The use of crowdsourcing mechanisms in management learning

ABSTRACT

While management education increasingly uses creative crowdsourcing techniques (e.g. hackathons and innovation crowdsourcing) to help students apply their knowledge to real business problems, this research examines crowdsourcing as a learning approach that enhances students’ learning experience, not by giving access to knowledge resources, but rather by creating a process that generates value and learning experience through active participation. Using an exploratory research (i.e. observations and in situ interviews) and a quantitative assessment (i.e. survey-based design), our findings show that students’ learning experience can be leveraged in the pre-activity stage (i.e. initial instructions, creative idea generation), and during and after the crowdsourcing activity (i.e. feedback from the company and from the instructor). We show that the learning experience is not only predicted by the informational value, but also by the social and enjoyment value, which can be enhanced through specific crowdsourcing activities. Further, our findings question the role of competitive settings in such learningconditions

KEYWORDS:

• Management learning
• creative crowdsourcing
• hackathon
• active learning
• learning experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Part of the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions, which could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Ethics approval

According to the declaration of Helsinki, non-interventional studies such as surveys do not require ethical approval.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadia Steils

Nadia Steils is an assistant professor at the HEC Liège (University of Liège, Belgium), member of the PRISME research center, and associated member of Nadi (University of Namur). Her research lies principally in the area of knowledge and learning related issues, information exchange and digital marketing. HEC, University of Liège, Rue Louvrex 14, 4000 Liège, Belgium, [email protected].

Salwa Hanine

Salwa Hanine is an assistant professor at Toulouse Business School, Casablanca Campus, Morocco. She is a member of the “Social & Innovation Marketing” lab at Toulouse Business School. Her research mainly focuses on crowdsourcing, innovation contests and consumer creativity. Furthermore, she is interested in the strategic implications of citizen involvement in urban crowdsourcing and smart city projects. [email protected]