Online Crowdsourcing Platform Continuous Participation During COVID-19: A Low-income Group Perspective in Malaysia

Abstract

The crowdsourcing system relies heavily on the number of crowd participation on the platform to ensure the platform's success. However, exploring factors that motivate the crowds to sustain on the platform remains unclear, and very little literature was found on this matter. Lately, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world, including Malaysia. Due to the pandemic, many people have lost their jobs, and hence, most of them have shifted to digital work. Hence, to understand the motivation for continuous participation on the online crowdsourcing platform among low-income crowd workers (B40) in Malaysia, this paper explores the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for continuous participation. A qualitative method interview was performed where 14 active participants of Upwork.com, under the GLOW program, took part during the data collection process. This paper used the thematic analysis method to extract the data collected from this study. The finding of this study identified eight intrinsic motivation factors: (1) personal development, (2) pastime, (3) fun, (4) passion, (5) task identity, (6) time-workplace flexibility, (7) altruistic, and (8) peers' success and four extrinsic factors: (1) monetary, (2) job security, (3) personal commitment, and (4) environment.

1. Introduction

Recently, digitalization as a revolutionary phase of widespread information and communications technology (ICT) usage in the industry is the subject of many firms’ concern (Stoyanova, 2020). The involvement of technology as an assistant tool to the people demonstrated an extensive growth in productivity, smoothen the business performance and improve the standard of living in the community (Nguyen & Luu, 2020). On that note, online crowdsourcing nowadays allows organizations to engage with crowds using the rise of social media popularity and the growth in Web technologies to assess their knowledge as an organization’s needs (Prpić et al., 2015). Moreover, Dimitrova and Scarso (2017) concluded that crowdsourcing practices still depend on crowds for contribution even though crowdsourcing can be divided into various forms and models.

Crowdsourcing practices relies on the concept of combination skills, where the experience and idea acquisitions are concept and idea that typically has been recognized, continually modernized, facilitated, and created a powerful set of competencies among the crowds. In crowdsourcing processes, both crowd workers and job providers receive a mutual benefit. Crowd workers could benefit from financial, self-recognition or skill development while job providers could benefit from crowds knowledge and skill to deliver a high-quality completed task (Jonathan et al., 2016). Additionally, O’Leary (2016) added that crowdsourcing offers additional information-sharing tools for knowledge management. Hence, this study finds that the effect of crowdsourcing on the potential growth of knowledge management is an important research topic to review (Dimitrova & Scarso, 2017), especially from the crowd workers’ continuous participation perspectives to preserve the quality of information and knowledge delivered especially during the pandemic situation.

The growth in technology globally has caused every country to move forward to implement the technology in lifting the trajectory of economic development (Lee & Xuan, 2019). In Malaysia, a crowdsourcing project launched by the government under the handling of MDEC (Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation) was aiming to help the B40 group of community to generate side income (Arshad et al., 2013; Zakariah et al., 2018) by connecting the targeted community with the established domestic and international-based online crowdsourcing platforms. The B40 community refers to the bottom 40 percent of households with monthly income RM4, 850, and below (The Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2020). The crowdsourcing initiative called eRezeki was launched in 2015, and a sub-program of eRezeki namely Global Online Workforce (GLOW) was introduced in 2016. By 2020, statistics demonstrated by MDEC showed that only fifty percent of the registered users actively use the online crowdsourcing platform.

The majority of past research on online crowdsourcing practices focused on both job providers and crowd workers. For example, in previous studies, it was often unclear whether participants were asked about their motivation based on first-time involvement or repeated participation (Soliman & Tuunainen, 2015), which could make a significant difference and, if explained, cause participants to respond differently (Spindeldreher & Schlagwein, 2016). To begin, this study discovers that it is critical to investigate crowd workers’ continuous motivation in using the online crowdsourcing platform to perform tasks among low-income earners in Malaysia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly when a critical level of motivation is not completely explored amongst crowdsourcing platform users. Furthermore, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the use of technology may be harmful or beneficial to crowd workers (Abdullah et al., 2020); particularly with more workers now working from home, companies must adjust and adapt the way business functions are shifting to IT, while also studying the shifted effect on crowd workers. Hence, a research question was developed from this study: (1) What factors motivate low-income crowd workers to continuously perform tasks on the online crowdsourcing platform?

