Internal Crowdsourcing in Companies

The research landscape in the area of forecasting and assessing working conditions has become increasingly difficult to understand. There are plenty of identified reasons, drivers and catchwords to describe a systemic transformation. Individual- and subject-specific approaches to describe and understand the changes to work are being developed in almost every scientific discipline, as well as by (economic) associations and actors in the sociopolitical spheres. Despite all complexity and contradictions, ‘digitalization’ seems to be one focal point when it comes to identifying independent variables to explain the ‘future of work’. The corresponding discussions, analyses, recommendations and scenarios can be found under the well-known headings ‘Work 4.0’, ‘Industry 4.0’, ‘Education 4.0’, ‘Society 4.0’, etc. In addition to systemic descriptions, oftentimes dominated by economics and business management approaches, there are changing individual, subject-inherent perceptual understandings indicating a change in social values with regard to work and its function. Ultimately, for the majority of the population and the (welfare) state, work remains the necessary prerequisite for financially securing their livelihoods.

This chapter aims to provide the reader with an introduction to crowdsourcing in general and internal crowdsourcing in particular. First, the elementary principles of crowdsourcing will be introduced, completed by a definition that will constitute the basis for this book. Second, different crowdsourcing typologies will be described to inform the reader about classifications of the phenomenon in scientific literature. Third, the crowdsourcing process is outlined to clarify the general procedure of this new kind of work organization. Lastly, the concept will be transferred to the intraorganizational context, describing and defining the concept of internal crowdsourcing which represents the main topic of this book.

The phenomenon of crowdsourcing is increasingly being addressed in academic literature. Companies utilize crowdsourcing to search for solutions to internal problems outside of the companies’ boundaries, accessing the vast and diverse knowledge and creativity of people all over the world. More recently, a growing interest has emerged that concentrates on the intra-organizational application of this phenomenon—internal crowdsourcing. While conventional internal innovation activities are mostly concentrated within a few dedicated departments, this new approach helps companies to open up their innovation process to all employees. Internal crowdsourcing can help companies bridge geographical distances, integrate new employees, predict the market success of products, and create ideas for new businesses.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing empirical findings regarding the management of internal crowdsourcing. In this review, 27 papers, covering more than 100 companies, are analysed. They are based on more than 800 interviews, participant observations, action design research, surveys, and datasets of internal innovation contests. The results of this review will help practitioners to design the management of internal crowdsourcing based on existing implementations and lessons learned, helping them to unleash the full innovation potential of their employees, creating a valuable competitive advantage.

The successful implementation of internal crowdsourcing (IC) in a company requires a precise description and definition of the personnel responsibilities for the various process levels and process components within each process phase of IC. As part of the research project ‘ICU—Internal Crowdsourcing in Companies’, we have developed a new role model for internal crowdsourcing based on a practical application of IC in the company GASAG AG, an energy provider located in Berlin, Germany. The aim of this article is to present the main features of this role model (Some aspects of this article will also be published in German. Please be referred to Daum, M., Wedel, M., Zinke-Wehlmann, C., Ulbrich, H. (ed.) (2020): Gestaltung vernetzt-flexibler Arbeit. Beiträge aus Theorie und Praxis für die digitale Arbeitswelt. Berlin: Springer Vieweg). It is based on the roles of the agile model of Scrum, because partial aspects of the internal crowdsourcing process and certain process steering tasks have similarities with the procedure and task descriptions of Scrum. Scrum, as a mature and practice-proven set of rules with role descriptions, rules, events and artefacts, provides helpful implications for the design of an internal crowdsourcing role model as we will prove in further detail.

Crowdsourcing has become one of the main resources for working on so-called microtasks that require human intelligence to solve tasks that computers cannot yet solve and to connect to external knowledge and expertise. Instead of using external crowds, several organizations have increasingly been using their employees as a crowd, with the aim of exploiting employee’s potentials, mobilizing unused technical and personal experience and including personal skills for innovation or product enhancement. However, understanding the dynamics of this new way of digital co-working from the technical point of view plays a vital role in the success of internal crowdsourcing, and, to our knowledge, no study has yet empirically investigated the relationship between the technical features and participation in internal crowdsourcing. Therefore, this chapter aims to provide a guideline for organizations and employers from the perspective of the technical design of internal crowdsourcing, specifically regarding issues of data protection privacy and security concerns as well as task type, design, duration and participation time based on the empirical findings of an internal crowdsourcing platform.

