Crowdsourcing without profit: The role of seeker motivation and strategies
Krithika Randhawa, Ralf Wilden, Joel West · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2017
While crowdsourcing is an important form of open innovation (OI), research has largely been limited to profit-seeking firms. Here we study how crowdsourcing is implemented by non-profit seeking organizations, and how it is different from the more familiar corporate context .Using data from local governments that use the same intermediary, we study how the variation of seeker motivation and strategies influences their online engagement behaviour, thereby making their crowdsourcing efforts more or less likely to succeed. Our findings suggest government agencies that adopt a strategic approach to crowdsourcing show a greater potential to produce successful outcomes, which in turn is underpinned by an overarching motivation to achieve transformative change. Based on this, we develop a three-phase model of crowdsourcing implementation. We also reveal how the non- pecuniary orientation of both seekers and solvers makes the motives, goals and processes of such crowdsourcing fundamentally different to corporate crowdsourcing. Our findings indicate that the local pool of solvers more closely resemble a cooperative community than the competitive crowds typically found in for-profit crowdsourcing. We offer broader implications of our insights for OI efforts of non-profit and corporate organizations alike.