Investigating the antecedents of organizational task crowdsourcing

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is increasingly recognized as a potential approach to organizational task solving. However, few studies have explored and statistically tested the antecedents underlying the crowdsourcing intentions of organizations. This paper examines the antecedents of firms’ crowdsourcing intentions based on transaction cost theory and the resource-based view and validates these antecedents using survey data from 161 organizations. The results indicated that the perceived benefits of cost reduction, brand visibility, and access to specialized skills positively affect firms’ intention to crowdsource, while codification costs and proposal evaluation costs negatively influence firms’ crowdsourcing intentions, both directly and indirectly, by diminishing perceptions of cost reduction.