Benefits and Barriers of Crowdsourcing in B2B Firms: Generating Ideas with Internal and External Crowds

Simula, Henri; Vuori, Mervi

doi:10.1142/9781786346490_0013

Cited by 16 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…While previous studies (e.g. Carrier, ; Simula & Vuori, ) show that the right skills and identities are important to contribute to idea competitions, our findings show that for employees not usually involved in innovation (certain skills and identities), management support in terms of dedicated time and priority are important to engage these employees. Time and priority issues are given little attention in the literature on idea competitions and mainly in relation to motivation and qualifications of employees.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 84%

IT‐enabled idea competitions for organizational innovation: An inquiry into breakdowns in adaptation

2019

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Idea competitions can help organizations innovate and IT support can make it easier to enrol participants, facilitate collaboration and manage the process. Thus far, the literature on IT‐enabled idea competitions has focused mainly on engaging external actors; consequently, we know less about the internal engagement of employees. Moreover, although the literature reveals several challenges in managing internal IT‐enabled idea competitions, there are no comprehensive empirical accounts of how these challenges manifest in organizational contexts. Against this backdrop, we investigate how an engineering consultancy adapted an IT‐enabled idea competition to support innovation, innovation awareness and knowledge sharing. This descriptive case study provides a detailed analysis of the breakdowns that manifested, what triggered the breakdowns, and how the organization responded. Our analysis reveals that the system required substantial adaptation, and, although it addressed well‐known challenges in managing idea competitions, other challenges surfaced. We combine these empirical insights with extant literature to propose a model for understanding and explaining how our case organization handled the breakdowns that occurred while implementing the idea competition system.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 84%

IT‐enabled idea competitions for organizational innovation: An inquiry into breakdowns in adaptation

2019

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“…). It can also sometimes be the case that the crowdsourcing project is not accepted by the seeker's employees, who may even act positively against it, perceiving the initiative as an additional burden on top of their regular workload (Simula and Vuori ).…”

Section: Mapping the Literature Through The I–p–o Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crowdsourcing: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Ghezzi

Gabelloni

Martini

et al. 2017

Int J Management Reviews

259

183

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As academic and practitioner studies on crowdsourcing have been building up since 2006, the subject itself has progressively gained in importance within the broad field of management. No systematic review on the topic has so far appeared in management journals, however; moreover, the field suffers from ambiguity in the topic's definition, which in turn has led to its largely unstructured evolution. The authors therefore investigate the existing body of knowledge on crowdsourcing systematically through a penetrating review in which the strengths and weakness of this literature stream are presented clearly and then future avenues of research are set out. The review is based on 121 scientific articles published between January 2006 and January 2015. The review recognizes that crowdsourcing is ingrained in two mainstream disciplines within the broader subject matter of innovation and management: (1) open innovation; and (2) co-creation. The review, in addition, also touches on several issues covered in other theoretical streams: (3) information systems management; (4) organizational theory and design; (5) marketing; and (6) strategy. The authors adopt a process perspective, applying the 'Input-Process-Output' framework to interpret research on crowdsourcing within the broad lines of: (1) Input (Problem/Task); (2) Process (session management; problem management; knowledge management; technology); and (3) Outcome (solution/completed task; seekers' benefits; solvers' benefits). This framework provides a detailed description of how the topic has evolved over time, and suggestions concerning the future direction of research are proposed in the form of research questions that are valuable for both academics and managers

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“…Motivating employees through recognition and rewards for participation in internal crowdsourcing has been suggested as a common practice (Benbya & Van Alstyne, ; Bonabeau, ). However, many employees participate in internal crowdsourcing for intrinsic motivation—learning from others, validating their innovative ideas, and being part of an open collaborative environment (Erickson et al, ; Simula & Vuori, ).…”

Section: Conceptual Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When using internal crowdsourcing, organizations' expectation is that the CCEs would produce generalizable recommendations (e.g., those that address multiple customer segments or markets). This would ensure that the crowd‐based innovation is cost‐effective (Simula & Vuori, ). However, the solutions that CCEs might provide, while being innovative, might be too localized to their context.…”

Section: An Action Research Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Innovative ideas are more likely when the employees cocreate, that is, build on each other's ideas and knowledge (Collins & Smith, ; Lee, Olson, & Trimi, ; Ordanini, Parasuraman, & Rubera, 2014). To engage employees in such a manner, organizations are increasingly using software platforms to internally crowdsource innovative ideas (Erickson, Trauth, & Petrick, ; Malhotra, Majchrzak, Kesebi, & Looram, ; Simula & Vuori, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engaging customer care employees in internal collaborative crowdsourcing: Managing the inherent tensions and associated challenges

Malhotra

Majchrzak

Bonfield

et al. 2019

Human Resource Management

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Customer care employees (CCEs) are an excellent source of ideas for new and enhanced services for customers. By serving many customers, CCEs have the ability to see patterns in unserved and underserved needs. By being inside rather than external to the firm, CCEs have the ability to offer suggestions that build on existing capabilities, which result in ideas that are more easily implementable. There is a long history of research and practice for soliciting suggestions from employees, but little of this work has described how CCEs can be organized into a temporary online crowd to cocreate innovative ideas. With the advent of crowdsourcing software platforms, online collaboration among geographically distributed CCEs is increasingly possible. We describe an action research study of Optum, a healthcare company that implemented a collaborative internal crowdsourcing initiative over a period of 18 months. The action research study led to the identification of three tensions and associated challenges. We outline eight HRM actions that were undertaken to mitigate the challenges of engaging CCEs in internal crowdsourcing efforts. Based on our findings, we lay out a general framework, implications, and future research directions for research and managerial actions when engaging CCEs in internal collaborative crowdsourcing.

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Benefits and Barriers of Crowdsourcing in B2B Firms: Generating Ideas with Internal and External Crowds

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

IT‐enabled idea competitions for organizational innovation: An inquiry into breakdowns in adaptation

IT‐enabled idea competitions for organizational innovation: An inquiry into breakdowns in adaptation

Crowdsourcing: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Engaging customer care employees in internal collaborative crowdsourcing: Managing the inherent tensions and associated challenges

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