Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intellectual ...

Giedrius Jucevičius
The non-monetary incentives include all individual and social benefits from knowledge sharing that
are not directly related with economic gains: personal and pr<strong>of</strong>essional development, academic
interest, community participation, increased status and reputation in peer community, fun and charity.
An extensive study by Gaammelgaard (2007) <strong>of</strong> incentives for intra-organizational knowledge sharing
in different countries and organizations has shown that employees, while sharing valuable
information, feel more motivated by such factors as pr<strong>of</strong>essional / personal development, increased
status and reputation in <strong>the</strong> organization than salary increases and promotion.
In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> open source s<strong>of</strong>tware development, one can see a significant pool <strong>of</strong> evidence (e.g.
Gaechter et al., 2010) that many co-developers are driven by <strong>the</strong> potential social rewards, such as
recognition by <strong>the</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional community, solidarity, fairness, altruism. The open source
communities (e.g. Linux) in many ways resemble <strong>the</strong> social movements where ideas play a more
important role than pragmatic rationale (von Hippel, 2006). In such cases, <strong>the</strong> social incentives, such
as being part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional community, or individual pr<strong>of</strong>essional incentives, such as access to
valuable competence, matter more than <strong>the</strong> economic goals. Never<strong>the</strong>less, <strong>the</strong> reasons behind
unselfish participation in a social movement (e.g. Linux decentralization vs. Micros<strong>of</strong>t centralization)
may easily get distorted once <strong>the</strong> individual pr<strong>of</strong>it motives enter <strong>the</strong> stage. There may be instances
when <strong>the</strong> picture <strong>of</strong> “gift economy” seems to be overoptimistic.
The survey by Lakhani and Wolf (2005) has presented an interesting finding that around 40 percent <strong>of</strong>
contributors to open source s<strong>of</strong>tware projects were paid (!) to participate. Thus, even in <strong>the</strong> “social
movement” type <strong>of</strong> environment <strong>the</strong> monetary incentives do not lose <strong>the</strong>ir importance.
Much <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> non-monetary incentives depend on <strong>the</strong> reciprocity in knowledge sharing, which may not
always be ensured. For example, <strong>the</strong> reciprocity and “shadow <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> future” (i.e. sharing knowledge
today with expectation <strong>of</strong> valuable returns from ano<strong>the</strong>r party in <strong>the</strong> future) does not work in a
codification strategy as <strong>the</strong>re may be asymmetry <strong>of</strong> sellers and consumers <strong>of</strong> knowledge due to <strong>the</strong>
free-riding (Ghosh, 2004). Nor will reciprocity work in <strong>the</strong> situations when experts do not share <strong>the</strong>
same level <strong>of</strong> competence. It is hard to expect an ongoing expert-novice relationship because <strong>the</strong>
expert may find too few incentives to participate. Some <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> open crowdsourcing projects (e.g.
Wikipedia) do not realise <strong>the</strong>ir full potential due to inadequate involvement <strong>of</strong> experts, whose numbers
would boost <strong>the</strong> quality <strong>of</strong> crowdsourcing initiatives. The experts, on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, value a degree <strong>of</strong>
recognition and exclusivity, which goes against <strong>the</strong> spirit <strong>of</strong> “wisdom <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> crowds”. Maybe attracting
<strong>the</strong> “crowds <strong>of</strong> experts” simply calls for <strong>the</strong> new incentive structures that are so far under-used by <strong>the</strong>
crowdsourcing initiatives? Usually, it means establishing <strong>the</strong> expert communities where members
value <strong>the</strong> reciprocal knowledge exchange. However, experts may appreciate different kinds <strong>of</strong>
incentives from <strong>the</strong> ones that mobilise <strong>the</strong> “crowds”. An extensive club <strong>of</strong> experts can be established,
based on reputation, recommendations or membership fee. Again <strong>the</strong> monetary safeguards <strong>of</strong>
participant quality might not be a panacea because it tells little about participant’s competence, while
paying <strong>the</strong> membership fee may also be regarded as ”purchasing <strong>the</strong> ticket to free ride”.
Co-creation: involving <strong>the</strong> expert community. The book <strong>of</strong> my colleagues at <strong>the</strong> University <strong>of</strong>
Lausanne (Switzerland), A.Osterwalder and Y.Pigneur (2009), “Business model generation” is a
valuable case <strong>of</strong> successful knowledge partnership and expert community building for <strong>the</strong>
collaborative book project. The authors <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> book performed <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> lead partners by
mobilizing 470 experts for co-writing <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> book based on <strong>the</strong> business model design methodology
that was created by <strong>the</strong> lead authors. First <strong>of</strong> all, it was <strong>the</strong> self-publishing effort, which relied on <strong>the</strong>
authors’ own funding. Second, it was not a usual crowdsourcing initiative, but ra<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> one that
relied on a specialized expert knowledge. The fundraising for <strong>the</strong> publication was based on <strong>the</strong>
subscription fees by <strong>the</strong> community members, which were raised in <strong>the</strong> more advanced stages <strong>of</strong>
collaboration (from 24 USD to 250 USD). The subscription fees have not only helped accumulate <strong>the</strong>
initial funding, but also acted as a participation incentive by establishing <strong>the</strong> exclusivity and authorship
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> experts ra<strong>the</strong>r than that <strong>of</strong> anonymous “crowd”. Besides, all multiple co-authors were listed in
<strong>the</strong> book, next to <strong>the</strong> two chief editors. The lead partners placed emphasis on quality ra<strong>the</strong>r than
quantity <strong>of</strong> participants (what to some extent contradicts <strong>the</strong> conventional definition <strong>of</strong> crowdsourcing),
who were contributing <strong>the</strong> practical cases on <strong>the</strong> matter and providing critical insights into <strong>the</strong>
chapters <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> book. There were also physical meetings <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> expert community. One <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> main
motivating factors behind <strong>the</strong> participation <strong>of</strong> experts in knowledge sharing is <strong>the</strong>ir reputation in <strong>the</strong>
expert networks and pr<strong>of</strong>essional development; <strong>the</strong>refore keeping <strong>the</strong> exclusivity <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> network was a
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