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Abstract
Prior research on user behavior in online innovation contests has mainly focused on factors that positively impact prosocial, collaborative behavior, which should ultimately lead to innovative outcomes. However, little is known about the effects of more negative personal characteristics that might result in more competitive, antisocial, and even unethical behavior. This paper considers Machiavellianism as one of the traits that constitute the “dark triad of personality” and explores the relationship between Machiavellianism and participants’ contribution behavior in online innovation contests. Specifically we investigate how Machiavellian characteristics influence individuals’ contribution intensity, communication, and interaction behavior within the contest community as well as the quality and kind of their contributions. This study relies on multisource individual-level data from a large innovation contest in the field of public transportation. We find that the three dimensions of Machiavellianism—distrust of others, amorality, and desire for status—have very distinct behavioral consequences in the context of online innovation contests. Specifically, the oppositional consequences of amoral manipulation and striving for status on the one hand and showing distrust of others on the other hand concerning contribution quantity and contribution quality are found. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of negative personality traits such as Machiavellianism as powerful predictors of behavior and of success within competitive innovation environments and leads to important managerial implications regarding the design and management of innovation contests.
Notes
1. In the following sections we use the abbreviation “Machs” for individuals who score high on the personality trait of Machiavellianism. However, we do not consider Machiavellianism to be dichotomous; as with other personality traits, it is a continuum ranging from low to high.
2. Lower rank numbers indicate a better rank in our case (1 = the best rank, a higher rank is worse). Therefore signs of coefficients have to be interpreted in reverse to achieve comparability of results across models.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Katja Hutter
Katja Hutter is an assistant professor at the Innsbruck University School of Management and a research fellow at the CROWD Innovation Lab/NASA Tournament Lab at Harvard University. She holds a doctorate in social and economic sciences from the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research interests focus on open innovation, especially idea contests and online innovation communities.
Johann Füller
Johann Füller is a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Innsbruck University School of Management. He is a fellow at the CROWD Innovation Lab/NASA Tournament Lab at Harvard University and CEO of HYVE AG, an innovation and community company. He was previously a visiting scholar and research affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Julia Hautz
Julia Hautz is an assistant professor at the University of Innsbruck School of Management. She holds a doctorate in social and economic sciences from the University of Innsbruck. Her research interests focus on strategy and innovation. In particular, she explores corporate diversification strategies, and openness of innovation and strategy processes from a social network perspective.
Volker Bilgram
Volker Bilgram is managing director at HYVE, the innovation company. He is an associated researcher at the TIM Group of RWTH Aachen University. His research focus is on the use of co-creation as an innovation, empowerment, and branding tool. He graduated in international business law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, with an academic focus on new product development and open innovation.
Kurt Matzler
Kurt Matzler (corresponding [email protected]) is a professor at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano in Italy. His primary research and teaching interests are in the area of strategy and innovation, leadership, and mergers and acquisitions. He is the academic director of the Executive MBA Program at the Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) and a partner of IMP, an international consulting firm with headquarters in Innsbruck, Austria.