Winners, losers, and deniers: Self-selection in crowd innovation contests and the roles of motivation, creativity, and skills

New product development via crowdsourcing relies on individuals who provide creative ideas to firms. Hence, researchers are interested in understanding the nature of individuals who engage in and win innovation contests. Our study advances this research by drawing on the componential model of creativity and including participants and non-participants of innovation contests in our sample. We find participants to have higher levels of domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and intrinsic motivation than non-participants. Furthermore, extrinsic motivation and high levels of domain-relevant skills are found to distinguish successful from unsuccessful participants more so than high levels of creativity-relevant processes and intrinsic motivation.