If candidates in the TV show “Who wants to be a Millionaire?“ no longer know what to do, they often seek help at the phone joker. In the supposed experts, most players see the best advisers. But only in 54 percent of cases the responses of the phone joker is correct. This is still more than a 50:50 joker. However the much better choice is the audience joker. This joker has an average success rate of about 90 percent regardless of the time of its use. Therefore it is the best joker of all by using the collective distributed knowledge of people. That demonstrates that the participation of the crowd usually leads to a better result because the average of many independent judgments is often very close to the truth.
Several years ago the sociologist James Surowiecki described this phenomenon in his international bestseller "The Wisdom of the Crowds" and demonstrated with many examples that a group can find better solutions and make more intelligent decisions than individuals. He justified this on one hand with the fact that individuals are often guided by feelings, on the other hand that they have limited information and consequently only a limited view. Because of self-organizing, statistical effects (e.g. law of large numbers) and the fact that the crowd is not limited to bureaucracy, administration, time or location the crowd can surpass every individual expert.
Crowdsourcing, the next step in the evolution of outsourcing can activate the wisdom of the crowd by using the collective intelligence of a large number of individuals from cognitively diverse perspectives. For instance the web-based encyclopedia Wikipedia, the web browser Firefox or the operating system Linux rely on the participation and collective knowledge of the crowd. On Wikipedia any internet user can write, use, edit and distribute articles free of charge and in accordance with some principles. After the publication, the article will be corrected, expanded and updated by the collective. The creation of open source software works in a similar way. The program is accessible to everyone and so the source code can be continuously processed by globally spreaded software developers. The idea is to use knowledge and skills from many people and make it accessible to all.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Motivation
- Problem definition
- Research question and objectives
- Structure and methodology
- Framework and theoretical background
- Crowdsourcing
- Evolution
- Term and definition
- Concept
- Delimitation from other terms
- Open innovation
- Open source
- Process
- Motivation of the crowd
- Types
- Intermediaries platforms
- Company owned platforms
- Collective Knowledge
- Market places for own ideas
- Public initiatives
- Opportunities and Risks
- Opportunities
- Risks
- Interim summary
- Business plan
- Definition and purpose
- Evolution
- Structure and content
- Executive summary
- Business model
- Market and competitor analysis
- Objectives and strategies
- Service and product portfolio
- Marketing and distribution
- Management, Human Resources and organization
- Opportunities and risks
- Financial planning
- Consultants, guides and tools
- Critical review
- Interim summary
- Empirical Investigation
- Method of data collection
- Survey
- Design of survey
- Population and sample of the survey
- Execution of the survey
- Evaluation and presentation of data
- Interpretation and results
- Initial stages for implementation of crowdsourcing
- Utility of established provider
- Creating a new crowdsourcing platform
- The evolution and application of crowdsourcing in various fields
- The benefits and limitations of crowdsourcing for evaluating business ideas
- The integration of crowdsourcing methodologies into business plan creation
- The critical analysis of established crowdsourcing platforms and their suitability for business plan development
- The potential for creating a new crowdsourcing platform tailored to the specific needs of business plan development
- Introduction: This chapter sets the stage for the thesis, outlining the motivation behind the research, the problem definition, and the specific research question and objectives. It also provides a brief overview of the structure and methodology employed in the study.
- Framework and theoretical background: This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations of crowdsourcing and business plans. It examines the historical evolution, key definitions, and various types of crowdsourcing, alongside a detailed analysis of business plan structure, content, and purpose. Additionally, this chapter delves into the opportunities and risks associated with both crowdsourcing and business plan development.
- Empirical Investigation: This chapter presents the research methodology used to investigate the utility of crowdsourcing in the context of business plan development. It focuses on the design, execution, and evaluation of a survey conducted to gather empirical data on the subject. The analysis and interpretation of the gathered data are also discussed in this chapter.
- Initial stages for implementation of crowdsourcing: This chapter explores the practical implications of the findings from the empirical investigation. It examines the feasibility of utilizing existing crowdsourcing platforms for business plan development and explores the possibilities of creating a new platform tailored to this specific purpose.
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This Master's thesis critically examines the utility of crowdsourcing for evaluating business ideas and their market potential within the context of creating a business plan. The goal is to analyze the opportunities and risks of integrating crowdsourcing techniques into the business plan development process. This involves a detailed exploration of the theoretical foundations of both crowdsourcing and business plan creation, including their historical evolution and current practices.
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
The thesis focuses on key concepts like crowdsourcing, business plan development, market potential evaluation, and idea generation. It explores the theoretical foundations of both crowdsourcing and business planning, including their evolution, types, and practical applications. The research utilizes empirical data gathered through a survey to analyze the utility of crowdsourcing for business plan development. This includes analyzing the opportunities and risks associated with this approach, examining the feasibility of existing crowdsourcing platforms, and considering the development of a new platform tailored to business plan development.
- Quote paper
- Martin Pruschkowski (Author), 2016, Utility of crowdsourcing for the evaluation of business ideas and their market potential in the context of creation of a business plan, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/432967
