Incentive theory for a participatory crowdsourcing project in a developing country

Background: Urbanisation has put enormous strain on the limited resources and services provided by city management. This means that the city must find new ways to manage their resources more effectively. One option is to collect data in a smart city from the citizens in order to make better decisions about resource management.Objectives: The aim of this study was to provide a participatory crowdsourcing incentive model that can be used by the city of East London, South Africa, to collect information continuously from citizens in order to improve public safety in the city.Method: This study made use of a quantitative approach to gather and analyse data. Data were collected using a questionnaire sent to all 91 East London citizens who had registered on the project website. The response rate was 81.3%.Results: A model was proposed that can be used by the city to increase the participation rate of citizens in smart city projects. Three factors: intrinsic, internalised-extrinsic and extrinsic, were identified as central to the incentive model.Conclusion: The recommendation of the study is that city management can use the crowdsourcing participatory incentive model to ensure citizen participation in smart city projects.