Dr. Daniel Schlagwein

Date/Time: 13.07.2017, 16:00

Location: D2.2.094

Abstract

Recent theories of “crowdsourcing” have advanced our understanding of some of the causal mechanisms underlying this IT-enabled “open” phenomenon once it is in place. However, much less is known about the process of how IT-enabled crowdsourcing actually emerges at organisations over time. In this study, we develop a process theory of the development of crowdsourcing at organisations. The analysis is based on an in-depth longitudinal field study of how crowdsourcing emerged at LEGO over the years 2000-2016. In this period, LEGO changed their crowdsourcing model repeatedly and substantially. The lenses of organisational learning and IT affordances informed our theorising about our analysis. We come to claim that 1) the involvement of non-members in crowdsourcing can be used to enhance organisational learning (learning with crowdsourcing), 2) the organisation needs to learn about crowdsourcing through recognising emerging IT affordance to strategically develop their crowdsourcing capabilities over time (learning about crowdsourcing). According to our analysis, there is limited value in conceptualising and canonising a generalised strategy or model of crowdsourcing. Instead, organisations need to develop “their” crowdsourcing model. Crowdsourcing needs to be iterated and enacted differently over time as it is both historically path-dependent (due to prior experience and learning) and sensitive to emerging IT affordances relative to the organisation. The paper discusses implications of the analysis for prior theories of crowdsourcing and organisational learning.

Bio

Dr. Daniel Schlagwein is a Senior Lecturer of Information Systems at the UNSW Business School in Sydney. His research is focused on IT-enabled openness, crowdsourcing and digital work. Prior to entering academia, he was a consultant in the ICT industry. Daniel has authored over 30 peer-reviewed papers, and has published in leading academic journals such as the Information Systems Journal, the Journal of Information Technology, the Journal of the Association for Information Systems and The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. His research has been featured in, for example, Sky News, The Sydney Morning Herald, McKinsey Quarterly, Associated Press, BusinessThink and Pulse. Daniel has established the annual track on "Openness and IT" at the European Conference on Information Systems and has edited two special issues in his research domain (Electronic Markets in 2015, Journal of Information Technology in 2017). Daniel received the UNSW Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014. In the same year, the UNSW Business School students granted Daniel their "Student Choice Award". He was a Visiting Professor at the Copenhagen Business School and New York University's Leonard H. Stern School of Business in 2015. Daniel was awarded the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Early Career Award in 2016. In the AIS Research Ranking 2016, for publications in the discipline’s leading journals 2014–16, Daniel is ranked among the 100 most productive researchers. Daniel has been appointed as an Associate Editor of the Information Systems Journal in 2016. He is a Member of the Academic Board of UNSW Sydney (2017-18). Daniel has established and teaches the Information Systems part of the Indigenous Pre-Business Summer School.