Crowdsourcing Practices Research Articles

Examining the Influence of Trustworthiness, Financial Rewards, and Admiration for Crowdsourcing in the Post COVID-19 Period

Over the past two decades, crowdsourcing activities have expanded considerably. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the way people live and work, and the way organizations do business. So far, not many studies have analyzed if and to what extent trustworthiness can influence the admiration to practice crowdsourcing and could reward financial benefits in the COVID-19 period. Against this background, in this article, the aim is to investigate the influence of crowdfunding trustworthiness and financial rewards on the success of crowdsourcing activities. The analysis is made more complete by including technology leadership support as a moderator. With the help of the existing literature and theories, a research model has been developed conceptually, which was later validated using the partial least square-structural equation modeling technique on a sample of 319 responses from participants based in Europe and Asia. The study found that lucidity, gamification, exposure, and coordination along with financial rewards positively influence admiration for crowdsourcing, which, in turn, positively impacts successful crowdsourcing practices in the COVID-19 period. The study also shows that there is a significant moderating impact of technological leadership support on successful crowdsourcing practices in the COVID-19 period.

Thematic and Demographic Analysis of Crowdsourcing Practices for Plastic Surgery.

In this study, we investigate the characterization of medical crowdsourcing on GoFundMe for plastic surgery procedures, with overall funds raised being the primary end point. Certain demographic factors such as sex and race mentioned in campaign narratives are associated with the effectiveness of medical crowdfunding campaigns. Search terms were used to aggregate fundraising campaigns for plastic surgery medical procedures on GoFundMe. These studies were then stratified by demographics based on campaign text or author consensus, and were further subdivided into categories based on procedure type. Men were found to have higher median shares than women-raising an average of $609 more than female counterparts ( P < 0.05). Fundraising for themes such as lack of insurance, travel costs, lifesaving treatment, and end-of-life expenses were more successful than the theme of psychosocial effects of disease or social impairment. In addition, those that included a smiling picture of the recipient and those created by a friend/relative raised more funds. Although no significant difference was found in fundraising between demographics based on race, a majority (72.8%) of campaigners were White. Across ~2000 plastic surgery campaigns, a total of $10,186,687 were raised from these data. We identified both modifiable and nonmodifiable factors that influence success. These successful campaigns can serve as a learning opportunity for many who have been marginalized by the medical and pharmaceutical industry, and they demonstrate a promising area for demographic studies.

Effective creative crowdsourcing: A multi‐dimensional evaluation framework

Effective creative crowdsourcing has mainly been investigated based on effective idea generation and selection management, but other dimensions of effective crowdsourcing (i.e., successful implementation and communication of ideas) have gained little attention so far. While most research has focused on idea generation as an outcome, this research highlights the outcome variety of using creative crowdsourcing techniques. The results present an evaluative framework of effective crowdsourcing and identify its drivers at each stage of the crowdsourcing process. The results contribute to an extended evaluation framework of creative crowdsourcing practices.

How to engage the crowd for innovation in a restricted market? A practice perspective of Google's boundary spanning in China

PurposeTechnological firms increasingly depend on open innovation to compete in hypercompetitive markets. To openly engage the creativity of a multitude of private actors, firms can rely on crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing challenges global companies as they span organizational boundaries to attract multiple local partners. Global companies must engage in boundary spanning to successfully communicate and create a sense of community with smaller local partners despite status and cultural differences. The collaboration between Google and developers in China deserves to be studied in particular, because it operates within a restricted market.Design/methodology/approachThis paper argues that crowdsourcing for innovation on a global scale requires effective boundary spanning capabilities. These boundary-spanning practices ensure smooth cooperation with the crowd and solve problems relating to differences in status and organizational contexts. This study applies Bourdieu's theory of practice including the concept of capital (economic, intellectual, social and symbolic) to understand the social relationships between Google and a growing community of Chinese developers. It also draws on a case study including ten semistructured interviews, which have been triangulated with internal documents and data from selected websites.FindingsFour types of capital (symbolic, intellectual, social and economic) have been identified as important devices to understand the sources of power and the stakes of Googlers and developers in the joint field. These types of capital contribute to structure the social fields in which developers and Google cooperate and their practice. The success of the collaboration between Google and Chinese developers can arguably be attributed to Google's ability to create boundary-spanning activities in order to reduce the endowment differential in the four types of capital and improve their communication. Therefore, this research provides a deep and conceptualized description of boundary-spanning practices, as well as providing a useful contribution for managers involved in crowdsourcing via platform in culturally different markets.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of this study is methodological in nature, relating to the absence of interviews with board members of Google China who are reluctant to speak about Google activities in China for political raisons. This restriction is partly counterbalanced by the analysis of publicly available secondary data such as news and communications.Practical implicationsThis research has generated practical recommendations for managers of organizations, which require optimal boundary spanning for crowdsourcing. Managers must understand the different sources of social boundaries between their organization and the crowd. The crowd should be segmented into smaller groups with distinctive identities, and organizations should systematically design boundary-spanning activities to address each boundary of each segment. The boundary-spanning activities involve a specific set of tools, programs and platforms to address the target group. Efficient boundary spanning depends on the necessity to select boundary spanners with high cultural intelligence and communication skills.Social implicationsThis paper draws on Bourdieu's theory of practice to investigate the role of boundary spanning in crowdsourcing for innovation, specifically in the joint field between Google and Chinese developers. This research reveals how boundary objects such as developer documents, websites, programs and events are essential for developers to be able to participate on Google's platform. Companies should be prepared to invest in the design and delivery of boundary-spanning activities and objects, knowing that these are also a locus for negotiation with local partners.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature by applying the boundary-spanner theory to Google crowdsourcing practices within a restricted market. Bourdieu's theory of practice has proven to be a potent perspective with which to better understand the positive role of boundary spanners in the joint field between Google and Chinese developers. Moreover, this practice perspective has not been used in prior research to highlight power relations in crowdsourcing for innovation. This study has shown that, in addition to boundary objects, boundary spanners can also contribute in the transfer of intellectual capital, which is the pivotal resource for boundary spanning in this field.

