Barriers for SMEs in Adopting Crowdsourcing

Abstract

Despite its undisputable benefits for firms, crowdsourcing is rarely applied in small and medium sized enterprises (SME), yet. Until today extant literature provides only an uncomplete picture of the barriers that hinder SMEs from adopting crowdsourcing. Because of these incomplete insights on this phenomenon there is a great deal of uncertainty on how to overcome these barriers all the more. In the scope of an interview series with 15 SMEs we explore a range of different barriers. The findings from our study do not only expand the so far incomplete body of knowledge but also provide practical references for SMEs to be aware of the barriers. This simplifies avoiding them and successfully adopting crowdsourcing.