Workshop’s Topic: We examine how users respond to receiving symbolic awards in online innovation contests. Our setting is a machine learning competition platform that grants symbolic medals to recognize outstanding participants. Employing a regression discontinuity design, we find that gold medal winners tend to participate less in subsequent contests, yet they contribute more to prosocial activities, as evidenced by the greater number and length of posts, as well as more substantial and frequent code contributions. In contrast, bronze and silver medals donot seem to exhibit a significant influence on recipients’ subsequent behaviors. Our analysis reveals that the divergent effects of gold medals-diminished contest participation but enhanced community contribution-stem from winners reallocating their efforts from competing in contests to contributing to the community. We further establish that this effort reallocation is driven by a shift in winners’ goals following their win. Specifically, winners with previous competition medals are more likely to favor contributing content over competing again, whereas winners with more prior contribution medals are less inclined to increase their contributions. Moreover, team winners are less prone to shifting their efforts compared to solo winners. This study uncovers a novel effect of goal shifting prompted by symbolic contest awards and highlights its significance for incentive design in innovation contests.

Time and Location: 10:00 AM (GMT+8), Room A523 (School of Management)

Language: Bilingual (Chinese and English)