Crowdsourcing for Innovative Knowledge: effects of Knowledge Synthesis and Centralised Communication Position

ABSTRACT As innovation is increasingly generated via crowdsourcing, factors that enable or impede collective innovation deserve a closer examination. This study advances the literature by examining the roles of knowledge synthesis and communication positions in open innovation challenges. Analysing 3,200 posts generated from 21 organisation-sponsored online crowd-based open innovation challenges. This study showed that when knowledge contributors occupy centralised positions in online knowledge collaboration, they are less likely to generate innovative knowledge, and the benefit obtained from synthesised knowledge tends to be hampered by the contributor’s centralised position in the interaction. This study adds a new dimension to explaining crowdsourcing for innovation by incorporating a perspective of communication position into crowdsourcing and open innovation research. It also sheds light on the practice of crowdsourcing by highlighting the design of platforms that can promote the synthesis of crowd members’ shared knowledge while encouraging diverse voices from non-centralised members of the crowd.

Crowdsourcing for Innovative Knowledge: Effects of Knowledge Integration and Social Network Position

As innovation is increasingly generated via crowdsourcing, factors that enable or impede collective innovation deserve a closer examination. This study advances the literature on crowdsourcing for innovation by examining the roles of knowledge integration and social network position in open innovation challenges. It tests the differential main effects and the interaction effect of knowledge integration and contributors’ centralized network position on collective innovation by analyzing 3,200 posts generated from 21 organization-sponsored online crowd-based open innovation challenges. Findings showed that when knowledge contributors occupy a centralized position in the networked interaction, they are less likely to generate innovative knowledge, and the benefit obtained from integrated knowledge tends to be hampered by being centralized in online interaction. This study adds a new dimension to explaining crowdsourcing for innovation by incorporating a social network perspective into crowdsourcing and open innovation research. It also sheds light on the practice of crowdsourcing by highlighting the design of platforms that can promote the integration of crowd members’ shared knowledge while encouraging diverse voices from non-centralized members of the crowd.

Online Graphic Designers and the Ambiguity of Capital Democratization

The development of information and communication technology has brought a lot of progress and helped encourage the emergence of the digital economy - one of which is in the creative industry in the field of graphic design. This development raises an opportunity, namely crowdsourcing system. Crowdsourcing system is the process of getting services, ideas, or content by collecting contributions from a group of people, especially the online community for various activities. According to Howe, this crowdsourcing system results in the of or the sort of system we call today the sharing economy of the digital economy. But instead Christian Fuchs (2014) expressed his criticism by saying that the practice of crowdsourcing is only a pretext for producers to exploit to increase profits by using unpaid workers. One of the attractions of the crowdsourcing system is the meritocracy offer which provides opportunities for those who do not have an academic background in graphic design education to be equal and have the same opportunities as academic graphic designers or even professionals. The subject of this study was the self-taught graphic designer community in Salaman village, Magelang, which underwent an online crowdsourcing system. This study aims to gain a critical understanding of the existence of ambiguity in the practice of 'capital democratization' offered in the crowdsourcing system. This research tries to open up new insights about the link between capital democratization offered by the crowdsourcing system and the attitude of online graphic designers through Fuchs (2014) approach of digital workers.

