HEC Liège, Management School of the University of Liège, Liège, Belgium, Belgium
Crowdsourcing, as a key feature of Web 2.0, has gained widespread adoption due to its ability to harness external expertise, knowledge, and creativity at low costs. Despite its popularity, with 84% of large companies utilizing it, only 29% implement winning ideas, revealing a significant gap. Existing research focuses on crowdsourcing adoption, emphasizing project design or organizational strategies, but neglects the drivers of idea implementation. This study addresses the gap by analyzing survey data from 804 Moroccan marketing managers, exploring how task type, company size, individual roles, and company mindset influence managers’ confidence in implementing crowdsourced ideas. Findings reveal that mindset significantly impacts perceived feasibility, quality, and reliability of ideas, and directly enhances confidence in implementation, with an exploitation mindset outperforming an exploration mindset. These results highlight mindset as a critical factor, over project- and firm-level characteristics, in ensuring successful crowdsourcing outcomes, emphasizing its role.
