Power to the Crowd: Understanding the Role of Individual Contributors in Innovation Initiatives

Abstract

Over the last few decades we have been witnessing a democratization of the innovation process. New models of innovation based on crowdsourcing, contests, and communities have emerged. The role of contributors situated outside the boundaries of the firm has gradually taken center stage in innovation and strategy research, as the success of innovation initiatives often depends on the degree to which external contributors are involved, coordinated, and their skills matched with those required for the task at hand. This symposium will bring together researchers who have studied, from multiple perspectives, how individuals situated outside the boundaries of the firm can contribute to innovation initiatives. Their work will offer new insights on the behavior and motivation of individual contributors, and will shed light on how contributions are evaluated, processed, and incorporated by the recipient organizations. The symposium will close with a discussion on how field experiments can be successfully used in th...