Can the creativity of a crowdsourcing platform foster idea generation? The mediating role of curiosity

Firms often outsource the task of devising new product or service ideas to consumers through online crowdsourcing platforms. We posit that the design of the online environment may affect participants' capacity to generate ideas. This research empirically shows that the creativity of the online crowdsourcing platform enhances the idea generation of participants who create and submit new ideas to that platform. We further explore curiosity as a mediator of the relationship between an online platform environment and participants' idea generation as well as design factors (aesthetics and ease of use) as moderators of the relation ship between platform creativity and curiosity.