How Firms Leverage Crowds and Communities for Open Innovation

Abstract

There are many similarities in how firms pursuing an open innovation strategy can utilize crowds and communities as sources of external innovation. At the same time, the differences between these two network forms of collaboration have previously been blurred or overlooked. In this chapter, we integrate research on crowds and communities, identifying a third form—a crowd–community hybrid—that combines attributes of both. We compare examples of each of these three network forms, such as open source software communities, gated contests, crowdsourcing tournaments, user-generated content, and crowd science. We then summarize the intrinsic, extrinsic, and structural factors that enable individual and organizational participation in these collaborations. Finally, we contrast how these collaborative forms differ regarding their degree of innovativeness and relevance to firm goals. From this, we identify opportunities for future research on these topics.

Crowdsourcing without profit: the role of the seeker in open social innovation

“…Our data suggests how the strategies and outcomes of the public sector crowdsourcing are similar to and different from those studied for firms. While our data do not allow us to directly observe the latter, we believe the large body of research on innovation contests (e.g., Leimeister et al, ; Jeppesen and Lakhani, ; Boudreau et al, 2011; Afuah and Tucci, ) and online communities (e.g., Algesheimer et al, ; Piller and Walcher, ; Schau et al, ; West and Sims, ) allow us to offer suggestive findings.…”

“…Our sample is thus more similar to the second of two polar archetypes identified within research in corporate crowdsourcing – contests and communities – that differ based on such identity, motivation, and interaction patterns (Boudreau and Lakhani, ; West and Sims, ). The first archetype corresponds to competitive contests, such as idea competitions (e.g., Piller and Walcher, ) and innovation tournaments (Jeppesen and Lakhani, ; Füller et al, ).…”

“…On the other hand, our study corresponds to prior research on crowdsourcing with online communities – which can include user enthusiasts, brand communities, open source communities, and software ecosystems (West and Sims, ). One of the most often studied categories is the brand community, where large consumer products companies leverage the strong social identity of their loyal customers.…”

“…Contrasting our data to research on corporate crowdsourcing identified three archetypes: communities and contests for corporations, as well as communities for governments (Figure ). This suggests a 2 × 2 framework, in which one dimension is the community vs. contests distinction for commercial crowdsourcing (Boudreau and Lakhani, ; West and Sims, ). This dimension appears to be fully orthogonal to a second dimension, the distinction between the goals of profit‐maximizing vs. societal improvement (Lukensmeyer and Torres, ; Hilgers and Ihl, ; Chesbrough and Di Minin, ).…”

Open Principles in New Business Models for Information Systems

“…Whereas this phenomenon started in the high-tech sector and at large international firms, today the stream of open innovation got mainstream and is also common in smaller enterprises [38]. Furthermore, in recent times we can see an increasing interest of firms to collaborate with external communities as potential source of (open) innovation [39]. This idea of innovation by communities is not new and has already been subject of extensive research in the past.…”