Abstract
When searching for projects on online platforms, potential bidders (providers) have minimum search costs and therefore can bid for new projects quite easy and fast. To strengthen their profile, they typically complement their actual bid with a cover letter. This letter contains either a rather project-focused and bid-specific message or it is more general, trying to enhance the provider's profile more generally. In this paper, we study if and how the message complementing a provider's bid affects his chance to win a project via an online project platform. Based on data collected from the platform getacoder.com, we study more than 13,000 bids from over 900 projects. In brief, we find that bids with a project-focused message are more likely to be selected by a client. Referring to the importance of the communication strategy during the negotiation phase, we complement Gefen and Carmel (2008), who – using a similar approach – investigated mainly the impacts of location and reputation on winning projects offered online
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the International Workshop on e-Business (WeB) 2012 |
| Place of Publication | Orlando, Florida |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Keywords
- Online Project Platform
- Bid Message
- Real Data Analysis