Abstract

Collective efforts of masses provide access to funding and ideas. While such endeavors in a business-to-customer context are well-described, they are less well understood in other contexts such as business-to-business. A literature review that exacts knowledge and inspiration from B2C crowdsourcing and other forms of collective innovation is used. This review generates new knowledge to close this gap and develops a 6-stage innovation framework for Collective Engagement, Intelligence & Innovation (CEI^2) that begins with task specification and concludes with management of inputs generated from the CEI^2 efforts. The framework and the accompanying list of questions may be used by theorists to explore different contexts, and for managers to structure B2B or P2P crowdsourcing more effectively. Contributions of this study include exploration of the theoretical areas of open-source innovation that extend beyond a B2C model, and new ways of effectively structuring CEI^2. Further research may explore the CEI^2 framework through a case study or test it through quantitative study.

Highlights

  • Since Schumpeter (1934), economists, managers, strategists and policy makers have generally accepted that producers originate the best innovation ideas and designs

  • Most brokers are web-based and require some form of membership to be able to participate or submit problems or tasks (Hossain, 2014). This implies that the size and quality of the crowd are more or less predetermined by the broker’s network and skills: “When crowdsourcing via a broker, the level of commitment between actors varies; the relationship between a focal company and a broker is more formal as contracts are in place between them” (Simula and Ahola, 2013)

  • Differences exist between B2B CEI2 and B2C crowdsourcing

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Summary

Introduction

Since Schumpeter (1934), economists, managers, strategists and policy makers have generally accepted that producers originate the best innovation ideas and designs. Crowdsourcing efforts should be carefully managed to mitigate these possibilities while maximizing value to both the enterprise and the “crowd” Crowdsourcing has variations such as citizen sourcing, citizen science, innovation clusters, innovation contests, and peer-production. A philosophically related funding source is presentation of product or service ideas to panels of potential investors – a source popularized by the internationally popular television series, Shark Tank These results suggest that B2C and B2B enterprises should consider greater engagement of users/citizens as part of their innovation policies and practices.

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