Debate on crowdsourcing at CBS - Nordic Simposium 2011

1. What happens when there is not
a catalyst?
How the interaction effects of multiple
stakeholders’ interests can be
managed: the case of crowdsourced
placemaking.
Presented at the 2nd Nordic
Symposium on Corporate
Social Responsibility –
cbsCSR
Riccardo Maiolini LUISS
Copenhagen17.06.2011

2. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
AGENDA
• INTRODUCTION
• RESEARCH QUESTION
• LITERATURE REVIEW ON STAKEHOLDER
THEORY
• RESEARCH CONTEXT: THE CROWDSOURCED
PLACEMAKING
• RESULTS
• CONTRIBUTIONS
• LIMITATIONS

3. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
INTRODUCTION
The debate on stakeholder literature is recently moved from
studying how to manage singular sets of interests (Rowley,
1997)
to understand relations among multiple subjects associated to
complex organizational environments (Andriof et al., 2003)
and considering multiplicity of interests (Garriga & Melé,
2004).

4. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
INTRODUCTION
From the Freeman’s perspective (1984):
A company is the central hub and the stakeholders
are the spokes around the wheel (Frooman, 1999),
selected through the degree of legitimacy as a means
of responding to external interests (Luoma &
Goodstein, 1999).
The Freeman’s perspective considers stakeholders
as related to a focal organization (Roloff, 2008).

5. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH QUESTION
In the presence of a multiple stakeholder context,
where is not evident the clearness of the hub and
spoke relationship, how can both organizations
and stakeholders address their interests?

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
ABOUT STAKEHOLDER THEORY
As argued by Johnson-Cramer et al. (2003: 149) “The essence of
stakeholder dialogue is the co-creation of shared understandings”.
The organizational environment is a source of constant inputs and
stimulus for the organizations, but individuals and organizations have
limited cognitive capabilities to deal wit all available stimuli (Simon,
1947).
For this reason individuals and organizations enact events and facts
through a selective perspective of the objective features of their
surroundings (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
Enactment is not possible without a collaborative engagement of
stakeholders (Greenwood, 2007) but also it is not possible without
considering the targeted interests of both organizations and
stakeholders (Eesley & Lenox, 2006).

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
ABOUT STAKEHOLDER THEORY
Julia Roloff (2008) introduced the concept of multi-stakeholder
networks.
From this perspective, the proliferation of multi-stakeholder
networks is interests driven and is a result of coalitions among
multiple subjects based on the detection of economic property
of risk (Orts & Strudler, 2002
Stakeholders groups compete against or complement each
other as a cumulative activity of congruence or diversity of
interests (Neville & Menguc, 2006).

8. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
The term crowdsourcing is a contraction of the words crowd and
outsourcing, which indicate the process of outsourcing to the
crowd.
• Crowdsourcing shares its basic principles with web-based
social media, where a user gets feedback from other users
on a topic of their choice (Howe, 2006).
• Based on the concept of the open innovation, model internal
decision making changes from a knowledge generation
model to a knowledge brokering model (Maiolini ad Naggi,
2010)
• The strengths of this model are based on the open centrality
that means: “participation is non-discriminatory” (Pènin,
2008).

9. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
“Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning,
design and management of public spaces.
Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking
questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular
space, to discover their needs and aspirations.
This information is then used to create a common vision for
that place.
The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy,
beginning with small-scale, doable improvements that can
immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who
use them”.

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
From a technical perspective, placemaking consists in a
decision-making tool that provides instruments to plan better
decisions (Boyd, 2002).
Placemaking works as taxonomy for communities based o
social, economic, infrastructural and natural issues, where
all the parts are engaged within the three distinctive phases of
(1) communication
(2) Design
(3) Analysis.

11. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
Crowdsourced placemaking highline and stress the
mechanisms that facilitate stakeholders’ balance (Näsi, 1995)
inside the multi-stakeholder network.
Crowdsourced placemaking can be considered as a
“participated model where there is a multitude of subjects that
have legitimated interests or stakes in […] how the objectives
are reached […] and a social and technical system where
different stakeholders play a part (Carrol & Näsi, 1997: 50).

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
Composition of companies
Company Placemaking service’s Usage of the service Stakeholders’
Profile typology identification
Closed Based on the usage of an internal Available after a registration. The Stakeholders are identified by
platform owned and programmed by company allows participating to internal categories of the
internal computer programmers. the placemaking services only platform
subjects registered.
Open Developed inside the general Every one can get part to the There is not a structured
organization of the Internet site. contests and give suggestions or categorization for different
Because the totally User Generated comments to the placemaking groups of stakeholders.
Content approach of the platform, projects presented on the site. Normally who writes explains
every block and page is structured to their positions and clarify
receive feedback on it. who they are (unofficial
categorization of
stakeholders)
!

13. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
RESEARCH CONTEXT: CROWDSOURCED PLACEMAKING
Company
Placemaking
Issues Stressed
Goal of the project
Temporal Progress
Profile
Project
Duration
Closed
Community Place Based
Develop efficient services useful for the Six months
Concluded
Playground project
Consensus research
community
Service project
Stakeholders Vote
No External experts supports
Closed
Urban Alternative Stakeholders Vote
Choose the best project that satisfy the One year
In progress
Design choice
Suggestions for new zoning regulation
highest number of subjects
External experts support: 5 alternative solutions with
explanations and technical data.
Residential places value
3D modeling
Closed
Urban Alternative Design objectives: Stakeholders narratives of their Design and obtain suggestion for a One year
Concluded
Design project
experiences based on daily experience.
second step: propone alternative
Services projects suggestions
models that the community will choose
No external experts supports
3D modeling
Open
Urban Alternative Consensus Research
Design local community based Not specified
In progress
Design project
External Suggestions
characteristics to develop a project of
Experience with alternative scenarios (future experience urban design.
and also comments from who is experiencing similar in Study the relation between “citizens
other contexts)
and sense of place”
Open
Transit Oriented Stakeholder consensus
Find new area to develop new Not specified
In progress
development
Externalities impact scenarios
infrastructures considering the land
Exploit local growth and sustainability
area that is under regional protected
Develop sustainable culture
growth needs
Open
Incorporate Develop sustainable culture
Renovate a Memorial Building to make Not specified
Concluded
Sustainable Practices Develop green Behaviors
it a more sustainable place to work
in a community
Consensus Research
Stakeholders consensus

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTIVE MUTUAL DECISION-MAKING APPROACHES
The general goal of classical 2.0 users is to collectively expand the general
amount of knowledge and information available in the web.
There is a sort of non-single-utilitarian approach to this kind of contributions.
On the other hand, what characterizes and distinguishes crowdsourced
placemaking is the effort to persuade different users to underline their
opinion and open a discussion on how do they consider differently the issue
selected, explaining their opinion and giving example of their real life
experience.
Generation of Contents Goal Modalities
User Generated Content Contribute to the Add a single
development of web contribution to the
knowledge collective
knowledge
Crowdsourced placemaking Resolve a concrete Stress differences
problem among interests and
real life
expectations
!

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
MULTIDISCIPLINARITY AND THE DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
The platforms where created to achieve the largest number of
subjects interested in specific local and community based
problems that are “encouraged to give suggestions, describe
their real life experiences and mobilize external
competences” (cit. closed company manager).
The geographical proximity is an element that characterizes
the quality of the comments: from real life experiences to
benchmarks and evaluation of possible alternative scenarios.

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What happens where there is not a catalyst
COLLECTIVE-MUTUAL SELECTIVE DECISION-MAKING
As suggested by Pedersen (2006) all the stakeholders cannot be
satisfied simultaneously; the process is called a collective-mutual
selective form of decision-making because:
• It starts from different sets of interests that are selected by a
dialogue among the stakeholders that try to justify why some
interests are more significant than others.
• After the justification, they start to discuss on how the decision and
the outcomes can impact in terms of externalities, trying to
understand how to manage the negative externalities developing a
compensatory strategy.
• In the last stage, the stakeholders that have convoyed to a specific
set of decisions start to discuss about the concrete
implementation of their choices

17. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
CONTRIBUTIONS
The expected contribution is therefore twofold:
• on one side the paper builds on (and hopefully helps
expanding) one of the building blocks of organization theory,
trying to understand the mechanisms that facilitate multiple
stakeholders engagement.
• On the other side it engages with a real-world phenomenon
that is getting more and more relevance in practice, when
discussing about the heterogeneity of stakeholder groups
and their relative interests within a complex organizational
environment.

18. 17.06.2011| Riccardo Maiolini
What happens where there is not a catalyst
LIMITATIONS
the main limitation lies in the exploratory approach that I
decided to adopt.
However, I am working on the development of the case studies,
where each case serves as a distinct experiment that stands on
its own as an analytic unit (Eisenhardt 1989) central to building
theory.
Crowdsourced placemaking is a new profession, but has
potentials to assume a relevant role in the stakeholders’
engagement methods.