A Geography of Participation in IT-Mediated Crowds
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A Geography of Participation in IT-Mediated Crowds John Prpić Prashant Shukla Yannig Roth Beedie School of Business, Beedie School of Business, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University Sorbonne (PRISM) [email protected] Rotman School of Management, [email protected] University of Toronto [email protected] Jean-François Lemoine ESSCA Ecole de Management Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne (PRISM) [email protected] Abstract the global distribution of crowd participants at crowdsourcing platforms like eYeka, TopCoder, and In this work we seek to understand how differences Tongal, research has yet to emerge that empirically in location effect participation outcomes in IT- investigates the role of crowd member geography on mediated crowds. To do so, we operationalize Crowd crowdsourcing participation. Capital Theory with data from a popular international creative crowdsourcing site, to determine whether To achieve these aims we bound our investigation regional differences exist in crowdsourcing using Crowd Capital Theory (CCT) as our theoretical participation outcomes. We present the results of our framework, which draws upon the knowledge-based investigation from data encompassing 1,858,202 view of organizations to explain how and why IT- observations from 28,214 crowd members on 94 mediated crowds can generate value for organizations different projects in 2012. Using probit regressions to [6]. In this study, we operationalize CCT with data isolate geographic effects by continental region, we provided to us by a leading global crowdsourcing find significant variation across regions in platform which hosts crowdsourcing contests on crowdsourcing participation. In doing so, we behalf of major corporations. These contests are contribute to the literature by illustrating that visible to anyone with internet access, and geography matters in respect to crowd participation. participation is free and open to all internet users. Further, our work illustrates an initial validation of Therefore, the empirical context is very well-suited Crowd Capital Theory as a useful theoretical model for our inquiry into the geography of Crowd Capital to guide empirical inquiry in the fast-growing domain participation. of IT-mediated crowds. In the ensuing sections of this work we undertake this research design by first reviewing the crowdsourcing 1. Introduction literature to establish the empirical context. Then, we introduce Crowd Capital Theory (CCT), establishing Crowdsourcing, a term popularized by Wired the theoretical motivation for our investigation, magazine contributor Jeff Howe [1, 2], involves bounding our hypothesis, and structuring our data organizations using IT to engage crowds of operationalizations. From here we introduce our individuals for the purposes of completing tasks, research methods, detailing the data collection and solving problems, or generating ideas. In the last data analysis undertaken, before establishing our decade, many organizations have turned to findings. We then discuss the ramifications of our crowdsourcing to engage with consumers, accelerate findings for both the research and practitioner their innovation cycles, and to find new ideas for communities, before concluding with a set of new their brands [3, 4, 5]. As crowdsourcing has become research questions emanating directly from our work. an increasingly common method for organizations to gather IT-mediated input from individuals, the 2. Crowdsourcing importance of understanding the nature of crowds has similarly increased. While many sing the praises of Crowdsourcing is an IT-mediated problem solving, Another method by which to initiate crowdsourcing idea-generation, and production model that leverages is to externalize the entire process to an intermediary distributed intelligence [7]. Problem-solving, idea- whose job it is to organize crowdsourcing, often in generation and production can be “crowd-sourced” the form of a contest, on behalf of companies [12, by different means [8] such as micro-tasking (asking 13]. These intermediaries are specific in that they individuals to execute short tasks online for pay at leverage a private community of contributors who virtual labor markets), open collaboration (asking participate in contests sponsored by client individuals to volunteer contributions online) or organizations [9, 14]. When applied to innovation, through tournament-based competitions (where these intermediaries are usually called individuals submit contributions with the hope of “innomediaries” [11] or idea marketplaces [15]. winning a prize). The latter approach is increasingly These intermediaries count on self-selected crowd used in the fields of innovation and marketing, as contributions for the supply and/or selection of ideas companies are posting their challenges through and designs [5, 9]. broadcast search on crowdsourcing platforms like eYeka, InnoCentive, Kaggle, Tongal or Topcoder, to 3. Crowd Capital Theory access the crowds of motivated and skilled participants that have coalesced at these web properties. Given the broad range of crowdsourcing applications that we have seen in our review and the fact that organizations can undertake these processes in-house 2.1 Crowdsourcing in Use or through intermediaries, the only theoretical model that we are aware of that generalizes the processes Even though crowdsourcing is a very recent and dynamics of all of these specific instantiations is phenomenon, the process has been used in a variety Crowd Capital Theory (CCT). Therefore, we employ of contexts. Companies can launch crowdsourcing CCT ([6, 16], see Figure 1 below), and introduce it in initiatives on their own branded platforms, like Dell detail to structure our empirical investigation. did with IdeaStorm, or they can commission crowdsourcing intermediaries to host contests on their web properties for a fee [4]. 3.1 Crowd Capital Theory Overview One way to engage in crowdsourcing initiatives for a Crowd Capital is an organizational-level company is to start with a private online platform. In heterogeneous resource generated from IT-mediated order to benefit from the creativity of the crowd, crowds. From the perspective of the organization, an companies create branded platforms, such as Dell’s IT-mediated crowd can exist inside of an IdeaStorm, Starbucks’ myStarbucksIdea, or Nokia’s organization, exist external to the organization, or a IdeasProject, where individuals can contribute ideas combination of the latter and the former. and suggestions, allowing the organization to benefit from the scale and diversity of the crowd to gather innovative and consumer-rooted ideas [4, 9, 10,11]. Figure 1 –Crowd Capital Theory Crowd Capital resource generation is always an IT- the internal procedures that the organization will use to mediated phenomenon, and is actuated through an organize, filter, and integrate the incoming crowd- organization’s Crowd Capability - an organizational- derived content contributions. The Structure level capability encompassing the three dimensions of; component of Crowd Capability indicates the Content, IT Structure, and internal organizational technological means employed by an organization to Processes. engage a crowd, and crucially, IT structure can be found to exist in either Episodic or Collaborative form, The Content dimension of Crowd Capability defines depending on the interface of the IT used to engage a the form of the content sought from a crowd (e.g. crowd. knowledge, information, data, money); the Structure component of Crowd Capability defines the With Episodic IT Structures, the members of the technological means employed by an organization to crowd never interact with each other individually engage a crowd; and the Process dimension of Crowd through the IT. A prime example of this type of IT Capability refers to the internal procedures that the Structure is Google’s reCAPTCHA [22], where organization will use to organize, filter, and integrate Google accumulates significant knowledge resources the incoming crowd-derived contributions. from a crowd of millions, though it does so, without any need for the crowd members to interact directly 3.2 Dispersed Knowledge with one another through the IT. Dispersed knowledge is the antecedent construct of On the other hand, Collaborative IT Structures require CCT. The existence of dispersed knowledge has been that crowd members interact with one another through the subject of inquiry in economics for many years, the IT, for resources to be generated. Therefore, in and central to our understanding of dispersed Collaborative IT Structures, social capital must exist knowledge is the contribution of F.A. Hayek, who in (or be created) through the IT for resources to be 1945 wrote a seminal work titled ‘The Use of generated. A prime example of this type of IT Knowledge in Society’. In this work, for which Hayek structure is Wikipedia, where the crowd members was eventually awarded the Nobel prize, Hayek build directly upon each other’s contributions through describes dispersed knowledge as “…the knowledge time. of the circumstances…never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of 3.4 Crowd Capital incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess” [17]. Crowd Capital is an organizational-level heterogeneous resource generated from IT-mediated Therefore, dispersed knowledge in CCT describes why crowds. We label this newly emergent organizational crowds are