Implementation of Crowdsourcing Into Firm's Innovation Strategies: The Case of B2B Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is a Web-based model of innovation and collaboration that provides businesses with the opportunity to receive more inflow from the firms' internal and external environment compared to traditional "closed" innovative and collaborative practices. Crowdsourcing gives firms multiple advantages, notably work force scalability, diversity of crowd workers, a variety of novel ideas, and rapid solutions. Moreover, crowdsourcing can result in impressive cost savings for businesses using this model. Firms also benefit from the additional publicity involved. In addition, because crowdsourcing provides firms with access to future customers, they can make more accurate market predictions and adjust their strategies to crowd expectations. Because the existing literature on crowdsourcing was sparse with respect to empirical evidence of the impact of crowdsourcing on firms' business and innovation strategies, the general objective of this study was to assess the impact of implementing crowdsourcing into the business and innovation strategies of a company. The literature review revealed also that crowdsourcing is used mostly by firms representing B2C industries. Therefore, this research was particularly aimed to study the implementation of crowdsourcing in a firm representing a B2B industry, such as railway manufacturing. The intention was to examine whether or not crowdsourcing can change a firm's innovation culture, to identify obstacles to crowdsourcing implementation, and to understand the limitations of the crowdsourcing model in B2B setting. Based on the research goals and the extent of the current knowledge on crowdsourcing, a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive case study was deemed an appropriate research strategy.