Affiliations: [a] Research Training Group ``Wicked Problems, Contested Administrations'', Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany | [b] Chair of Information Systems, Faculty III, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany | [c] EIT ICT Labs Germany, Berlin, Germany | [d] European Research Center for Information Systems, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Basanta E.P. Thapa, Research Training Group ``Wicked Problems, Contested Administrations'', Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, August-Bebel-Straße 89, 14482 Potsdam, Germany. E-mail:thapa@uni-potsdam.de
Abstract: Citizen involvement in public sector innovation is ubiquitously called for.
However, public administrations are still hesitant to adopt such practices.
We identify key issues in citizen involvement from the government
perspective on the basis of related work and a survey among German local
authorities (n= 358). First, we find that public administrations perceive a
mismatch between citizens' expertise and the complexity of problems. Second,
public administrations are uncertain about citizens' motivation for
participating in citizensourced innovation. To examine the citizen
perspective on these issues, we review literature on citizensourcing and
conduct a survey among citizens (n= 128). We find that citizens with relevant
expertise are more motivated to collaborate on complex challenges in their
area of expertise. While financial rewards generally work as incentives,
they are not always necessary due to the variety of motivational factors in
citizensourcing. Our study reveals further that the willingness to engage is
related to the demography of potential participants. The paper concludes
with implications for policy and theory and an outlook on potentially
fruitful avenues for future research.
Keywords: Citizensourcing, public sector crowdsourcing, open innovation, multi-method study, incentives, demography
