Browsing by Author "Zogaj, Shkodran"

Crowdsourcing has drawn much attention from researchers in the past. Thus, there are already attempts to conceptualize and classify the phenomenon. All of the existing work has their merits; however they lack an overviewing perspective or meta-characteristic. They are conceptual in nature, lack theoretical grounding, and – most importantly – are not empirically validated. Hence, we develop an empirical taxonomy of crowdsourcing intermediaries embedded in the theory of two-sided markets. Collecting data from 100 intermediaries and performing cluster analysis, we identify five archetypes of crowdsourcing intermediaries: Micro-tasking, knowledge work, design competition, testing and validation as well as innovation. The taxonomy establishes a systematic and comprehensive overview of crowdsourcing intermediaries and thereby provides a better understanding of the basic types of crowdsourcing and its core functions. For practice, we provide decision support for crowdsourcers as well as crowdsourcees on which platform to be active on.

Crowdsourcing has gained much attention in practice over the last years. Numerous companies have drawn on this concept for performing different tasks and valu creation activities. Nevertheless, despite its popularity, there is still comparatively little well-founded knowledge on crowdsourcing, particularly with regard to the governance of crowdsourcing initiatives. Although proper governance is considered as the key to success by several researchers, little is known about governance mechanisms and their use in crowdsourcing initiatives. We address this issu by conducting a multiple case analysis in the scope of which we examine the governance mechanisms implemented in three different crowdsourcing information systems (i.e., crowd rating, crowd processing and crowd solving). For each system, we outline what kinds of governance mechanisms are used and how these are implemented. An initial comparison shows that relatively more mechanisms are used in crowd solving systems compared to crowd rating as well as crowd processing systems.

In many instances, customers are seen as one of the key resources for new product development (NPD), as they often have deep product knowledge, either in the form of explcit or tacit knowledge. Firms’ NPD departments are highly interested in internalizing these forms of customer knowledge with the help of customer integration methods, such as Ideas Competitions, Lead-User-Workshops etc. However, research analyzing how these methods enable transfer of customer’s tacit knowledge – which can hardly be expressed – has been neglected. Thus, scholars are constantly calling for research that focuses on understanding the tacit knowledge transfer processes by means of customer integration methods. This research identifies a total of 15 methods with the help of a systematic literature review. By then systematically analyzing these methods, authors found that six of these methods make use of two major strategies to internalise customer’s tacti knowledge: Story Telling-Strategy and Observing Customer Activities-Strategy. The rest of these methods do not allow for capturing customer’s tacit knowledge at all. Based on these insights, authors derived valuable implications for NPD practice on how each of these methods can leverage tacit knowledge from customers more efficiently.

Crowdsourced tasks are very diverse – and so are platform types. They fall into four categories, each demanding different governance mechanisms. The main goal of microtasking crowdsourcing platforms is the scalable and time-efficient batch processing of highly repetitive tasks. Crowdsourcing platforms for information pooling aggregate contributions such as votes, opinions, assessments and forecasts through approaches such as averaging, summation, or visualization. Broadcast search platforms collect contributions to solve tasks in order to gain alternative insights and solutions from people outside the organization, and are particularly suited for solving challenging technical, analytical, scientific, or creative problems. Open collaboration platforms invite contributors to team up to jointly solve complex problems in cases where solutions require the integration of distributed knowledge and the skills of many contributors. Companies establishing crowdsourcing platforms of any type should continuously monitor and adjust their governance mechanisms. Quality and quantity of contributions, project runtime, or the effort for conducting the crowdsourcing project may be good starting points.

To profit from crowdsourcing, organizations can engage in four different approaches: microtasking, information pooling, broadcast search, and open collaboration. This article presents 21 governance mechanisms that can help organizations manage their crowdsourcing platforms. It investigates the effectiveness of these governance mechanisms in 19 case studies and recommends specific configurations of these mechanisms for each of the four crowdsourcing approaches. Also, it offers guidance to organizations that host a crowdsourcing platform by providing recommendations for implementing governance mechanisms into their platforms and building up governance capabilities for crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing has gained much attention in practice over the last years. Numerous companies have drawn on this concept for performing different tasks and value creation activities. Nevertheless, despite its popularity, there is still comparatively little well-founded knowledge on crowdsourcing, particularly with regard to crowdsourcing intermediaries. Crowdsourcing intermediaries play a key role in crowdsourcing initiatives as they assure the connection between the crowdsourcing companies and the crowd. However, the issue of how crowdsourcing intermediaries manage crowdsourcing initiatives and the associated challenges has not been addresses by research yet. We address these issues by conducting a case study with a German start-up crowdsourcing intermediary called testCloud that offers software testing services for companies intending to partly or fully outsource their testing activities to a certain crowd. The case study shows that testCloud faces three main challenges, these are: managing the process, managing the crowd and managing the technology. For each dimension, we outline mechanisms that testCloud applies for facing the challenges associated with crowdsourcing projects.

Crowdsourcing has emerged as new pattern of digitally mediated collaboration. It refers to the outsourcing of certain tasks to an undefined mass of people through an open call. In a crowdsourcing model is always the role of the client; we call crowdsourcer, and the role of undefined contractors, the crowdsourcees or crowdworker. This novel socio-technical arrangement changes the organization of work as well as its general nature and is gaining popularity in recent years. Companies can apply crowdsourcing along their entire value chain and give almost any task to the crowd. These tasks can be roughly divided into three categories (crowdvoting, crowdfunding, crowdcreation) depending on the effort of the crowdworkers. Crowdsourcing differs from existing coordination mechanisms and occurs in an internal and an external form. Whereas external crowdsourcing describes the outsourcing of tasks beyond the company's boundaries through an intermediary, the internal form can be observed by the example of IBM, which uses their own globally distributed workforce as a crowd. While the internal crowdworker as employees retain their participation as well as protection rights and benefit from collective regulations, external crowdsourcing lacks in similar arrangements. Nevertheless, we recognize several motivations of crowdworkers to participate in crowdsourcing initiatives. Besides the monetary compensation, there are other extrinsic and intrinsic motives like social exchange or fun working in the crowd. In general, companies using crowdsourcing benefit from the access to a large pool of knowledge and expertise but also facing risks of losing control or the outflow of internal know-how. Similarly, the individual crowdworkers have advantages in a higher self-determination as well as flexibility and new employment opportunities. However, there are also risks for the crowdworkers, which are based in monotonous work processes, lower rewards or the lack of a legal framework. Hence, there are major challenges in the implementation of crowdsourcing and that is why further research is essential. On the one hand the impact of crowdsourcing on the workforce and changes in work organization should be on the research agenda. On the other hand further research must seek to ensure fair working conditions, because crowdsourcing sustainably changes the nature of work and the availability of labor. It leads to technical, organizational, juristic and social challenges but also opens up chances in new business models and services.

New Forms of Employment in Europe sheds light on policy options for policymakers and practitioners on the position regarding new forms of employment in EU Member States and other European countries. In recent years, new forms of employment have been on the rise all over Europe. The ‘full-time job’ is now no longer an option for many people seeking employment. It has been replaced by an ever-expanding plethora of ‘atypical’ employment relationships designed by employers to streamline their operations and/or take advantage of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Numerous labour law issues arise, demanding urgent attention. How should law and policy best address these challenges? This timely book explores this contentious topic in depth, presenting ten penetrating chapters on aspects of the topic by leading European labour law authorities followed by reports on new forms of employment in thirty-five European countries.