Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Exploring motivations and the capacity for business crowdsourcing

  • Review
  • Published:
AMS Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

“The crowd is ready to work.” (Howe 2006)

Abstract

The use of crowds to solve business problems, or to take advantage of market opportunities, appears to be increasingly popular. The impact of crowdsourcing across the marketing domain, suggests the importance of examining this phenomenon. Firms use crowds of consumers to perform many of the traditional tasks of marketing, such as choosing designs (e.g., Threadless t-shirts), testing offerings (e.g., Microsoft), creating promotions (e.g., Facebook), and determining pricing (e.g., Travelocity). To more effectively harness the power of crowds and to learn from crowds, firms should understand their capacity for absorbing crowd contributions and the motives underlying the participation of the crowd as well as their own participation. An eclectic review of the literature offers a base for distinguishing crowds using a range of motives from intrinsic to extrinsic. Exploration of these dimensions results in a propositional inventory identifying motivations for both crowdsourcing and crowd participation. These inform practitioners of consequences of crowdsourcing decisions and offer future research directions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Afuah, A., & Tucci, C. L. (2012). Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search. Academy of Management Review, 37(3), 355–375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anders, G. (2012). “Inside Amazon’s idea machine: how Bezos decodes the customer.” Forbes, (April 23), 1. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.jproxy.lib.ecu.edu/docview/993124329?accountid=10639.

  • Bartol, K., & Srivastava, A. (2002). Encouraging knowledge sharing: the role of organizational reward systems. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9(1), 64–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battistella, C., & Noino, F. (2012). Open innovation web-based platforms: the impact of different forms of motivation on collaboration. Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 14(4), 557–575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beavis, S. (2011). “Sony - engaging untapped audience through crowdsourcing.” The Guardian, May 26. Retrieved September 17, 2012 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/sony-untapped-audience-crowdsourcing-project.

  • Belk, R. (2007). Why not share rather than own? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611(May), 126–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belk, R. (2010). Sharing. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(February), 715–734.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bindroo, B., Mariadoss, B. J., & Pillai, R. G. (2012). Customer clusters as sources of innovation-based competitive advantage. Journal of International Marketing, 20(3), 17–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blau, P. M. (1967). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock, G. W., & Kim, Y. (2002). Breaking the myths of rewards: an exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge sharing. Information Resources Management Journal, 15(2), 14–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradshaw, A., & Holbrook, M. B. (2008). Must we have Muzak wherever we go? A critical consideration of the consumer culture. Consumption Markets & Culture, 11(1), 25–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busarovs, A. (2011). Crowdsourcing as user-driven innovation, new business philosophy’s model. Journal of Business Management, 4, 53–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlo, J. L., Lyytinen, K., & Rose, G. M. (2012). A knowledge-based model of radical innovation in small software firms. MIS Quarterly, 36(3), 865–895.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang, Y. Y., Gong, Y., & Peng, M. W. (2012). Expatriate knowledge transfer, subsidiary absorptive capacity, and subsidiary performance. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 927–948.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 128–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Constant, D., Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L. (1994). What's mine is ours, or is it? A study of attitudes about information sharing. Information Systems Research, 5(4), 400–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davenport, T. H. (1996). Some principles of knowledge management. Strategy & Business, 1(2), 34–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davenport, T. H., Eccles, R. G., & Prusak, L. (1992). Information politics. MIT Sloan Management Review, 34(1), 53–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, R. (2012). 8 crowd insights from 8 crowdsourcing workshops. Retrieved May 13, 2012 from http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2012/05/8-crowd-insights-from-8-crowdsourcing-workshops.html (May 7).

  • Day, G. S. (1994). The capabilities of market-driven organizations. Journal of Marketing, 58(October), 37–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Geus, A. P. (1988). “Planning as learning.” Harvard Business Review, 66 (March/April), 70–74.

  • Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Degen, R. J. (2010). “Social network driven innovation. The ISM Journal of International Business, 1(1), 2–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diana, A. (2011). “Oracle integrates crowdsourcing into CRM.” Retrieved from http://www.informationweek.com/software/productivity-applications/oracle-integrates-crowdsourcing-into-crm/229301076.

  • Ellis, P. D. (2007). Distance, dependence and diversity of markets: effects on market orientation. Journal of International Business Studies, 28(3), 374–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Estellés Arolas, E., & González Ladrón-de Guevara, F. (2012). Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science, 38(2), 189–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Felstiner, A. (2011). Working the crowd: employment and labor law in the crowdsourcing industry. Berkley Journal of Employment & Labor Law, 32(1), 143–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, C., Prandelli, E., & Schreier, M. (2010). The psychological effects of empowerment strategies on consumers’ product demand. Journal of Marketing, 74(January), 65–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Füller, J. (2010). Refining virtual co-creation from a consumer perspective. California Management Review, 52(Winter), 98–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Granovetter, M. (2005). The impact of social structure on economic outcomes. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(1), 33–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, M. T. (1999). The search-transfer problem: the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 82–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hempel, J. (2006). “Crowdsourcing,” Bloomberg Business Week, September 26. Retrieved September 17, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-09-24/crowdsourcing.

  • Howe, J. (2006). “The rise of crowdsourcing,” Wired, June 2006. Retrieved January 27, 2012 from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html.

  • Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. New York: Crown Business.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, S. D., & Morgan, R. M. (1995). The comparative advantage theory of competition. Journal of Marketing, 59(April), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, P. (2012). Constituents and outcomes of absortive acapacity – apprpriability regime changing the game. Management Decision, 50(7), 1178–1199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: an issue-contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366–395.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, W. (2008). “Crowdsourcing turns business on its head,” NPR radio broadcast August 22, 2008. Retrieved July 26, 2012 from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId = 93495217.

