The impact of crowdsourcing on the evolution of knowledge management: Insights from a case study

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1552
• Published date: 01 October 2017
• Author: Sylvia Dimitrova,Enrico Scarso
• Date: 01 October 2017

CASE STUDY

The impact of crowdsourcing on the evolution of knowledge

management: Insights from a case study

Sylvia Dimitrova |Enrico Scarso

DTG, Università degli Studi di Padova, Vicenza,

Italy

Correspondence

Enrico Scarso, DTG, Università degli Studi di

Padova, Stradella San Nicola, 3, Vicenza

36100, Italy.

Email: enrico.scarso@unipd.it

Knowledge management (KM) is changing its nature. This is driven by the necessity to overcome

the limitations of conventional approaches but especially by the opportunities offered by the

Web 2.0 technologies. Thus, both scholars and practitioners need to understand how the new

technologies affect such changes. In light of this, this study aims to analyse the impact of

crowdsourcing on the evolution of KM. It investigates the specifics of the use of crowdsourcing

as an emerging KM facilitator based on an analysis of the existing literature and on the findings of

an empirical study on 3 internal and external crowdsourcing initiatives in a firm representing a

B2B industry. The results of the study suggest that crowdsourcing (a) is moving the attention

of KM toward the organizations' external environment as a significant knowledge source; (b) is

shifting the focus of KM, originally directed towards the knowledge transfer process to knowl-

edge creation/acquisition activities; and (c) is favouring the further development of the conversa-

tional KM approach, where knowledge is generated and shared by people through dialog, for

instance by means of questions and answers.

1|INTRODUCTION

Among scholars, the opinion is rapidly diffusing that knowledge

management (KM) is evolving from a “traditional”(i.e., monolithic,

hierarchical, centralized, and strictly controlled) approach towards

new systems and methods that rely on collective intelligence, open

collaboration, and improved communication (Borjigen, 2015;

Razmerita, Phillips‐Wren, & Jain, 2016). Such transformation is driven,

on the one side, by the necessity to overcome the limitations and

bottlenecks of the conventional KM approach, particularly the difficult

management of tacit knowledge (Panahi, Watson, & Partridge, 2013),

and on the other side, by the opportunities offered by the emerging

Web 2.0‐based tools and practices (Levy, 2009; von Krogh, 2012). In

particular, the advantages provided by the latter ones are promoting

the “renaissance”of KM that some scholars considered died or dying

(Levy, 2013; O'Leary, 2016a).

The relevant changes taking place require that both scholars and

practitioners identify and understand the implications of the new

Web 2.0 technologies on the evolution of KM. Specifically, scholars

need to find and fill the gaps between the existing conceptual models

and the emerging KM approaches (Razmerita et al., 2016; Schmitt,

2015; von Krogh, 2012), while practitioners are expected to effectively

implement and successfully exploit the new practices in order to

achieve better management of knowledge. This study intends to

contribute to the above‐mentioned issues by investigating the

potential impact of crowdsourcing on the future direction of KM.

Particularly, it examines the specifics of using crowdsourcing as a KM

facilitator based on the findings of an empirical investigation of three

internal and external crowdsourcing initiatives. The examined cases

concern the use of crowdsourcing in a B2B industry, a topic that has

been vastly overlooked by previous literature, which has focused so

far mostly on studying crowdsourcing in B2C setting (Edgeman et al.,

2015).

The overall paper is structured as follows. The next section tackles

the subject of the evolution of KM, devoting a particular attention on

the distinctive characteristics of the ongoing changes. The third

section introduces the notion of crowdsourcing as a knowledge

acquisition practice and describes its different types and potential

benefits. The fourth section presents the aim of the research and

illustrates the research methodology. In the fifth section, the findings

of the empirical analysis are presented and discussed. In the last

section, the conclusions of the study are summarized, followed by a

discussion of the research and managerial implications and the limits

of the study.

2|THE EVOLUTION OF KM

KM, as a set of concepts and related professional practices, took its

first steps at the beginning of the 90s, as testified by the fact that

Received: 29 November 2016 Accepted: 27 July 2017

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1552

Knowl Process Manag. 2017;24:287–295. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm 287