Christopher L. Tucci - Böcker

Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714 when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world's largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable. Despite this - or perhaps because of it - research into crowdsourcing has been conducted in different research silos, within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. This book aims to assemble chapters from many of these silos, since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. Chapters provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both private and public sector.

Few would deny that small entrepreneurial firms play an important economic and social role. Not only do they generate a significant number of jobs but they also contribute a large proportion of gross national product (GNP). Not all small firms qualify as entrepreneurial entities, however. While “small” refers mostly to size, “entrepreneurial” refers to growth and a value-creation orientation. The vast - jority of small firms have no growth aspirations, nor do they have the means and skills to grow. As such, they may still provide employment and local value but would not embrace the high-potential aspirations of entrepreneurial ventures. This book clearly addresses those entrepreneurs who are interested in leading hi- growth-potential companies (Table 1). Table 1 Growth Typology of Small Firms [1] Type of venture Desired sales range Future employees Lifestyle 0 to $1 million 0 to 4 Smaller high potential $1 million to $20 million 5 to 50 High potential over $20 million Over 50 High-innovation technology-based startups assume a very special role in hi- growth entrepreneurship. Although these startups constitute a comparatively low number of small businesses, they produce proportionately far more jobs than their low- and medium-innovation counterparts. The aim of achieving rapid growth is typically referred to as high-expectation entrepreneurship. An area of major con- 1 cern to us is a fact revealed in the latest GEM report: The rate of European hi- expectation entrepreneurial activity is among the lowest in the world.