For this reason, this study believes that understanding crowd workers’ motivation for their continuous participation on the online crowdsourcing platform might be helpful to boost up crowd workers’ performance and ensure a high quality task is delivered to the job provider. Moreover, it is important to consistently monitor the crowds’ involvement especially in the programs implemented by the government to ensure the success and the sustainability of the programs (Chulanova et al., 2019). Furthermore, the finding of this study provides a continuous motivation guideline to help crowdsourcing practice to manage online crowdsourcing platforms better and at the same time protect companies’ reputation and knowledge management.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Crowdsourcing Evolution

The term “crowdsourcing” is a novel word consisting of a combination of two words “crowd” and “source” which Mark Robinson and Jeff Howe introduced in an article hosted by Wired magazine in June 2006. The conventional practices of crowdsourcing were first defined by Howe (2006) as “crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call”. A traditional crowdsourcing approach has transitioned to online practices over time. The evolution of the crowdsourcing process from grassroots to Internet enabled networks has created opportunities for agile and uniquely skilled employees. Estellés-Arolas and González- Ladrón-de-Guevara (2012) prepared the first analysis of the crowdsourcing definition literature. They found 40 initial meanings, which then came to a conclusion where they defined crowdsourcing as “a type of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit organization, or company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge, heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task. The undertaking of the task, variable complexity and modularity, and in which the crowd should participate bringing their work, money, knowledge and/or experience, always particularly when a critical level of motivation is not completely explored amongst crowdsourcing platform users entails mutual benefit” (p. 199). Crowdsourcing is a practice of obtaining services, solutions, and alternatives to problems through requesting contributions from a massive public, and in an online population, rather than conventional workers or suppliers. To conclude, crowdsourcing practices have now mostly taken place online with the presents of internet access.

Prpić et al. (2015), in their study, mentioned that crowdsourcing could be seen as a tool that uses IT for business purposes where the crowd can serve as a potential source for companies to gain creative ideas to compete with competitors instead of using the idea from current employees. In crowdsourcing ecosystems, the crowd plays an important role in ensuring that completing tasks from the job provider benefits both sides. The crowd is made up of an unknown group of people or individuals situated all over the world who are usually connected through online medium platforms. Moreover, crowdsourcing might offer multiple advantages to firms. The most important is workforce scalability and low labor costs, which can result in impressive cost savings for businesses. In addition, on-demand crowd labor allows the workforce to grow and shrink over time, depending on the company’s changing needs (Dimitrova & Scarso, 2017). Crowdsourcing is a new term combining three essential elements: crowd, outsourcing, and social web. Figure 1 below shows the basic stakeholder in the online crowdsourcing system.

Figure 1: Crowdsourcing’s Stakeholder

(Source: (Na’in et al., 2021)).

Over the time, many platforms have appeared on the Internet such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Wikipedia, Clickworker, Fiverr, and TripAdvisor to assist companies, organizations, or even individuals to overcome different types of challenges in their projects or tasks through different forms of crowdsourcing (Doan et al., 2011). Each platform was built to address the needs of crowd workers and job providers while the platform functions as a space for crowd workers to discuss innovative ideas and work together to solve problems (Chanal & Caron-Fasan, 2010), as well as a medium that enables job matching and hiring workers. With regards to this, twelve criteria were listed to identify the types of crowdsourcing platforms which cover technical and operational features of the websites as listed in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Crowdsourcing Platform’s Criteria (Chiou et al., 2010)

3. Crowdsourcing as a Marketplace

Crowdsourcing paid work can be seen as a sociotechnical system and represents a digital working environment that opposes conventional market models (Aloisi, 2015). In essence, an online crowdsourcing platform is an online mediated exchange operated by the platform owners in which the owners act as the site administrators, through the World Wide Web (www). Through the platform, job providers are able to search for potential crowd workers to solve their problems and execute tasks. The crowd workers will then accept the compensable tasks, accomplish the task, and return the task to the job provider to be evaluated. While working processes and rewards systems vary across platforms, all employees rely on their reputation as a means to acquire more new jobs, meanwhile, the online crowdsourcing platforms keep a percentage of payment between customers and freelancers as a service charge (Aloisi, 2015). Besides that, the credibility, quality of the job, work performance, professional ethics, competence, communication abilities, time management of the crowds are first developed through personality and then by customer reviews and ratings.

