7th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS) 2012 

Adopting Emergent Knowledge & Technologies to Develop Innovative Information Systems (CloudWisdom)

Track Title: Crowdsourcing for Innovation, Productivity, and Creativity 

Track Chairs:

Isabel Ramos, University of Minho

Lee Erickson, The Pennsylvania State University

Paul M. Di Gangi, Loyola University Maryland

Carl Adams, University of Portsmouth

In today’s fast-paced globally competitive marketplace, organizations are looking for new ways to reduce costs, increase productivity, and bring innovative products to market. To accomplish such tasks, organizations are beginning to leverage the “crowd” both internally and externally as a source  of knowledge, creativity, and expertise. Whether ggregating the collective “wisdom of the crowd” or looking for individual input for problem solving or ideation, many organizations are experimenting with the crowd to complement or even  replace existing innovation resources and processes.  “Crowdsourcing” is the act of leveraging a large group of people to perform tasks commonly performed by designated employees or agents. Information Systems (IS) and Web technologies are key to organizations’ ability to reach out to, interact with, and manage the input of the crowd. Today for-profit corporations, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies are leveraging IS to connect with the crowd for a variety of different purposes. Additionally, completely new business models are emerging that rely on sustained engagement from a vast, unknown user population. Similar to other open innovation models, “crowdsourcing” presents 

several challenges that organizations must overcome in order to achieve success (e..g, absorptive capacity issues, legal implications, knowledge spillover, competitor access, etc.). 

The objective of the “Crowdsourcing for Innovation, Productivity, and Creativity” track is to promote the exchange of knowledge on the roles of IS and technology to facilitate organizational crowdsourcing initiatives. Papers examining the role of IS platforms, social media tools, and IT infrastructures that enable crowdsourcing, organizational uses of the crowd (non-profits, for-profits, associations, governmental, etc.), economic benefits, policy issues, theoretical frameworks and taxonomies are welcome. Theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented contributions from a variety of perspectives are encouraged. 

Topics include, but are not limited to: 

- Platforms, tools, and technologies 

- Design of analytical tools for managing crowd-based initiatives 

- Organizing taxonomies, frameworks, and classifications 

- IS and business strategy alignment 

- Theoretical exploration of the role of collective intelligence, distributed knowledge, and diversity in crowdsourcing - Crowdsourcing for innovation, problem solving, productivity, and creativity 

- Practical approaches to fostering creativity at individual, group and organizational levels 

- Social, managerial, and legal implications of crowdsourcing 

- Marketing and brand awareness  

- Characteristics and motivations of the crowd 

- Collecting, filtering, and evaluating of crowd input for knowledge and business intelligence purposes 

- The use of incentives and rewards to motivate participation 

- Integration into and impact on institutionalized processes 

- Information quality frameworks 

- Value creation 

- New forms of organizing 

- Building crowd-based or crowd-supported organizations 

- Organizational learning and the use of social media for crowdsourcing initiatives 

- Knowledge management systems for managing crowdsourcing 

- Crowdsourcing, collaboration, problem solving with social media 

- Governance and policy issues 

- Application and extension of IS theory 

- Organizational and cultural influences (e.g., leadership, organizational culture, technology infrastructure, regulation, and economics) 

- Comparisons to open innovation, open source software, and outsourcing  

- Emergence of new business models 

- Methodological techniques for understanding network structures of crowdsourcing initiatives 

Conference Submissions 

The conference invites papers and poster submissions on a broad range of IS themes relevant to crowdsourcing.  

Types of contributions, in English, via the EasyChair Submission System (https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=mcis2012): 

- Full research papers (7–12 pages) 

- Extended abstracts and short research-in-progress papers (3–7 pages) 

- Panel proposals (2–3 pages) 

- Posters (A2) 

Important Due Dates 

- Deadline for submissions: March 25, 2012

- Notification of acceptance: May 11, 2012

- Camera-ready versions: June 1st, 2012