Get the Crowd Going – An Empirical Analysis toward a Crowdsourcing Engagement Model

Crowdsourcing continues to attract attention from researchers, organizations, and policy makers alike. In particular, crowdsourcing projects that engage intrinsically motivated volunteers and are aimed at endeavors such as policy making, research, and social activism, need to understand how to create sustained engagement in their initiatives. A fair amount of research has been done on identifying users’ motivation in crowdsourcing. However, crowdsourcing motivation literature still lacks sufficient theory-driven approaches. In this paper, we derive from theory of work motivation, the technology acceptance model, and the gamification concept to propose a model that can explain participants’ motivation in crowdsourcing. To measure our model constructs, we conducted a survey on the users of a European crowdsourcing project, researching truck traffic tracking. The results of the exploratory factor analysis confirm that our constructs can be measured properly using our questionnaire. At the end of this paper, we explain our findings and the contribution of our study

Crowdsourcing Based Business Model Innovation and Consumer Engagement

The development of ICT caused changes in business approaches and models as well as various new phenomena such as crowdsourcing, gamification, big data, and internet of things. The present paper provides analysis of crowdsourcing and how it contributes to business model innovation as well as consumer engagement. Based on the analysis consumer engagement dimensions are defined and application opportunities of crowdsourcing in business model context are determined. These constructs are integrated and empirically tested in Lithuanian market defining what is a level of consumer engagement in crowdsourced activities used for business model innovation

Mechanisms to engage an online community in crowdsourcing: insights from an idea contest in training

Knowledge sharing is particularly important for co-creating, discussing, or acquiring innovative ideas. Crowdsourcing, as an enabler of open innovation, has raised the question about the kind of organising forms and/or managerial interventions it may require or underpin. However, there is little consensus in management studies on how to best design a crowdsourcing initiative (contest) with regard to the mechanisms to engage an online community. In this paper, starting from an exploratory case study on the project “Stati Generali della Formazione e del Lavoro” (General Assembly on Training and Work)—a crowdsourcing experience designed for a large community of professional trainers, planned and managed by University of Milano-Bicocca and AIF Academy (Associazione Italiana Formatori), a broad representative association of Italian trainers—we study the factors influencing the decision of the participants (a.k.a., solvers) to become involved (and to what extent) in a contest. The study could contribute to the debate on crowdsourcing by both underlining important governance factors involved and providing empirical evidence of the link between management strategies and crowdsourcing success

Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Lessons from Two Extended Pilots to Transform Public Organizations by Internal Crowdsourcing

Digital transformation is a main driver for change, evolution, and disruption in organizations. As digital transformation is not solely determined by technological advancements, public environments necessitate changes in organizational practice and culture alike. A mechanism that seeks to realize employee engagement to adopt innovative modes of problem-solving is internal crowdsourcing, which flips the mode of operation from top-down to bottom-up. This concept is thus disrupting public organizations, as it heavily builds on IT-enabled engagement platforms that overcome the barriers of functional expertise and routine processes. Within this paper, we reflect on two design science projects that were piloted for six months within public organizations. We derive insights on the sociotechnical effects of internal crowdsourcing on organizational culture, social control, individual resources, motivation, and empowerment. Furthermore, using social cognitive theory, we propose design propositions for internal crowdsourcing, that guide future research and practice-oriented approaches to enable innovation in public organizations

Assessing the Impacts of Crowdsourcing in Logistics and Supply Chain Operations

Crowdsourcing models, whereby firms start to delegate supply chain operations activities to a mass of actors in the marketplace, have grown drastically in recent years. 85% of the top global brands have reported to use crowdsourcing in the last ten year with top names such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Nestle. These emergent business models, however, have remained unexplored in extant SCM literature. Drawing on various theoretical underpinnings, this dissertation aims to investigate and develop a holistic understanding of the importance and impacts of crowdsourcing in SCM from multiple perspectives. Three individual studies implementing a range of methodological approaches (archival data, netnography, and field and scenario-based experiments) are conducted to examine potential impacts of crowdsourcing in different supply chain processes from the customer’s, the crowdsourcing firm’s, and the supply chain partner’s perspectives. Essay 1 employs a mixed method approach to investigate “how, when, and why” crowdsourced delivery may affect customer satisfaction and behavioral intention in online retailing. Essay 2 uses a field experiment to address how the framing of motivation messages could enhance crowdsourced agents’ participation and performance level in crowdsourced inventory audit tasks. Lastly, Essay 3 explores the impact of crowdsourcing activities by the manufacturers on the relationship dynamics within the manufacturer-consumers-retailer triads

