IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v58y2015i4p377-388.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crowdsourcing: A new way of employing non-employees?

Author

Listed:
  • Ford, Robert C.
  • Richard, Brendan
  • Ciuchta, Michael P.

Abstract

Interest in and enthusiasm for crowdsourcing is growing tremendously. But should organizations contemplating the use of crowdsourcing view it as simply another means of outsourcing to non-employees, or as something unique that has special requirements for success? This article addresses that issue. After reviewing the various ways organizations employ non-employees to overcome human resource limitations, we suggest areas in which they are similar and areas in which they are different. We then focus on crowdsourcing as a novel source of external labor. Presenting key questions that every organization considering the use of crowdsourcing must address, we offer specific recommendations for those organizations that choose to employ a crowd to meet their needs. These recommendations are based on an extensive review of both the research literature and the practitioner literature, and include additional insights gleaned from transcripts of sales calls with prospective customers conducted by a large crowdsourcing intermediary.

Suggested Citation

  • Ford, Robert C. & Richard, Brendan & Ciuchta, Michael P., 2015. "Crowdsourcing: A new way of employing non-employees?," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 377-388.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:58:y:2015:i:4:p:377-388
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2015.03.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681315000324
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2015.03.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Josh Lerner & Jean Tirole, 2002. "Some Simple Economics of Open Source," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 197-234, June.
    2. West, Joel, 2003. "How open is open enough?: Melding proprietary and open source platform strategies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1259-1285, July.
    3. Robyn Thomas & Leisa D. Sargent & Cynthia Hardy, 2011. "Managing Organizational Change: Negotiating Meaning and Power-Resistance Relations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 22-41, February.
    4. Barry L. Bayus, 2013. "Crowdsourcing New Product Ideas over Time: An Analysis of the Dell IdeaStorm Community," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 226-244, June.
    5. Julie Battilana & Tiziana Casciaro, 2013. "Overcoming Resistance to Organizational Change: Strong Ties and Affective Cooptation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 819-836, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aaron F. McKenny & Thomas H. Allison & David J. Ketchen Jr. & Jeremy C. Short & R. Duane Ireland, 2017. "How Should Crowdfunding Research Evolve? A Survey of the Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Editorial Board," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(2), pages 291-304, March.
    2. Shih-Wei Chou, 2021. "Understanding crowdsourcing adoption based on IT managers’ decision," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 245-263, December.
    3. Francesco Cappa & Federica Rosso & Darren Hayes, 2019. "Monetary and Social Rewards for Crowdsourcing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, May.
    4. Cappa, Francesco & Oriani, Raffaele & Pinelli, Michele & De Massis, Alfredo, 2019. "When does crowdsourcing benefit firm stock market performance?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    5. Yiwei Gong, 0. "Estimating participants for knowledge-intensive tasks in a network of crowdsourcing marketplaces," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-19.
    6. Schmidt, Gordon B. & Jettinghoff, William M., 2016. "Using Amazon Mechanical Turk and other compensated crowdsourcing sites," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 391-400.
    7. Yiwei Gong, 2017. "Estimating participants for knowledge-intensive tasks in a network of crowdsourcing marketplaces," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 301-319, April.
    8. Ha Ta & Terry L. Esper & Travis Tokar, 2021. "Appealing to the Crowd: Motivation Message Framing and Crowdsourcing Performance in Retail Operations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(9), pages 3192-3212, September.
    9. Xuefeng Zhang & Bengang Gong & Yaqin Cao & Yi Ding & Jiafu Su, 2022. "Investigating participants’ attributes for participant estimation in knowledge-intensive crowdsourcing: a fuzzy DEMATEL based approach," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 811-842, September.
    10. Fedorenko, Ivan & Berthon, Pierre & Rabinovich, Tamara, 2017. "Crowded identity: Managing crowdsourcing initiatives to maximize value for participants through identity creation," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 155-165.
    11. Katarzyna Cieslik & Roland Banya & Bhaskar Vira, 2022. "Offline contexts of online jobs: Platform drivers, decent work, and informality in Lagos, Nigeria," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(4), July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabio M. Manenti & Stefano Comino & Marialaura Parisi, 2005. "From Planning to Mature: on the Determinants of Open Source Take-Off," Industrial Organization 0507006, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Sep 2005.
    2. Stam, Wouter, 2009. "When does community participation enhance the performance of open source software companies?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1288-1299, October.
    3. Terrence August & Hyoduk Shin & Tunay I. Tunca, 2018. "Generating Value Through Open Source: Software Service Market Regulation and Licensing Policy," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 186-205, March.
    4. Greenstein, Shane & Nagle, Frank, 2014. "Digital dark matter and the economic contribution of Apache," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 623-631.
    5. Dahlander, Linus & Magnusson, Mats G., 2005. "Relationships between open source software companies and communities: Observations from Nordic firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 481-493, May.
    6. Burcu Tan & Edward G. Anderson, Jr. & Geoffrey G. Parker, 2020. "Platform Pricing and Investment to Drive Third-Party Value Creation in Two-Sided Networks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 217-239, March.
    7. Wen Wen & Chris Forman & Stuart J. H. Graham, 2013. "Research Note ---The Impact of Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement on Open Source Software Project Success," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1131-1146, December.
    8. A. Yalta & A. Yalta, 2010. "Should Economists Use Open Source Software for Doing Research?," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 371-394, April.
    9. Kevin J. Boudreau & Lars B. Jeppesen, 2015. "Unpaid crowd complementors: The platform network effect mirage," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(12), pages 1761-1777, December.
    10. Sheen S. Levine & Michael J. Prietula, 2014. "Open Collaboration for Innovation: Principles and Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1414-1433, October.
    11. Fan, Terence & Schwab, Andreas & Geng, Xuesong, 2021. "Habitual entrepreneurship in digital platform ecosystems: A time-contingent model of learning from prior software project experiences," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(5).
    12. Jabbour, Chady & Rey-Valette, Hélène & Maurel, Pierre & Salles, Jean-Michel, 2019. "Spatial data infrastructure management: A two-sided market approach for strategic reflections," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 69-82.
    13. Adrián Kovács & Bart Looy & Bruno Cassiman, 2015. "Exploring the scope of open innovation: a bibliometric review of a decade of research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 104(3), pages 951-983, September.
    14. Henkel, Joachim, 2006. "Selective revealing in open innovation processes: The case of embedded Linux," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 953-969, September.
    15. Reisinger, Markus & Ressner, Ludwig & Schmidtke, Richard & Thomes, Tim Paul, 2014. "Crowding-in of complementary contributions to public goods: Firm investment into open source software," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 78-94.
    16. Haruvy Ernan E & Wu Fang & Chakravarty Sujoy, 2005. "Incentives for Developers’ Contributions and Product Performance Metrics in Open Source Development: An Empirical Exploration," IIMA Working Papers WP2005-03-04, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    17. Ginchev Ivan, 2008. "Optimality conditions for scalar and vector optimization problems with quasiconvex inequality constraints," Economics and Quantitative Methods qf0805, Department of Economics, University of Insubria.
    18. Kimmo Karhu & Robin Gustafsson & Kalle Lyytinen, 2018. "Exploiting and Defending Open Digital Platforms with Boundary Resources: Android’s Five Platform Forks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 479-497, June.
    19. Hussinger, Katrin & Schwiebacher, Franz, 2013. "The value of disclosing IPR to open standard setting organizations," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-060, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Huang, Jiekun, 2018. "The customer knows best: The investment value of consumer opinions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 164-182.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:58:y:2015:i:4:p:377-388. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.