4. Initial Motivation to Participate in Crowdsourcing Platform

Occasionally, previous studies were done on motivation to participate in crowdsourcing from crowd workers’ perspective. However, the motivation was found to fall short on mentioning whether the studies were done for initial participation or to remain using the online crowdsourcing platform (Soliman & Tuunainen, 2015; Spindeldreher & Schlagwein, 2016). For example, Brabham (2010) identified five motivations of crowds’ participation on Threadless.com, an online clothing company that conducted t-shirt design contests. The five motivations were to make money, improve skills, freelance job opportunities, love of community, and addiction. In the following year, Kaufmann et al. (2011) proposed a combined model of crowdsourcing motivation which categorizes motivation into intrinsic and extrinsic as shown in Figure 2. In contrast to the motivations mentioned by Brabham (2010), the combined model of motivation by Kaufmann et al. (2011) highlighted a clear view on the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Figure 2: Worker’s Motivation in Crowdsourcing

Hossain (2012) performed an extensive literature review on crowd workers’ motivation and its relationship with the types of incentives that influence their participation on online crowdsourcing platforms. They concluded that motivations and incentives were significantly related. Moreover, the role of motivational factors such as reward factor (extrinsic) is still debatable, especially for initial participation and types or reward offered to the crowd workers (Brabham, 2008; Lakhani et al., 2007).

On the other hand, Pinto and Dos Santos (2018) investigated the intention to contribute to crowdsourcing platforms through two crowdsourcing innovation contest platforms, ‘ItsNoon’ and ‘Battle of Concept’. Their study showed that attitude was considered a predictor for participant contribution with the intrinsic motivation (learning and fun) as the main driver for the participant to contribute. In addition, monetary factor was found not significant in their study. In conclusion, past research has focused on the motivation for initial participation rather than the motivation for continued participation, which is the objective of this study.

5. Theoretical Framework

In this paper, Self-determination Theory (SDT) by Ryan and Deci (2000) was used as the main guideline for this study. SDT focused on the degree to which human behavior is self-motivated and self-determined (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in SDT was divided into five main regulations: external motivation, introjected motivation, identified motivation, integrated motivation, and intrinsic motivation. Hence, SDT is the most suited theory to use as a lens to explore intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors that sustained crowd worker’s participation in the online crowdsourcing platform among B40 in Malaysia. Furthermore, this study also refers to the combined model of crowdsourcing motivation of Kaufmann et al. (2011) to better understand and compare the motivation between the initial and perpetual participation among the crowd workers’ on the online crowdsourcing platform.

6. Research Method

Previous studies were largely found conducting a descriptive study based on the structured surveys or experiments using college students. Therefore, they did not sufficiently capture the work context from the crowd workers’ perspective to provide a holistic understanding of this complex phenomenon (Ahmad et al., 2019). Hence, to understand and explore in-depth motivation for continuous participation in the online crowdsourcing platform among B40 crowd workers, the qualitative method was employed in this study. MDEC has granted permission to conduct interviews with respondents for the purpose of data collection. As a result, 14 crowd workers who have been continuously working on online crowdsourcing platforms since the implementation of crowdsourcing practices in Malaysia were interviewed. Among 14 participants, 64.3% were male, and 35.7% were female. Demographic information collected from the participants at the initial data collection stage reported an increment in their earning during their participation in the online crowdsourcing platform. An international online crowdsourcing platform partnered with the GLOW program, Upwork.com, was selected as the study setting.

