Using the crowd for business model innovation: the case of Digikala

Abstract

On November 15, 2015, Digikala, one of the largest online stores in the Middle East, launched its first‐ever crowdsourcing contest called ‘A glance at tomorrow’. What distinguishes this contest from common crowd‐based initiatives is that it was aimed at Business Model Innovation (BMI) rather than product and process innovation. Although using the crowd has proven to be an effective way for firms to boost their product and process innovation, its use for BMI is challenging. Based on real large‐scale data from the Digikala’s crowdsourcing contest, this research focuses on the application of crowd‐powered solutions in BMI, which has rarely been investigated previously. Our exploratory case study indicates that the crowd could contribute to the BMI process. Our findings point to a new form of ‘division of innovation labor’ in BMI. Contribution of the crowd in BMI is more likely to be relevant to Value Proposition and Value Delivery, while it might be less relevant to Value Capture and Value Creation. The results also support the notion that crowd‐contributor characteristics affect the quality of proposals for BMI. We argue that this line of research could help companies design and implement customized crowd‐based initiatives to better support their BMI process.

Exploring open innovation in the digital age: A maturity model and future research directions

“…Investigating the influence of technologies on digital platforms and ecosystems and the collaboration of partners within is increasingly important as more and more successful business possess a platformstructure. Digital technologies can not only enable product or service development but also the creation of new business as Bagheri et al (2020) in this special issue point out. They study the case of Digikala, one of the largest online stores in the Middle East, and how they used the crowd for business model innovation.…”

Towards an understanding of the decision process of solvers’ participation in crowdsourcing contests for problem solving

“…It is generally reflected by intrinsic motives including self-efficacy, altruism, a sense of belonging to community, and fun, as well as extrinsic motives including to earn rewards, to develop skills, to improve career prospect, to gain recognition (Acar 2019;Alam and Campbell 2017;Battistella and Nonino 2013;Leimeister et al 2009). In addition, solvers' characteristics about demographics such as age, gender and employment (Bagheri et al 2020), participation experience and past success experience (Bayus 2013; Khasraghi and Aghaie 2014), domain knowledge (Frey, Lüthje, and Haag 2011;Mack and Landau 2020;Zhu, Li, and Andrews 2017), and cultural background (Chua, Roth, and Lemoine 2015;Bockstedt, Druehl, and Mishra 2015) have been argued as important factors that affect their behaviours.…”

What Crowdsourcing Platforms Do for Solvers in Problem-Solving Contests: A Content Analysis of Their Websites

“…In particular, to earn monetary rewards, to learn, to improve career prospects, to gain reputation, to have fun, efficacy, to be a member of a community, and altruism are the main motivational factors [11,[31][32][33]. Furthermore, solvers' demographics like age, gender, and employment [34][35][36]; participation experience and past success experience [37,38]; domain knowledge [12,13,39]; cultural background [14,15] were argued as important factors that affect solvers' participation as well.…”