Managing Delegated Search Over Design Spaces
研究了企业如何通过竞赛方式委托外部代理人搜索设计问题解决方案，分析了问题规范、奖励结构与搜索广度的关系，发现搜索者会聚集在特定区域，且搜索广度随人数增加呈对数增长。
Organizations increasingly seek solutions to their open-ended design problems by employing a contest approach in which search over a solution space is delegated to outside agents. We study this new class of problems, which are costly to specify, pose credibility issues for the focal firm, and require finely tuned awards for meeting the firm's needs. Through an analytical model, we examine the relationship between problem specification, award structure, and breadth of solution space searched by outside agents toward characterizing how a firm should effectively manage such open-ended design contests. Our results independently establish and offer a causal explanation for an interesting phenomenon observed in design contests—clustering of searchers in specific regions of the solution space. The analysis also yields a cautionary finding—although the breadth of search increases with number of searchers, the relationship is strongly sublinear (logarithmic). Finally, from the practical perspective of managing the delegated search process, our results offer rules of thumb on how many and what size awards should be offered, as well as the extent to which firms should undertake problem specification, contingent on the nature (open-endedness and uncertainty) of the design problem solution being delegated to outside agents. This paper was accepted by Kamalini Ramdas, entrepreneurship and innovation.