Even though research has repeatedly shown that non-cash incentives can be effective, cash incentives are the de facto standard in crowdsourcing contests. In this multi-study research, we quantify ideators' preferences for non-cash incentives and investigate how allowing ideators to self-select their preferred incentive -- offering ideators a choice between cash and non-cash incentives -- affects their creative performance. We further explore whether the market context of the organization hosting the contest -- social (non-profit) or monetary (for-profit) -- moderates incentive preferences and their effectiveness. We find that individuals exhibit heterogeneous incentive preferences and often prefer non-cash incentives, even in for-profit contexts. Offering ideators a choice of incentives can enhance creative performance. Market context moderates the effect of incentives, such that ideators who receive non-cash incentives in for-profit contexts tend to exert less effort. We show that heterogeneity of ideators' preferences (and the ability to satisfy diverse preferences with suitably diverse incentive options) is a critical boundary condition to realizing benefits from offering ideators a choice of incentives. We provide managers with guidance to design effective incentives by improving incentive-preference fit for ideators.

翻译：尽管研究反复表明非现金激励也可以有效，但现金激励仍是众包竞赛中的事实标准。在这项多研究项目中，我们量化了创意提供者对非现金激励的偏好，并探究允许创意提供者自主选择偏好激励——即向其提供现金与非现金激励的选择权——如何影响其创意表现。我们进一步探究主办组织所处的市场情境——社会性（非营利）或货币性（营利）——是否会调节激励偏好及其有效性。研究发现，个体展现出异质性的激励偏好，即使在营利性情境下也经常偏好非现金激励。向创意提供者提供激励选择能提升创意表现。市场情境会调节激励效果，例如在营利性情境中接受非现金激励的创意提供者往往付出更少努力。我们揭示，创意提供者偏好的异质性（以及通过适当多样的激励选项满足多样化偏好的能力）是实现提供激励选择带来效益的关键边界条件。我们为管理者提供通过改善创意提供者激励偏好适配性来设计有效激励的指导建议。