Determinants of success in crowdsourcing software development

With the advent of digitization, recent years have witnessed a surge toward collective undertaking of production process different from traditional ways of organizing. In this vein, crowdsourcing has lent itself into a successful emerging mode of organizing and firms are increasingly using it in their value creation activities. However, despite popularity in practice, crowdsourcing has received little attention from IS scholars. Specifically, what the determinants of success in this model are remains an unexplored area of research that we strive to address in this paper. We focus on software development via crowdsourcing and drawing on studies from IS success, OSS and software development, we build a model of success that has three determinants: the characteristics of the project, the composition of the crowd and the relationship among key players. Finally, we describe our research methodology and conclude with potential contributions of our work.

[1]  Mark Wexler Reconfiguring the sociology of the crowd: exploring crowdsourcing , 2011 .

[2]  Ephraim R. McLean,et al.  Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable , 1992, Inf. Syst. Res..

[3]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  The Identity Crisis Within the IS Discipline: Defining and Communicating the Discipline's Core Properties , 2003, MIS Q..

[4]  Niels Bjørn-Andersen,et al.  Offshore middlemen: transnational intermediation in technology sourcing , 2008, J. Inf. Technol..

[5]  Katherine J. Stewart,et al.  The Impact of Ideology on Effectiveness in Open Source Software Development Teams , 2006, MIS Q..

[6]  Kaija Saranto,et al.  Definition, structure, content, use and impacts of electronic health records: A review of the research literature , 2008, Int. J. Medical Informatics.

[7]  Jen-Her Wu,et al.  An organizational memory information systems success model: an extension of DeLone and McLean's I/S success model , 1998, Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[8]  Leslie P. Willcocks,et al.  The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring , 2009 .

[9]  Lydia B. Chilton,et al.  The labor economics of paid crowdsourcing , 2010, EC '10.

[10]  Anandasivam Gopal,et al.  The Role of Contracts on Quality and Returns to Quality in Offshore Software Development Outsourcing , 2010, Decis. Sci..

[11]  Christopher L. Tucci,et al.  Crowdsourcing As a Solution to Distant Search , 2012 .

[12]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  Toward A Theory of Knowledge Reuse : Types of Knowledge Reuse Situations and Factors in Reuse Success , 2022 .

[13]  Ilan Oshri,et al.  Social ties, knowledge sharing and successful collaboration in globally distributed system development projects , 2005, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[14]  Jan Henrik Sieg,et al.  Managerial Challenges in Open Innovation: A Study of Innovation Intermediation in the Chemical Industry , 2010 .

[15]  Daren C. Brabham MOVING THE CROWD AT THREADLESS , 2010 .

[16]  Jan Marco Leimeister,et al.  Leveraging Crowdsourcing: Activation-Supporting Components for IT-Based Ideas Competition , 2009, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Maria Laura Parisi,et al.  From planning to mature: On the success of open source projects , 2007 .

[18]  Pär J. Ågerfalk,et al.  Outsourcing to an Unknown Workforce: Exploring Opensourcing as a Global Sourcing Strategy , 2008, MIS Q..

[19]  Samuel Greengard,et al.  Following the crowd , 2011, Commun. ACM.

[20]  N. Sakkab,et al.  Connect and Develop : Inside Procter & Gamble's New Model for Innovation , 2006 .

[21]  Henry C. Lucas,et al.  The information systems identity crisis , 2005 .

[22]  E. Bonabeau Decisions 2.0: the power of collective intelligence , 2009 .

[23]  Barbara Wixom,et al.  An Empirical Investigation of the Factors Affecting Data Warehousing Success , 2001, MIS Q..

[24]  Joseph W. Rottman,et al.  Proven Practices for Effectively Offshoring IT Work , 2006 .

[25]  B. Frey,et al.  Motivation Crowding Theory: A Survey of Empirical Evidence , 2000 .

[26]  Leslie P. Willcocks,et al.  Developing a knowledge-based perspective on coordination: The case of global software projects , 2008, Inf. Manag..

[27]  Steve Muylle,et al.  The role of pleasure in web site success , 2006, Inf. Manag..

[28]  P. Puranam,et al.  Integrating Distributed Work: Comparing Task Design, Communication and Tacit Coordination Mechanisms , 2008 .

[29]  Caroline Haythornthwaite,et al.  Crowds and communities: Light and heavyweight models of peer production , 2009 .

[30]  Mayuram S. Krishnan,et al.  Contracts in Offshore Software Development: An Empirical Analysis , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[31]  Binshan Lin,et al.  Effect of team diversity on software project performance , 2007, Ind. Manag. Data Syst..

[32]  Ilze Zigurs,et al.  A Theory of Task/Technology Fit and Group Support Systems Effectiveness , 1998, MIS Q..

[33]  G. Jouret Inside Cisco's Search for the Next Big Idea , 2009 .

[34]  Kevin Crowston,et al.  Defining Open Source Software Project Success , 2003, ICIS.

[35]  S. Cook THE CONTRIBUTION REVOLUTION : Letting Volunteers Build Your Business , 2008 .

[36]  Peter B. Seddon A Respecification and Extension of the DeLone and McLean Model of IS Success , 1997, Inf. Syst. Res..

[37]  Alon Y. Halevy,et al.  Crowdsourcing systems on the World-Wide Web , 2011, Commun. ACM.

[38]  Serge Proulx,et al.  Paradoxical empowerment of produsers in the context of informational capitalism , 2011, New Rev. Hypermedia Multim..

[39]  Chandrasekar Subramaniam,et al.  Determinants of open source software project success: A longitudinal study , 2009, Decis. Support Syst..

[40]  Christina Soh,et al.  Electronic Marketplaces and Price Transparency: Strategy, Information Technology, and Success , 2006, MIS Q..

[41]  Thomas Y. Choi,et al.  Building deep supplier relationships , 2004 .

[42]  Param Vir Singh,et al.  Network Effects: The Influence of Structural Capital on Open Source Project Success , 2011, MIS Q..

[43]  Fabio Kon,et al.  A Study of the Relationships between Source Code Metrics and Attractiveness in Free Software Projects , 2010, 2010 Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering.

[44]  Theresa A. Pardo,et al.  E-government success factors: Mapping practical tools to theoretical foundations , 2005, Gov. Inf. Q..

[45]  Rajeev Sharma,et al.  The Contingent Effects of Training, Technical Complexity, and Task Interdependence on Successful Information Systems Implementation , 2007, MIS Q..

[46]  Karim R. Lakhani,et al.  TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing , 2010 .