Now showing 1 - 10 of 56
  • Publication
    Crowdsourcing: How to Benefit from (Too) Many Great Ideas
    (Kelley School of Business, 2013-12) ; ;
    Krcmar, Helmut
    This article focuses on how companies can cope with the enormous volume and variety of data (big data) that is acquired on crowdsourcing platforms from the worldwide community of Internet users. We identify the challenges of implementing crowdsourcing platforms and show how CIOs and other organizational leaders can build the absorptive capacity necessary to extract business value from crowdsourced data.
  • Publication
    Scenario planning for innovation development: an overview of different innovation domains
    (Inderscience Publishers, 2012-01)
    Fähling, J.
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    Huber, M.
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    Böhm, F.
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    Innovations expressed by customers are often unstructured, unclear, and ambiguous, making it difficult to interpret customers' contributions, integrate them into a company's R&D department and transfer them into comprehensible requirements for the development of product, service or software innovations. To close this gap, the paper presents scenarios as a technique to support communication between customers and developers along the R&D process and to reduce feedback cycles. A basic understanding of scenarios and their application in innovation management is delivered by outlining scenario definitions, identifying dimensions for the classification of scenarios, and providing an overview of scenario representation techniques for different innovation domains.
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  • Publication
    Accelerating Customer Integration into Innovation Processes using Pico Jobs
    (Inderscience Enterprises, 2011-04)
    Fähling, Jens
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    Krcmar, Helmut
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    Fischer, Jan
    Crowdsourcing marketplaces emerged in the internet and enable the integration of customers in various tasks along the innovation process. Marketplaces such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk install a member base for third parties, where they can offer small, highly structured paid tasks which can hardly be solved automatically with information and communication technology (ICT) which we call Pico Jobs. In this paper, a new method for systematically utilising the creative potential of the users of these marketplaces for new product development is illustrated. First, an analysis of related work offers an overview of existing methods for integrating customers into innovation processes and classifies crowdsourcing marketplaces according to existing methods. Second, the characteristics of Pico Jobs are elaborated by reviewing leading crowdsourcing marketplaces. Third, our real-world case with OSRAM pinpoints the features of Pico Jobs for idea generation and validation such as the speed and the dynamic of involving customers into innovation processes. The article concludes with a discussion of potentials and limitations for companies applying Pico Jobs in order to accelerate the integration of customers. Overall, this article contributes a new concept for utilising crowdsourcing and points out opportunities for future research in this area.
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    Scopus© Citations 6
  • Publication
    Community engineering for innovations: the ideas competition as a method to nurture a virtual community for innovations
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009-09-01)
    Ebner, Winfried
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    ‘Crowdsourcing’ is currently one of the most discussed key words within the open innovation community. The major question for both research and business is how to find and lever the enormous potential of the ‘collective brain’ to broaden the scope of ‘open R&D’. Based on a literature review in the fields of Community Building and Innovation Management, this work develops an integrated framework called ‘Community Engineering for Innovations’. This framework is evaluated in an Action Research project – the case of an ideas competition for an ERP Software company. The case ‘SAPiens’ includes the design, implementation and evaluation of an IT-supported ideas competition within the SAP University Competence Center (UCC) User Group. This group consists of approximately 60,000 people (lecturers and students) using SAP Software for educational purposes. The current challenges are twofold: on the one hand, there is not much activity yet in this community. On the other, SAP has not attempted to systematically address this highly educated group for idea generation or innovation development so far. Therefore, the objective of this research is to develop a framework for a community-based innovation development that generates innovations, process and product ideas in general and for SAP Research, in particular, combining the concepts of idea competitions and virtual communities. Furthermore, the concept aims at providing an interface to SAP Human Resources processes in order to identify the most promising students in this virtual community. This paper is the first to present an integrated concept for IT-supported idea competitions in virtual communities for leveraging the potential of crowds that is evaluated in a real-world setting.
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    Scopus© Citations 314
  • Publication
    Leveraging Crowdsourcing: Activation-Supporting Components for IT-Based Ideas Competition
    (Sharpe, 2009-06-01) ;
    Huber, Michael
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    Bretschneider, Ulrich
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    Ideas competitions appear to be a promising tool for crowdsourcing and open innovation processes, especially for business-to-business software companies. Active participation of potential lead users is the key to success. Yet a look at existing ideas competitions in the software field leads to the conclusion that many information technology (IT)-based ideas competitions fail to meet requirements upon which active participation is established. The paper describes how activation-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in an IT-based ideas competition for enterprise resource planning software. We proceeded to evaluate the outcomes of these design measures and found that participation can be supported using a two-step model. The components of the model support incentives and motives of users. Incentives and motives of the users then support the process of activation and consequently participation throughout the ideas competition. This contributes to the successful implementation and maintenance of the ideas competition, thereby providing support for the development of promising innovative ideas. The paper concludes with a discussion of further activation-supporting components yet to be implemented and points to rich possibilities for future research in these areas.
