effort in the crowdsourcing context is rarely investigated. In this study, based on the expectancy theory which suggests the effects of reward valence, trust and self efficacy, we develop a research model to study the factors influencing effort. Further, the non-linear relationship between self efficacy and effort and the moderating role of task complexity is proposed. A field survey with 205 subjects are performed to test the research model. The results show that: (1) reward valence and trust positively influence effort; and (2) when task complexity is high (low), there will be a convex (concave) relationship between self efficacy and effort. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.