How Ants Build Pyramids

Karl R. Rabes explores the performance impact of differing task designs in crowdsourcing, especially micro-task markets. Based on several exploratory literature reviews, the manuscript applies the task-technology fit theory and numerous quasi-experiments to show which tasks can be successfully outsourced to the crowd. It is revealed how a tasks design has an influence on solution quality taking into account respective task-, technology- and individual characteristics, and clearly delineates the differences in objective quality and subjective fit evaluations within and between task designs for micro-task markets.
Contents 

• Crowdsourcing, collective intelligence and open innovation
• Micro-Task Markets, motivation, quality and challenges
• Task/Technology Fit Theory
• Task design, task types and task formulation complexity

Target Groups  

• Lecturers and students of business informatics, business administration and economics
• Experts in innovation management, IT, and strategy 

The Autor  Karl R. Rabes is a founder and project manager at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. He received his PhD in economic sciences from Prof. Dr. Kathrin M. Möslein at the Department of Information Systems, Chair of Information Systems 1 – Innovation & Value Creation. As a consultant he supported several major German and international companies in the planning, execution and controlling of R&D projects.