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    Scopus© Citations 612
  • Publication
    Do virtual communities matter for the social support of patients? Antecedents and effects of virtual relationships in online communities
    (Emerald, 2008-06-01) ;
    Schweizer, Karin
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    Leimeister, Stefanie
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore whether online communities meet their potential of providing environments in which social relationships can be readily established to help patients cope with their disease through social support. The paper aims to develop and test a model to examine antecedents of the formation of virtual relationships of cancer patients within virtual communities (VCs) as well as their effects in the form of social assistance. Design/methodology/research - Data were collected from members of virtual patient communities in the German-speaking internet through an online survey to which 301 cancer patients responded. The data were analyzed with partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling. Findings - Virtual relationships for patients are established in VCs and play an important role in meeting patients' social needs. Important determinants for the formation of virtual relationships within virtual communities for patients are general internet usage intensity (active posting vs lurking) and the perceived disadvantages of CMC. The paper also found that virtual relationships have a strong effect on virtual support of patients; more than 61 per cent of the variance of perceived social assistance of cancer patients was explained by cancer-related VCs. Emotional support and information exchange delivered through these virtual relationships may help patients to better cope with their illness. Research limitations/implications - In contrast to prior research, known determinants for the formation of virtual relationships (i.e. marital status, educational status, gender, and disease-related factors such as the type of cancer as control variables, as well as general internet usage motives, and perceived advantages of CMC as direct determinants) played a weak role in this study of German cancer patients. Studies on other patient populations (i.e. patients with other acute illnesses in other cultures) are needed to see if results remain consistent. Practical implications - Participants and administrators of patient VCs have different design criteria for the improvement of VCs for patients (e.g. concerning community management, personal behaviour and the usage of information in online communities). Once the social mechanisms taking place in online communities are better understood, the systematic redesign of online communities according to the needs of their users should be given priority. Originality/value - Little research has been conducted examining the role of VCs for social relationships and social networks in general and for patients in particular. Antecedents and effects of virtual social relationships of patients have not been sufficiently theoretically or empirically researched to be better understood. This research combines various determinants and effects of virtual relationships from prior related research. These are integrated into a conceptual model and applied empirically to a new target group, i.e. VCs for patients.
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    Scopus© Citations 87
  • Publication
    Community Engineering - Systematischer Aufbau und Betrieb Virtueller Communities im Gesundheitswesen
    (Vieweg, 2006-12) ;
    Krcmar, Helmut
    Virtual communities offer anytime/anyplace access to information and multi-directional exchange with peers in similar situations. They can be beneficial for members and operators. VCs seem especially useful for chronically ill patients since they have strong information and interaction needs. Astonishingly few VCs can be found throughout the German healthcare system and literature neglects that VC could be created and operated systematically. This article presents an approach to community engineering that is grounded in literature on VCs and innovation research. It is the basis for piloting a VC for cancer patients in Germany. This approach and its underlying design elements and success factors are evaluated longitudinally considering user acceptance, perceived usefulness and emerging virtual social networks. The results show that successful community engineering is possible and the presented approach offers support for the systematic design, implementation and operation of virtual communities in general and in healthcare in particular.
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    Scopus© Citations 18
  • Publication
    Exploring success factors of virtual communities: The perspectives of members and operators
    (Ablex Publ., 2006-06-01) ;
    Sidiras, Pascal
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    Virtual communities have been the focus of research for some time. However, although many studies have provided recommendations on how to build, extend, and manage virtual communities, few have verified the success factors they have considered essential for virtual communities. Conclusions made regarding basic preferences and distinct priorities of different stakeholders in virtual communities have not been empirically substantiated. Building on previous work on success factors of virtual communities, in this article, we present a ranking of success factors discussed in the literature based on an online survey among operators and members of virtual communities in the German speaking Internet. Consequently, we identified and analyzed incongruencies between members and operators. This research gains first empirically validated insights into success factors for establishing and managing virtual communities. We derived recommendations for operators of virtual communities on the basis of the findings, and we present an agenda for future research in the field.
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  • Publication
    Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Trust-Supporting Components in Virtual Communities for Patients
    (Sharpe, 2005-06-01) ;
    Ebner, Winfried
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    Krcmar, Helmut
    Trust provides the foundation for the successful implementation and operation of a virtual community (VC). Trust is an especially relevant success factor in online health-care communities. A look at existing communities leads to the conclusion that many VCs fail to meet requirements upon which trust is established. Based on the findings in the literature and the researchers' experience, this paper describes how trust-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in a VC for cancer patients. Consequently, the outcomes of these design measures are evaluated. The evaluation results show that supporting trust can be achieved following a two-step model. The presented components support the perceived competence and perceived goodwill of the operators and the other members. Perceived goodwill and competence then support the process of creating and sustaining trust between members as well as between members and the operators of the VC and contribute to the successful implementation and maintenance of the community. The paper concludes with a discussion on further trust-supporting components yet to be implemented and gives recommendations for further research in this area.
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    Scopus© Citations 188
  • Publication
    Evaluation of a systematic design for a virtual patient community
    (International Communication Association, 2005-07-01) ;
    Krcmar, Helmut
    Virtual Communities (VCs) offer ubiquitous access to information and exchange possibilities for people in similar situations, which is especially valuable for patients with chronic / life-threatening diseases. However, it is seldom considered possible to create VCs systematically. This article describes the evaluation of the design elements and factors that contributed to the success of the VC krebsgemeinschaft.de (a VC for cancer patients in the German-speaking internet), by assessing user acceptance and usage. Additionally, the existence of trust (a constituent element of working VCs) in krebsgemeinschaft.de is addressed. Based on these criteria, we empirically verify the chosen design components and generate insights into the systematic development and operation of VCs in general and VCs for patients in the German healthcare system in particular.
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    Scopus© Citations 44