The impact of crowdsourcing on the evolution of knowledge management: Insights from a case study

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) is changing its nature. This is driven by the necessity to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches but especially by the opportunities offered by the Web 2.0 technologies. Thus, both scholars and practitioners need to understand how the new technologies affect such changes. In light of this, this study aims to analyse the impact of crowdsourcing on the evolution of KM. It investigates the specifics of the use of crowdsourcing as an emerging KM facilitator based on an analysis of the existing literature and on the findings of an empirical study on 3 internal and external crowdsourcing initiatives in a firm representing a B2B industry. The results of the study suggest that crowdsourcing (a) is moving the attention of KM toward the organizations' external environment as a significant knowledge source; (b) is shifting the focus of KM, originally directed towards the knowledge transfer process to knowledge creation/acquisition activities; and (c) is favouring the further development of the conversational KM approach, where knowledge is generated and shared by people through dialog, for instance by means of questions and answers.