Using Internet-Based Collaboration Technologies for Innovation : Crowdsourcing vs. Expertsourcing

Internet-based collaboration technologies provide organizations new and valuable tools to engage online communities in innovation. We argue that effectively leveraging internet-based collaboration technologies and online communities for product innovation requires careful consideration of a community's composition and the organizational processes and mechanisms for engaging the community in joint development or co-innovation. We focus on community engagements that generate private goods for a host firm and consider two types of communities: crowd-based and expert based. Building on literature on user innovation, open innovation, and demand side value creation, we offer theory and propositions regarding how a firm can structure interactions and manage community engagements to facilitate product innovation. More specifically, we propose that, in the context of product innovation, a firm may enhance value creation from online communities when it: 1) employs expertsourcing vs. crowdsourcing, 2) uses internet-based collaboration technologies to facilitate iterative content development among community members and between community members and the host firm; 3) allows for task or problem evolution during a community engagement; 4) strategically involves community members in content management; and 5) time-bounds the duration of a community's work on a task or problem. Interviews with executives in firms using collaboration technologies for innovation also inform our theory development. By specifying the above, we are able to be clearer than prior work about the conditions for creating value when engaging online communities in co-innovation