Respondents were interviewed through video conferencing using both GoToMeeting and Google Meet video-communication services. Distance interview was applied due to Movement Restriction order (MCO) because of the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize physical interaction between respondents and the researcher. The time taken for each interview session was between 45 minutes to one hour. The thematic analysis method was employed to analyze the data collected from the interview sessions. The thematic analysis method was selected as it is commonly used in qualitative research to analyze text transcribed from the sessions, and most important, researchers were able to identify the relatable codes and important themes that could assist the researcher to achieve the objectives of the study (Braun & Clarke, 2012). The process of extracting and analyzing data continues until researchers found that data saturation is reached. Respondents were presented with an information sheet that details the information regarding the study before the interview session begins. The respondents’ consent was collected before they were allowed to be included in this study. Moreover, the USM ethics board has granted ethical approval (JEPeM Code: USm/JEPeM/20030146) to give permission to the researchers to collect the data from the respondents. Figure 3 below shows the data transcription process involves in this study.

Figure 3: Transcription Process

7. Findings and Discussion

Table 2 below summarizes the finding of this paper. Eight intrinsic motivations and four extrinsic motivations were identified. Among all motivations found, three motivations were originally derived from this study as highlighted in Table 2. Time-workplace flexibility, peers’ success, and environment. The motivations are explained in detail in the next section.

Table 2: Summary of Crowd Workers Motivation for Continuous Participation

7.1. Intrinsic Motivation

7.1.1. Personal Development

Working on an online crowdsourcing platform provided an opportunity for crowd workers to learn a new skill and expand their knowledge to new tasks available on the platform. The respondent mentioned that repeated job providers sometimes asked if they have skills on other new tasks, different from the current task they were performing. This opportunity allows crowd workers to explore new skills and increase the crowd worker’s opportunity to work on other tasks. Competition in the same field of tasks, on the other hand, motivates crowd workers to switch to other tasks offered on the platform. The respondents mentioned that it is important for them to always keep on updating their knowledge and skills to compete with other crowd workers to ensure they were noticed by new potential job providers.

“Working as a crowd worker requires patience because you have to compete with thousands of crowd workers on the platform. So, we have to learn something new so that we can keep pace with others. Besides that, I do not focus on one skill only because we have to expose and market ourselves in the platform”. (P3)

7.1.2. Pastime

Apart from the motivation indicated above that drives crowd workers to continue working on the platform, several respondents also stated that they use it to pass their leisure time (Hossain, 2012; Kaufmann et al., 2011; Spindeldreher & Schlagwein, 2016). Respondents who are not full-time crowd workers use online crowdsourcing platforms to pass their time as well as earn extra income.

“At least, we can fill up our free time with this kind of job, and we get income. If for me, I will keep doing crowd sourcing because it is flexible. We can search for the job on the platform anytime”. (P9)

7.1.3. Fun

When crowd workers use an online crowdsourcing platform to perform jobs, they find it enjoyable. This theme aligned with the research by Brabham (2010) and Kaufmann et al. (2011). One responder stated that working on the online crowdsourcing platform was enjoyable, while another stated that performing tasks on a crowdsourcing platform was interesting. Shifting to a platform and becoming an active crowd worker allows them to put their skills to use while also allowing them to enjoy doing the jobs they love.

“As for me, I have a degree in Engineering and a Master Degree in education. But now, I am using my childhood talent to do this job. I really love playing with the com- puter, and I like to do design, initially for fun. But when I get into crowdsourcing, this is exciting to design a website” (P2)

7.1.4. Passion

Working on an online crowdsourcing platform is something that many respondents enjoy. They enjoy showcasing their abilities by completing tasks/assignments on the platform, which they accomplish with their skills and talent. Working on a platform is somehow very entertaining if they continue to secure more jobs and job providers. Continuous participation on the platform gives satisfaction to some crowd workers, especially when they are allowed to work on assignments that they prefer.

“If you ask me, what is number one to become a crowd work- er, I would answer myself. I have the passion that I want to keep going in this field”. (P1)

7.1.5. Task Identity

Job providers usually give crowd workers ample time to complete the task/assignment based on the complexity of the task/assignment. Hence, the respondents mentioned that their motivation to continue performing tasks on the online crowdsourcing platform was because of the task nature. It is then easier for them to work on an online crowdsourcing platform as they were given choices to complete the job by hours or according to job provider requirements.