Interacting, but not contributing: fruitless news crowdsourcing in Spain

Trusting the audience to contribute data, a practice called crowdsourcing, is one of several procedures of contemporary data journalism. While previous research has embraced the idea of crowdsourcing as a transparent way of engaging the audience, the journalistic practice of crowdsourcing is currently still limited. The Spanish case is particularly illuminating of the gap between theoretical expectations and reality. Although online news media in Spain stands out because of its commitment to exploring interactive possibilities, and its audience is especially prone to comment on news, this qualitative study presents evidence that Spanish data journalists remain quite reluctant to embrace crowdsourcing as a research method. Based on semi-structured interviews with five Spanish data journalists, this paper explains the motivations behind this reluctance as well as the challenges of activating the audience.

The Practice of Crowdsourcing

The Practice of Crowdsourcing

Customer Perception about “Crowdsourcing” within the Suburbs of Mumbai

A lot of money is invested in the development of a new product, however when a customer is standing in the retail outlet and has numerous option to buy from, Why does he choose one product over another has always been a key question. Marketers here face a challenge to connect to customers and convince them to try their product. Having an innovative product here becomes necessary for companies to stay profitable, yet the failure rate of new brands remain high and one of the reasons being not understanding consumer needs1. Companies spend a lot of money on developing a new product, with the changing times marketers are involving customers in the new product development process. This concept is recognized as “Crowdsourcing” in marketing which refers to the process of outsourcing activities by a firm to an online community in the form of an ‘open call’. The objective of this paper is to find out customer perceptions about Crowdsourcing practices in Mumbai. This paper highlights the importance's of Crowdsourcing and the motivations that trigger customer participation in the same. The respondents were surveyed on the basis of convenience sampling from the suburbs of Mumbai. The literature was viewed for understanding the importance's of the concept and the role that customers play in product innovativeness.

The Evolution of Innovation: Crowdsourcing as Heterogeneous Organizational Practice

This study explores the diversity of forms whereby the emerging organizational practice of crowdsourcing is becoming manifest. Initial characterisations of crowdsourcing represented it as “social p...

Crowdsourcing systems on the World-Wide Web

The practice of crowdsourcing is transforming the Web and giving rise to a new field.

Sourcing the crowd for health services improvement: The reflexive patient and “share-your-experience” websites

In countries where the notion of “reflexive patients” dominates the health policy landscape, patients are increasingly encouraged to publicize their personal experiences with health services provision by reviewing hospitals and professionals on the web. The number of websites where patients can review one or more aspects of their care (and read reviews posted by others) is growing. These sites are an example of the practice of crowdsourcing, where applications that facilitate user-generated content solicit feedback from a given public; site administrators then use this feedback for product development, quality improvement and policy change. The research presented here examines such developments in the context of ongoing discussions about reflexive consumerism and increased transparency in healthcare. It draws on data from a three-year study of share-your-experience sites in the US, UK, and the Netherlands. Data is taken primarily from a discourse analysis of four of the six sites under study, including patient reviews of institutions and professionals ( n = 450). Supplementary data from interviews with stakeholders related to the Dutch sites ( n = 15) is also used. This is the first known study of multiple share-your-experience websites in different countries. It shows that monitoring as “reflexive” behavior is not automatic, but is encouraged by website creators who, hoping to use the posts for other purposes, act as mediators between patients and other healthcare stakeholders. It further argues that patients demonstrate more reflexivity than some stakeholders realize, although not necessarily in the way that Giddens proposed. It concludes with the argument that the focus on reflexivity in healthcare means that not only institutions must be more transparent about their performance; patients are expected to be more transparent about their choices, as well.

Towards a characterization of crowdsourcing practices

The word Crowdsourcing –a compound contraction of Crowd and Outsourcing, was used by Howe in order to define outsourcing to the crowd. Beyond cost, benefits for the company can be substantial. It can externalize the risk of failure and it only pays for products or services that meet its expectations. The Crowdsourcing phenomenon covers heterogeneous situations and it has inspired a number of authors. However, we are still lacking a general and synthetic view of this concept. The aim of our work is to characterize Crowdsourcing in its various aspects. First we define of Crowdsourcing, and provide examples that illustrate the diversity of Crowdsourcing practices and we present similarities and differences between Crowdsourcing and established theories (Open Innovation, User Innovation and Open Source Software). Then, we propose and illustrate a typology of Crowdsourcing practices based on two criteria: the integrative or selective nature of the process and the type of tasks that are crowd sourced (simple, complex and creative tasks). In either case, the client firm seeks to mobilize external competencies. Relying upon the crowd can be an adequate method, because of its unique characteristics that are fostered by the Internet. Finally, we present some potential benefits and pitfalls of Crowdsourcing.JEL Codes: O32, L17, L24, L29, M19