Title: The potential of collective intelligence and crowdsourcing for opportunity creation

Authors: Dominik Dellermann; Nikolaus Lipusch; Philipp Ebel; Jan Marco Leimeister

Addresses: Chair for Information Systems, Kassel University, Pfannkuchstraße 1, 34121 Kassel, Germany ' Chair for Information Systems, Kassel University, Pfannkuchstraße 1, 34121 Kassel, Germany ' Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen, Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland ' Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen, Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland; Chair for Information Systems, Kassel University, Pfannkuchstraße 1, 34121 Kassel, Germany

Abstract: Digital technologies inherently change entrepreneurial processes and outcomes. One theoretical perspective that aims at explaining both is the creation view of opportunities, which proposes iterative social interaction between entrepreneurs and interested stakeholders and the evolutionary nature of opportunities as idiosyncratic. While the discussion on the phenomena of crowdsourcing is scarce in entrepreneurship research on opportunity (co-) creation, it provides enormous potential for the field. Within this paper, we focus on providing a theoretical rational for why and how collective intelligence and crowdsourcing as concrete mechanism works for improving the entrepreneurial cognition process. The paper shows that entrepreneurs can leverage collective intelligence to objectify opportunities by starting a sense making process, persuading interested stakeholders, and mobilising external resources, thus limiting the cognitive constraints and bounds of entrepreneurial agents. We thus contribute to the discourse about how opportunities emerge from interactions between entrepreneurs and their social environment and provide an agenda that may guide future research in the field of digital entrepreneurship.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; opportunity creation theory; crowdsourcing; collective intelligence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2020.105569

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2020 Vol.12 No.2, pp.183 - 207

Received: 12 Feb 2018
Accepted: 13 Dec 2018
Published online: 03 Mar 2020 *

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