Role of Reputation in Sustainable Performance of Online Crowdsourcing Vendors: An Explanation From Transaction Cost Theory

This study reveals a new finding on the impact of reputation growth on crowdsourcing vendors’ sustainable performance in different modes of markets using fixed-effect panel data regression models. To this end, we extract data from a large Chinese crowdsourcing platform named zbj.com for the period of 2012–2014, which was a key stage for the establishment of market diversification. Based on different transaction modes, the study divides the markets on the crowdsourcing platform into task-based market (TBM) and employment market (EPM). By applying the multiple framework, the empirical results exhibit a negative and significant effect of vendors’ reputation on participation rate (PR) in TBM and EPM. At the same time, reputation also has a consistent effect on vendors’ revenue share (RS) of each market. Moreover, this study shows that the significant reputation impact on PR and RS of EPM will be, respectively, weakened and strengthened in fixed-price mode and customized mode when vendors participate more in large-scale projects. The findings suggest that the growth of reputation will promote market transfer of vendors, that is, showing different sustainability in different markets, which will lead to uneven development of the crowdsourcing markets. By adopting the perspective of transaction cost theory (TCT), this study elaborates and analyses these phenomena and derives corresponding policy implications.