Researching crowdsourcing software development: perspectives and concerns

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is an emerging form of `outsourcing’ software development. While there has been considerable research in the area of crowdsourcing in general, very little research has focused specifically on how crowdsourcing works in a software development context, and as far as we know, there have been no published studies of crowdsourcing software development from a customer perspective. Based on a review of the literature, we identified a number of key concerns related to crowdsourcing that are of particular importance in a software development context. Furthermore, we observed a number of recurring key stakeholders, or actors, each of whom has a unique perspective on crowdsourcing. This paper presents a research framework that consists of the various combinations of stakeholders and key concerns. The framework can be used to guide future research on the use of crowdsourcing as a `sourcing’ strategy, as well as a means to review and synthesize research findings so as to be able to compare studies on crowdsourcing in a software development context.