Definition of a crowdsourcing innovation service for the european SMEs

Abstract

Based on literature review and on the study of the most known and referred Crowdsourcing brokers, there's a clear trend to implement this model by large companies and mainly within the North American context. Our research team is focused in bringing this approach closer to the European culture, more specifically the cultural factors underlying the dynamics and motivation of communities available to solve the innovation challenges of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), that we call Crowdsourcing Innovation. We believe that, due to the common lack of resources for innovation in these companies, a service capable of involving them in large networks filled with useful and reachable knowledge, and capable of supporting these companies through all the innovation process, is crucial to the future competitiveness of the European SMEs. Although our team is focusing on several aspects related to Crowdsourcing, my main research focuses the information services and supporting applications to create a web platform adapted to the key economical, organizational, legal and cultural differences that make current Crowdsourcing Innovation businesses less popular among European SMEs than in North America.