Benefiting From Top Contestants: The Role of Seeker Feedback in Crowdsourcing Contests
Mengmeng Wang, Chun Zhang, and Bo Wang
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
Volume 30, Number 1, 2026, pp. 3-33.
Abstract:
Massive submissions by contestants have always been the benefits of online crowdsourcing contests, which can be affected by dynamic competition that is closely related to the entry of top contestants and the provision of seeker feedback. In this study, we examine how the entry of top contestants affects the overall submission decisions of other contestants jointly with seeker feedback. Empirical analysis, based on a dataset from an online design platform, indicates that early entry by top contestants deters the overall submission behavior of other contestants in a given contest. Furthermore, when top contestants enter a contest earlier, providing comment feedback by the seeker helps attenuate its negative effect, while providing higher value of rating feedback to top contestants significantly intensifies the negative effect. These findings highlight that in crowdsourcing contests relying on massive submissions’ behavior of contestants, seeker feedback mechanisms can effectively leverage the value of top contestants, strategically optimizing the potential of online contests.