Crowdsourcing in strategic management (RQ2)

The first sub-question (research question 2) is, “How crowdsourcing is utilized in strategic management?” and it is answered and discussed in the publications titled

“Crowdsourcing in Strategic Management” and “Combining Crowdsourcing and Porter’s Value Chain” (Sivula et al. 2014; Sivula and Kantola 2014a). This

sub-chapter discusses the results of these two studies. Strategic management is com-monly divided into strategy formulation and implementation. Several strategic management frameworks exist in the literature which are utilized in the publica-tions. Moreover, detailed frameworks, for instance Porter’s value chain, can be employed to describe an organization’s strategic activities.

Objective

The objective of the studies in strategic management publications was to research crowdsourcing utilization in an organization’s strategic activities. A strategy is formulated and implemented based on a vision or goal of an organization. An organization can have several strategies or just a single one. The research was not focused on organizations’ strategies themselves, but on static and dynamic strate-gic management and crowdsourcing utilization in them. Therefore, the actual structure of strategy was not studied, but rather crowdsourcing utilization in strat-egy formulation and implementation.

Porter’s value chain was highlighted in the second strategic management study.

The research studied how crowdsourcing is employed in Porter’s value chain from the primary and support activities points of view. A value chain includes all of the activities which are relevant to providing a product or service to the cus-tomer. A value chain includes, for instance, the supply chain of a product or ser-vice. Thus, a scientific contribution is provided on crowdsourcing utilization in strategic management within a wide context in this study. These publications pro-vide the first contribution to the GCM for a holistic innovation management mod-el.

Summary of findings

Strategies act as guidelines for an organization’s activities. An organization can have several strategies or just one. The literature provides several models for stra-tegic management which managers of an organization can utilize in strategy for-mulation and implementation (see, for instance, Johnson et al. 2014; Porter 1980;

Porter 1998; Wheelen and Hunger 2012). Managers should have knowledge of several internal and external areas of an organization to produce strategies which are innovative and market-focused. Crowdsourcing can be utilized, for instance, as a knowledge creator when formulating and implementing strategies. Moreover,

crowdsourcing can be a strategic choice of an organization and it can be an inter-nal or exterinter-nal activity.

An organization can utilize crowdsourcing in strategy formulation internally or externally. An organization can send short surveys to employees to find out which thematic areas are important to employees. This can create knowledge of how an organization should proceed in the future. Values can be crowdsourced in an or-ganization. Moreover, employees are commonly more engaged in strategy when they are participating in the strategy formulation process. Crowdsourcing can provide weak signals for an organization which have relevance for an organiza-tion’s strategies. Crowdsourcing can produce knowledge of which innovations have demand in the markets. Strategy implementation can be measured utilizing internal crowdsourcing. This creates knowledge of how well managers have communicated strategy to employees. This knowledge can be important for un-derstanding the managerial performance of an organization. Moreover, external crowdsourcing can be utilized for adjusting the crowd’s point of view on matters relating to an organization.

Porter’s value chain (Porter 1998) is one strategic management model which was part of this research. Porter’s value chain consists of primary and support activi-ties which can employ crowdsourcing. Primary activiactivi-ties can employ crowdsourc-ing in co-operations, quality verification, monitorcrowdsourc-ing, fundcrowdsourc-ing activities, screencrowdsourc-ing of concepts and finding customer clusters. An organization can be in touch with clients’ customers by utilizing crowdsourcing in primary activities. Support activ-ities of an organization can utilize crowdsourcing for the collection of information from end users, testing products and services, testing ideas, collecting ideas, crowdsourcing campaigns, measurement of implementation strategy and funding of innovations. Thus, it can be concluded that crowdsourcing can be a useful part of an organization’s strategic management activities based on the results of the study.

Answer to the research question

The results of the two strategic management studies indicate that crowdsourcing is employed in several ways in strategic management activities. Directors, man-agers and shareholders commonly take strategic decisions in case organizations.

Customers, potential customers and other individuals at the final stage decide what an organization can or cannot do. Therefore, managers should always under-stand the opinions of the crowd when making strategic decisions.

Crowdsourcing can be employed in strategic planning and formulation. An organ-ization’s directors, managers and owners can gain knowledge, for instance, about the values of employees, and scan the weak signals from the markets which may have a major effect on an organization’s strategies. Moreover, crowdsourcing can be utilized in strategy implementation, for instance, to understand whether strate-gy is executed and whether the management of an organization communicates the strategy effectively enough. Thus, it can be concluded that if an organization is utilizing crowdsourcing in its strategic management, an organization’s strategies are likely be more customer-focused.

Crowdsourcing can be either an internal or external activity of an organization.

Crowdsourcing can be implemented in static or dynamic strategic management.

Static strategic management can employ crowdsourcing as a knowledge creator, as the publications indicate. An organization could implement an IT-based crowdsourcing system. An organization could embed the crowd in its strategic management processes. Nevertheless, crowdsourcing can be adapted in multiple strategic management models and other management areas as well. This research combined Porter’s value chain and crowdsourcing.

The case organizations are employing crowdsourcing, but they could utilize it more extensively based on this study. An organization’s management should un-derstand the usefulness of crowdsourcing in its strategic management.

Crowdsourcing is still a relatively new concept for organizations. Thus, they are generally in a phase where crowdsourcing is implemented on a small scale in stra-tegic management. Nevertheless, crowdsourcing can be a really useful model in any size organization, and it can be utilized in several industries.