Crowdworking: Nurturing Expert-Centric Absorptive Capacity

Abstract

Absorptive capacity, or the organizational capability to identify, assimilate, and apply new knowledge for commercial ends, is a key determinant of how organizations successfully generate value from external sources of knowledge and sustain a competitive advantage. Crowdworking—a novel form of digitally mediated work—allows organizations to hire on-demand highly skilled external experts to leverage their knowledge, skills, and networks. The approach of integrating crowdworking into organizations is increasingly gaining traction among large corporations seeking to harness the knowledge in external communities for value generation. Building on an in-depth embedded case study in a large organization that relies on two established crowdwork platforms, we explore how the organization developed its crowdworking-related absorptive capacity to generate value from external experts. We find that the crowdworking-related absorptive capacity phenomenon is a particular instance of expert-centric absorptive capacity that organizations develop by retaining on-demand external experts. We also find that this capacity can be developed through two idiosyncratic configurations of orchestrated and distributed routines that integrate external experts and utilize their knowledge in the host organization. These findings offer new insights into the prevailing modus operandi related to harnessing external knowledge in today’s organizations.