Cherry Picking if a Thousand Flowers Bloom:How Organizations Cull the Pool of User Suggestions
Henning Piezunka, Linus Dahlander · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2012
When organizations reach out to their users for ideas, users take on a considerable role in the innovation process. Including users expands the number of participants and potential ideas from which an organization can select. But why are some user suggestions implemented while others are rejected or ignored? We examine how firms winnow crowdsourced ideas by analyzing the selection process at 24,067 organizations that collectively received 602,398 suggestions. Although organizations rely on the aggregated preferences of users when selecting, the effect pales in comparison to how much debate suggestions receive. In addition, we find that despite organizations’ opportunity to accept contributions from a diverse pool of people, they relatively quickly fall into the pattern of listening to only a few, a pattern that is further aggravated when crowding increases. These findings have vast implications for the work on user-based innovation through emphasizing the elements of the search and decision making that impact how organizations select among a broad array of alternatives.