“In the platform, the job providers will break apart the job into a simple task. It is much easier to handle the task when they break apart it and easier for me to focus on that job. Furthermore, I am able to estimate the time I need to spend to complete the job”. (P1)

7.1.6. Time-Workplace Flexibility

The online crowdsourcing platform provides a variety of jobs that allow crowd workers to manage their own time and how they want to work on the task. In addition to that, working on an online crowdsourcing platform allows them to spend more time with their family. Working as a crowd worker allows you to work around your schedule as long as you submit your task to the job providers before the deadline. Most respondents indicated that they love and enjoy managing their own working time, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to pandemic, the platform is the only medium I can use to generate income without leaving my house. If we can see, nowadays lots of company is downsizing, but when I continue working on the platform, there would not be such a problem”. (P7)

7.1.7. Altruistic

The altruistic factor is aligned with the respondents’ feedback. Crowd workers were keen to continue using the platform to pass on the knowledge they had gained during their time on it to future prospective crowd workers. Besides that, crowd workers aimed to teach others about the work that they have performed. Moreover, since the online crowdsourcing platform is web-based, there is a possibility that the website will keep on updating its functionalities and features. Hence, as an online crowdsourcing platform loyal crowd worker, they were responsible for updating their knowledge and conveying any new update about the platform enhancement to other crowd workers, especially to the newcomers.

“My main motivation is that I want to share about crowd sourcing to all Malaysian and would like to expose and encourage them to join the platform”. (P3)

7.1.8. Peers’ Success

This paper then identified a new form of motivation mentioned by the crowd workers, which is peers’ success. Respondents stated that they were motivated to continue using an online crowdsourcing platform because of the achievement of other crowd workers. Apart from the success stories of other crowd workers, having friends working in the same field encouraged them to continue working on an online crowdsourcing platform as they can share information about the job or ask for assistance regarding the task they were performing.

“I stay on the platform because of my friends too. I keep on receiving moral support from them, and at the same time, they help me improves my skill. I am also motivated to stay on the platform because of other crowd worker’s great achievements”. (P3)

7.2. Extrinsic Motivation

7.2.1. Monetary

The desire to earn money is a major motivation for crowd workers to participate on online crowdsourcing platforms (Brabham, 2010; Deng & Joshi, 2016; Hossain, 2012; Kaufmann et al., 2011). Because of money, most respondents continue to participate on the online crowdsourcing platform. One of the main reasons for crowd workers to stay on the platform was to continue earning money with their skills. Furthermore, when crowd workers continued participating on the online crowdsourcing platform, they were able to increase their monthly income. Moreover, when crowd workers continued to work on the platform, they were able to generate income in different currencies, such as USD.

“The special thing about working on the online crowd sourcing platform is the payment we received was not in our currency. Compare to working on a local job, I was paid more when I work for the job provider from a different country”. (P6)

7.2.2. Job Security

Online crowdsourcing platform offers thousands of jobs from different fields. Respondents mentioned that the probability of getting the job on the platform was high since there will be new jobs posted by job providers every day. Crowd workers were also able to access the platform anytime and anywhere to browse for a job. By continue working on the platform, they could update their profile and attract more job providers. Job security motivation, which was adapted from signaling motivation (Brabham, 2012; Kaufmann et al., 2011), refers to the opportunity for crowd workers to continue receiving job offers while also indirectly increasing their chances of being noticed by more job providers.

“When we continue to work on the platform, we get to update and enhance our profile. More jobs will keep on coming in. Job providers might notice us too”. (P7)

7.2.3. Personal Commitment

One of the factors that motivate crowd workers to continue working on the platform is the importance of their personal commitments. Among the personal commitments of crowd workers are the need to ensure their children’s safety during the pandemic, paying utility fees, and continue providing for their families. Furthermore, crowd workers’ personal commitment includes a desire to contribute to society. As an example, existing crowd workers felt it was important to use the platform to start a company that can train more crowd workers in the future.