  • Kelley, H. H., & Thibaut, J. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleeman, F., Voß, G., & Rieder, K. (2008). Un(der)paid innovators: the commercial utilization of consumer work through crowdsourcing. Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies, 4(1), 5–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kohn, A. (1993). Why incentive plans cannot work. Harvard Business Review, 71(5), 54–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, P. J., Salk, J. E., & Lyles, M. A. (2001). Absorptive capacity, learning, and performance in international joint ventures. Strategic Management Journal, 22(12), 1139–1161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lane, P. J., Koka, B. R., & Pathak, S. (2006). The reification of absorptive capacity: a critical review and rejuvenation of the construct. Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 833–863.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levitt, B., & Marsh, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual Review of Sociology, 14, 319–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenthaler, U. (2009). Absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence, and the complementarity of organizational learning processes. Academy of Management Journal, 52(4), 822–846.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Logan, R. K., & McEwan, D. (2010). The emerging of new business culture: a few key issues pertain to open economy and marketing. International Journal of China Marketing, 1(1), 73–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • López-Sáez, P., Navas-López, J. E., Martín-de-Castro, G., & Cruz-González, J. (2010). External knowledge acquisition processes in knowledge-intensive clusters. Journal of Knowledge Management, 14(5), 690–707.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Magnier-Watanabe, R., & Senoo, D. (2009). Congruent knowledge management behaviors as discriminate sources of competitive advantage. Journal of Workplace Learning, 21(2), 109–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matthyssens, P., Pauwels, P., & Vandenbempt, K. (2005). Strategic flexibility, rigidity and barriers to the development of absorptive capacity in business markets: themes and research perspectives. Industrial Marketing Management, 34, 547–554.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCreadie. R. M. C., Macdonald, C., & Ounis, I (2010). “Crowdsourcing a news query classification dataset.” Proceedings of the SIGIR 2010 Workshop on Crowdsourcing for Search Evaluation, July 23.

  • Mitchell, T. R. (1997). Matching motivational strategies with organizational contexts. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 19, pp. 57–149). Greenwich: JAI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moller, A. C., Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2006). Self-determination theory and public policy: improving the quality of consumer decisions without using coercion. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 25(Spring), 104–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, J., & Wang, R. (2010). Tournament of ideas. California Management Review, 52(2), 77–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, D. (2009). “Crowdsourcing.” Revolution, November, 48–49.

  • O’Driscoll, M. P., & Beehr, T. (2000). Moderating effects of perceived control and need for clarity on the relationship between role stressors and employee affection reactions. Journal of Social Psychology, 140(2), 151–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., & Dirks, K. T. (2003). The state of psychological ownership: integrating and extending a century of research. Review of General Psychology, 7(1), 84–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poetz, M. K., & Schreier, M. (2012). The value of crowdsourcing: can users really compete with professionals in generating new product ideas? Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(2), 245–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, C. E., Donthu, N., MacElroy, W. H., & Wydra, D. (2011). How to foster and sustain engagement in virtual communities. California Management Review, 53(4), 80–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • PRNewswire (2012). “Crowdsource your travel: Expedia “last-minute deals” program lets customers share the best deals with one another.” January 19.

  • Pullen, J. P. (2012). “Kickstarter: How crowdsourcing went mainstream.” CNNMoney, June 7, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/07/kickstarter-how-crowdsourcing-went-mainstream/

  • Raykar, V. C., & Yu, S. (2012). Eliminating spammers and ranking annotators for crowdsourced labeling tasks. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 13(2), 491–518.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, N., Galluch, P., Dinger, M., & Grover, V. (2011). Absorptive capacity and information systems research: review, synthesis, and directions for future research. MIS Quarterly, 36(2), 625–648.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawhney, M., & Prandelli, E. (2000). Communities of creation: managing distributed innovation in turbulent markets. California Management Review, 42(4), 24–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawhney, M., Prandelli, E., & Gianmario, V. (2003). The power of innomediation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(Winter), 77–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schultze, U., Prandelli, E., Salonen, P. I., & Van Alstyne, M. (2007). Internet-enabled co-production: partnering or competing with customers? Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 19, 294–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silverman, R. E. (2012). Big firms try crowdsourcing. Wall Street Journal, 259(12), B8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (1995). Market orientation and the learning organization. Journal of Marketing, 59(July), 63–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slowinski, G., Hummel, E., Gupta, A., & Gilmont, E. R. (2009). Effective practices for sourcing innovation. Research Technology Management, 52(1), 27–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stata, R. (1989). Organizational learning—the key to management innovation. Sloan Management Review, 30(Spring), 63–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17(Winter Special Issue), 27–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weigelt, C., & Sarkar, M. B. (2011). Performance implications of outsourcing of technological innovations: managing the efficiency and adaptability trade-off. Strategic Management Journal, 33(2), 189–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wexler, M. N. (2011). Reconfiguring the sociology of the crowd: exploring crowdsourcing. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 31(1/2), 6–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive capacity: a review, reconceptualization, and extension. The Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 185–203.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Greg Marshall for his valuable insights during the manuscript preparation process, and the editor and reviewers for their helpful feedback during the review process.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue - 2722, Winter Park, FL, 32814, USA

    Jule B. Gassenheimer

  2. East Carolina University, RW-246 Rivers Building, Greenville, NC, 27858, USA

    Judy A. Siguaw

  3. Illinois State University, Campus Box 5590, Normal, IL, 61790, USA

    Gary L. Hunter

Authors
  1. Jule B. Gassenheimer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Judy A. Siguaw
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gary L. Hunter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jule B. Gassenheimer.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gassenheimer, J.B., Siguaw, J.A. & Hunter, G.L. Exploring motivations and the capacity for business crowdsourcing. AMS Rev 3, 205–216 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-013-0055-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-013-0055-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation