Analyzing Crowd Labor and Designing Incentives for Humans in the Loop

Organizations increasingly use crowdsourcing techniques to solve problems outside the reach of pure automatic computation. People's participation and willingness to contribute are thus critical issues that organizations and software designers must take into account when developing crowdsourcing solutions. Many studies examine motivations and incentives, often analyzing specific crowdsourcing initiatives or groups of contributors. Building on this evidence, and on findings in organizational theory and experimental economics, the authors' framework helps developers and organizations analyze a concrete situation and identify adequate sets of incentives before designing crowdsourcing platforms.