Governing Actor Networks in an Emerging Crowdsourcing Ecosystem

Organisations harness the wisdom of community to solve problems or create new knowledge. Multiple organisations, diverse communities and multiple platforms are forming ecosystems to co-create value. We observe that Libraries, Archives, Galleries and Museums are forming collaborative crowdsourcing ecosystems to curate knowledge and create knowledge that ecosystem-wide stakeholders can use. However, despite the collaborative nature of crowdsourcing, various tensions arise among actors that hinder effective outcomes. Through a qualitative case study, we identify crowdsourcing actor networks and explore their tensions that hinder effective outcomes. We propose a strategic governance approach to foster crowdsourcing-based collaboration in a complex and dynamic ecosystem to create and capture value. This study presents a shift in the traditional schema of structured hierarchical governance of crowdsourcing projects to unstructured non-hierarchical governance of a multi-actor crowdsourcing ecosystem. The value propositions of crowdsourcing ecosystem actors networks are value co-creation, resource sharing, collective ownership, and mutual dependency

A Multi-Dimensional Approach for Framing Crowdsourcing Archetypes

All different kinds of organizations – business, public, and non-governmental alike – are becoming aware of a soaring complexity in problem solving, decision making and idea development. In a multitude of circumstances, multidisciplinary teams, high-caliber skilled resources and world-class computer suites do not suffice to cope with such a complexity: in fact, a further need concerns the sharing and ‘externalization’ of tacit knowledge already existing in the society. In this direction, participatory tendencies flourishing in the interconnected society in which we live today lead ‘collective intelligence’ to emerge as key ingredient of distributed problem solving systems going well beyond the traditional boundaries of organizations. Resulting outputs can remarkably enrich decision processes and creative processes carried out by indoor experts, allowing organizations to reap benefits in terms of opportunity, time and cost. Taking stock of the mare magnum of promising opportunities to be tapped, of the inherent diversity lying among them, and of the enormous success of some initiative launched hitherto, the thesis aspires to provide a sound basis for the clear comprehension and systematic exploitation of crowdsourcing. After a thorough literature review, the thesis explores new ways for formalizing crowdsourcing models with the aim of distilling a brand-new multi-dimensional framework to categorize various crowdsourcing archetypes. To say it in a nutshell, the proposed framework combines two dimensions (i.e., motivations to participate and organization of external solvers) in order to portray six archetypes. Among the numerous significant elements of novelty brought by this framework, the prominent one is the ‘holistic’ approach that combines both profit and non-profit, trying to put private and public sectors under a common roof in order to examine in a whole corpus the multi-faceted mechanisms for mobilizing and harnessing competence and expertise which are distributed among the crowd. Looking at how the crowd may be turned into value to be internalized by organizations, the thesis examines crowdsourcing practices in the public as well in the private sector. Regarding the former, the investigation leverages the experience into the PADGETS project through action research – drawing on theoretical studies as well as on intensive fieldwork activities – to systematize how crowdsourcing can be fruitfully incorporated into the policy lifecycle. Concerning the private realm, a cohort of real cases in the limelight is examined – having recourse to case study methodology – to formalize different ways through which crowdsourcing becomes a business model game-changer. Finally, the two perspectives (i.e., public and private) are coalesced into an integrated view acting as a backdrop for proposing next-generation governance model massively hinged on crowdsourcing. In fact, drawing on archetypes schematized, the thesis depicts a potential paradigm that government may embrace in the coming future to tap the potential of collective intelligence, thus maximizing the utilization of a resource that today seems certainly underexploited

Production and use of documentation in scientific software development

Software is becoming ubiquitous in science. The success of the application of scientific software depends on effective communication about what the software does and how it operates. Documentation captures the communication about the software. For that reason, practices around scientific software documentation need to be better understood. This thesis presents four qualitative empirical studies that look in depth at the production and use of documentation of scientific software. Together, the studies provide evidence emphasising the importance of documentation and shows the handshake between written documentation and the informal, ephemeral information exchange that happens within the community. Four reasons behind the obstacles to producing effective scientific software documentation are identified: 1) the insufficient resources; 2) lack of incentives for researchers; 3) the influence of the community of practice; 4) the necessity of keeping up with the regular advancements of science. Benefits of the process of producing documentation are also identified: 1) aiding reasoning; 2) supporting reproducibility of science; 3) in certain contexts, expanding the community of users and developers around the software. The latter is investigated through a case study of documentation ‘crowdsourcing’. The research reveals that there is a spectrum of users, with differing needs with respect to documentation. This, in turn, requires different approaches in addressing their needs. The research shows that the view of what constitutes documentation must be broad, in order to recognise how wide a range of resources (e.g., formal documents, email, online fora, comments in the source code) is actually used in communicating knowledge about scientific software. Much of the information about the software resides within the community of practice (and may not be documented). These observations are of practical use for those producing documentation in different contexts of scientific software development, for example providing guidance about engaging a community in ‘crowdsourcing’ documentation