Back to the future of organizational work: Crowdsourcing and digital work marketplaces

Abstract

Businesses increasingly accomplish work through innovative sourcing models that leverage the crowd. As a new way of distributing work across units within an organization and as a form of outsourcing work beyond organizational boundaries, crowdwork is inherently disruptive. Crowdwork raises a number of questions about its implications to the future of organizational work, including reconfigurations to the very nature of work, consideration of the opportunities and threats to both organizational forms and worker status, and about the systems that underlie and are meant to support crowdwork. There is a need for a clear research agenda to address these challenges and to inform the design of solutions for crowdwork as it integrates with other forms of organizational work.