“The motivation to continue using the online crowd sourcing platform is because to give comfort to my family. Now because of the pandemic, generating side income is crucial to me, so that I can save more for the future. We do not know if, one day, many sectors will downsize their company. So, saving is a must”. (P11)

7.2.4. Environment

Following the current global pandemic of COVID-19, one of the reasons that crowd workers continue to participate on the platform is the ability to get jobs on the platform. Continuous participation on the platform has little impact on losing a job or being exposed to the COVID-19 virus. However, crowd workers need to be more active and continue working on the platform to achieve a good reputation. Furthermore, the pandemic has caused many industries and people to shift to the digital working medium. Hence, the environment is one of the reasons which causes the crowd workers to continue participating on the online crowdsourcing platform. As crowdsourcing is now developing and replacing the conventional working approach, crowdsourcing practitioners must consider the environment when targeting crowd workers to perform their jobs on the platform.

“Working outside is not safe for me anymore because there is a possibility that I can bring home the virus to my family. So, the biggest reason for me to stay on the platform is because of the pandemic”. (P10)

8. Conclusion and Limitations

This paper examines the factors that influence crowd workers in the B40 group to continue participating on the online crowdsourcing platform to perform tasks. Under extrinsic motivation, money is the major motivator for B40 crowd workers to continue participating on the online crowdsourcing platform. Intrinsic motivation factors are as important as extrinsic motivation factors. The authors found that new factors including time-workplace flexibility and the environment helped motivate people to continue participating on the online crowdsourcing platform.

Two new intrinsic factors were derived from this study which were time-workplace flexibility and peers’ success (Wulandari et al., 2019; Deng & Joshi, 2016). Seeing the achievements of crowd workers (peers) on the online crowdsourcing platform, other crowd workers are inspired to continue working on the online crowdsourcing platform. Other intrinsic motivations identified in this study are personal development, pastime, fun, passion, task identity, and altruism.

In addition to internal motivation factors, this study looked at how money is an extrinsic motivation factor, as mentioned in most previous studies on motivation for online crowdsourcing participation among crowd workers. However, this study goes beyond money as a motivator for continuous participation. The new extrinsic motivation that was derived in this study was the environment. Environment as an extrinsic motivation factor for continuous participation highlights the importance of working from home when crowd workers decide to continue working on the platform. Furthermore, the current problems that have impacted the globe due to the pandemic have prompted everyone to consider environmental factors in conducting future crowdsourcing activities. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, crowd workers are motivated to continue participating on the online crowdsourcing platform to ensure their safety and concurrently help them to secure jobs on the platform. Other than monetary and environmental, other extrinsic motivation factors were identified in this study such as job security and personal commitment.

To sum up, our paper explores eight intrinsic motivation factors: (1) personal development, (2) pastime, (3) fun, (4) passion, (5) task identity, (6) time-workplace flexibility, (7) altruistic, and (8) peers’ success. The four extrinsic factors were (1) monetary, (2) job security, (3) personal commitment, and (4) environment. Our findings contribute to extending knowledge from a prior study that only looked at the initial motivation of crowd workers to use online crowdsourcing platforms to perform tasks. Our study then extends the focus on continuous participation on the online crowdsourcing platform among B40 in Malaysia. Additionally, the finding of this study could impact the way crowdsourcing platforms can be measured in terms of their performance, improving current policy, emphasizing incentives to the crowd workers, and enhancing the crowdsourcing platform’s design.

From the Malaysian perspective, our findings from this study could assist the government in improving current crowdsourcing practices among local industries, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the findings could help in providing awareness among Malaysians about the advantages of working on the online crowdsourcing platform.

Our findings on motivation factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) that influence crowd workers to continue using online crowdsourcing platforms were limited to the low income (B40) group in Malaysia and do not represent crowd workers as a whole. Hence, this paper should be interpreted by other researchers with caution. Our result was derived from the GLOW participants (Global High Income), a crowdsourcing program in Malaysia, and an online crowdsourcing platform, Upwork.com was used as the data collection setting. Other forms of crowdsourcing platforms may contribute to different motivations for continuous participation. In the future, we will develop a framework to explore the online crowdsourcing platform environment as a guideline for crowd workers’ continuous participation on the platform and examine the relationship between the factors.

*Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Malaysian Digital Economic Corporation (MDEC) for giving information and providing participants for this research and express gratitude to the respondents’ participation in this study.