Beyond Closing the Deal : How Seekers and Platform Owners Adjust and Learn From Each Other in the Crowdsourcing Challenge

Abstract: Staging a crowdsourcing challenge includes opening up your organization to the outside. When doing so, some organizations choose to collaborate with an existing platform owner. This may establish new relationships and opportunities for learning. This research aims to investigate the set of learnings and adjustments that occur between the seekers and platform owners in the challenge process. To do this, a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured interviews, with five seekers, two platform owners, and two specialists in the field, was conducted. Our findings indicate various learnings and adjustments for seekers and platform owners. Seekers learn and adjust by defining the challenge properly, becoming more independent in running challenges, changing their internal culture, and accepting new intellectual property insights. Platform owners learn and adjust by listening carefully to understand the seekers’ goals and by implementing transparency in their way of working. We conclude that through implementing these learnings and adjustments, seekers and platform owners collaboratively gain more confidence and become better at running challenges.