Rules of Crowdsourcing: Models, Issues, and Systems of Control

This 2013 article focuses on crowd-sourced information and provides a valuable and useful taxonomy and theory for crowdsourcing on social media. The authors provide a practical yet rigorous definition of crowdsourcing that incorporates crowds, outsourcing, and social web technologies. The article outlines a “taxonomy theory” of crowdsourcing by organizing the empirical variants in nine distinct forms of crowdsourcing models. The authors base their taxonomy and theory on their analysis of 103 well-known crowdsourcing online platforms using content analysis methods and the hermeneutic reading principle. The article also discusses key issues and directions, concentrating on the notion of managerial control systems.

This article will be of use to PVE researchers and practitioners both interested in a foundational understanding of crowdsourcing but also those interested in applying crowdsourcing techniques to various applications. The article provides a good foundation for conceptualizing and developing crowdsourcing techniques using online platforms and understanding potential crowdsourcing models that can be applied on social media platforms.