The “FST” personnel network “Forum Soziale Technikgestaltung” (Forum for Social Forms of Technology) from the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) of Baden-Württemberg has been examining the subjects informatization of work and digitization since 1991. More than 4600 women and men from works councils and staff councils, union representative bodies and the workforce, large companies, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the manual trades, as well as self-employed people have been involved in an exchange about their experiences in production and services and in administrations. Against this background, and drawing on the accumulated knowledge gained from experience, the following proposals for the future of internal crowdsourcing have been derived. The proposals represent a trade union-based approach.

Developing innovative and marketable products and services and maintaining innovation capacity are basic prerequisites for a company’s economic success and present implicit challenges in the adaptation to twenty-first-century needs. These success factors are put at risk by silo mentalities and by insufficiently pronounced cross-departmental knowledge transfers. The GASAG Group as a typical organizational layout of medium-sized enterprises in Germany has been and still is confronted with these challenges as well. In order to face them, the GASAG Group decided to work on company culture as well as to develop an open and innovative mindset, prompting it to join the ICU (ICU stands for ‘Internal Crowdsourcing in Enterprises’ and is a joint project funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) for a period of 3 years, from June 2017 to May 2020, under the funding measure ‘Work in the Digitalised World’ and supervised by the project management organization Karlsruhe. The project goal was the development of an employee-friendly cross-industry reference model for Internal Crowdsourcing.). Research Project in 2017. The aim of this chapter is to describe the ICU approach from the practical, company perspective of the GASAG Group and to map out identified success factors as well as provide general recommendations for the implementation of Internal Crowdsourcing in a business environment.

Shortly after the formal launch of the ICU project in the summer of 2017, representatives from the group works council of the GASAG group sat down with the trade union network Forum for the Social Forms of Technology, the FST, to start up an independent practical initiative to examine the topic of internal crowdsourcing to be implemented soon after. In 2018, a model works council agreement between the group works council and the management was agreed, henceforth framing the IC procedure in the GASAG group. The agreement is meant to serve as a template for the introduction of internal crowdsourcing in other companies and industries. A special feature of the agreement is the so-called ‘living’ group works council agreement. The following article analyses its significance and provides a translation by reproducing the agreement in its wording (This text is based on an original version in the German language that was published under the provisions of the Creative Commons at the URL: www.​blog-zukunft-der-arbeit.​de/​betriebsraete-setzen-starken-innovationsimpul​s-fuer-digitalen-aufbruch or www.​blog-zukunft-der-arbeit.​de.).

This article deals with the question of how internal crowdsourcing can be used as a tool to support employee qualification measures and help develop their competencies in organizations. The first chapter examines the current state of the competence research. A paradigm shift from ‘qualification and professional development’ towards ‘competencies’ and the implications for the concept are described. Chapter “An Introduction to Internal Crowdsourcing” deals with the analyses and work on the subject of competence acquisition and development, including considering the results of two interview series and two workshops. In chapter “Managing the Crowd: A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Internal Crowdsourcing”, the authors present a combined and practical approach to support competence development through internal crowdsourcing in organizations. Finally, the last chapter sums up main results and perspectives for competence development through a combination of virtual and face-to-face working processes.

The concept of IC puts the employee, in its potential role as crowdsource, Campaign Owner or initiator into focus. This reflects the emancipatory and participatory principle that goes hand in hand with the concept of Social Business. The basic idea of Social Business is not to link the business success of a company exclusively to its management capabilities or the business plan, but to understand and value the individual stakeholder as part of a successful enterprise network. For Social Business, value is not exclusively understood as business value; rather, the perspective is expanded to include social added value, in the sense that the value of the work for the employee, society or the environment is considered as an indirect corporate goal. Thus, Social Business is defined as a framework or strategy that uses digital social networks (enterprise social networks) with the primary goal of generating social, ecological and economic benefits. This article introduces the Social Business reference model, which supports the adoption and implementation of the outlined strategy and contrasts it to the ICU Model in order to identify the strengths as well as weaknesses of both models.