Crowdsourcing in the governments
Advisor Information
Jooho Lee
Location
MBSC Ballroom - Poster #402 - G
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
4-3-2022 10:45 AM
End Date
4-3-2022 12:00 PM
Abstract
Contemporary governments face various challenges in governing their nations with citizen’s rising mistrust of government under the rapidly changing environment. In particular, we have experienced exceptional challenges across all levels and aspects of the government this year due to the COVID-19 pandemics. Within the context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), governments are increasingly seeking to draw on society’s full potential for innovation, using collective intelligence, or in other words, the wisdom of crowds, to identify and solve the problems. By making efficient use of the crowd’s collective intelligence, and focusing this on specific innovation and policy issues, such approach can help the government address not only the pandemic crises but also any wicked social problems. In the case of COVID-19, from sharing one’s COVID-19 symptoms in real-time to carrying out the vaccine research, crowdsourcing was carried out in various ways to solve the problems.
As such, the power of crowds is essential in solving not only special situations such as pandemics but also societal problems as a whole. Specifically, crowdsourcing has become a popular model for organizations wishing to engage the public in the decision-making process. Crowdsourcing as well as other ICT allow organizations to utilize the wisdom of the crowd (Surowiecki, 2005). The increasing needs of governments to utilize the collective intelligence and the effectiveness of the policymaking process, with the growing expectations of citizens, the willingness to participate in the decision-making process which concerns them, make the governments start looking for solutions that will allow them to meet all the demands placed. The governments have slowly warmed up the thought of developing and using the technology for public participation and policymaking (Liu, 2017). By applying advanced ICT, a government can ask for ideas with solving wicked problems, resulting in more effective management within the institutions, and stronger democracy. For example, the U.S. launched a crowdsourcing platform, Challenge.gov, where over 100 US Federal agencies have sought innovative solutions to complex social and technical public management problems in early 2010. In 2020, South Korea introduced a new crowdsourcing platform, Challenge Korea, to collaborate with citizens to solve some social problems acquainted by various government departments. Again, crowdsourcing as an ICT-enabled method for public participation in governance has gained in popularity in recent years, allowing governments to seek the ideas and opinions of citizens on policies and waste reduction (Brabham, 2013)
The logic underlying crowdsourcing is that the organizations generate innovative ideas, build trust and make the organization more efficient and effective (Howe, 2006). The advent of crowdsourcing in governments contributed to overcoming challenges in governance by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public administration (Prpic & Shukla, 2013) as well as the democratic legitimacy of the government (Aitamurto & Chen, 2017; Noveck, 2009). However, emerging research of crowdsourcing in the governments is limited in two ways. First, most studies are descriptive and anecdotal. A growing body of research has focused on various factors impacting the adoption of crowdsourcing. Second, most focus on the provider’s side of crowdsourcing (i.e. government’s perspective) than the user’s side (i.e. citizen’s perspective). That is, the literature has left significant gaps in our understanding of the relationship between the management of crowdsourcing in governments and citizen’s experience of crowdsourcing, and its actual impact on both sides. Moreover, it also tries to describe how the citizen’s, the user, participation affect the creation of democratic values and how the bureaucrat’s, the provider, coordination affect the creation of managerial values in the course of crowdsourcing. In order to bridge the research gaps, I propose to explore the use of crowdsourcing which aims to resolve the social problems in governments and its actual impact on both democratic value and managerial value.
Scheduling Link
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Crowdsourcing in the governments
MBSC Ballroom - Poster #402 - G
Contemporary governments face various challenges in governing their nations with citizen’s rising mistrust of government under the rapidly changing environment. In particular, we have experienced exceptional challenges across all levels and aspects of the government this year due to the COVID-19 pandemics. Within the context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), governments are increasingly seeking to draw on society’s full potential for innovation, using collective intelligence, or in other words, the wisdom of crowds, to identify and solve the problems. By making efficient use of the crowd’s collective intelligence, and focusing this on specific innovation and policy issues, such approach can help the government address not only the pandemic crises but also any wicked social problems. In the case of COVID-19, from sharing one’s COVID-19 symptoms in real-time to carrying out the vaccine research, crowdsourcing was carried out in various ways to solve the problems.
As such, the power of crowds is essential in solving not only special situations such as pandemics but also societal problems as a whole. Specifically, crowdsourcing has become a popular model for organizations wishing to engage the public in the decision-making process. Crowdsourcing as well as other ICT allow organizations to utilize the wisdom of the crowd (Surowiecki, 2005). The increasing needs of governments to utilize the collective intelligence and the effectiveness of the policymaking process, with the growing expectations of citizens, the willingness to participate in the decision-making process which concerns them, make the governments start looking for solutions that will allow them to meet all the demands placed. The governments have slowly warmed up the thought of developing and using the technology for public participation and policymaking (Liu, 2017). By applying advanced ICT, a government can ask for ideas with solving wicked problems, resulting in more effective management within the institutions, and stronger democracy. For example, the U.S. launched a crowdsourcing platform, Challenge.gov, where over 100 US Federal agencies have sought innovative solutions to complex social and technical public management problems in early 2010. In 2020, South Korea introduced a new crowdsourcing platform, Challenge Korea, to collaborate with citizens to solve some social problems acquainted by various government departments. Again, crowdsourcing as an ICT-enabled method for public participation in governance has gained in popularity in recent years, allowing governments to seek the ideas and opinions of citizens on policies and waste reduction (Brabham, 2013)
The logic underlying crowdsourcing is that the organizations generate innovative ideas, build trust and make the organization more efficient and effective (Howe, 2006). The advent of crowdsourcing in governments contributed to overcoming challenges in governance by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public administration (Prpic & Shukla, 2013) as well as the democratic legitimacy of the government (Aitamurto & Chen, 2017; Noveck, 2009). However, emerging research of crowdsourcing in the governments is limited in two ways. First, most studies are descriptive and anecdotal. A growing body of research has focused on various factors impacting the adoption of crowdsourcing. Second, most focus on the provider’s side of crowdsourcing (i.e. government’s perspective) than the user’s side (i.e. citizen’s perspective). That is, the literature has left significant gaps in our understanding of the relationship between the management of crowdsourcing in governments and citizen’s experience of crowdsourcing, and its actual impact on both sides. Moreover, it also tries to describe how the citizen’s, the user, participation affect the creation of democratic values and how the bureaucrat’s, the provider, coordination affect the creation of managerial values in the course of crowdsourcing. In order to bridge the research gaps, I propose to explore the use of crowdsourcing which aims to resolve the social problems in governments and its actual impact on both democratic value and managerial value.