Joseph Taylor’s Three Minute Thesis
Crowdsourcing IT Work: A Three-Fold Perspective from the Workers, Buyers, and Platform Providers
This research examines crowdsourcing as a mechanism to enhance and expand the technology workforce. It does so by examining the technology crowdsourcing phenomena from three perspectives: the worker (or labor supply), the buyer of technology services (or labor demand) and the marketplaces that facility the buyer-seller transaction. It explores how workforce development and flexibility theories can be applied in explaining how crowdsourcing can be applied to technology tasks. This research is structured in a three essay format. Essay one explores the technology crowdsourcing phenomena from a “crowdworker” perspective, using a career anchors perspective to highlight the potential role of crowdsourcing in expanding the technology workforce to additional sources of worker capacity. Essay two focuses on the relationship between IT flexibility and an organization’s choice to use crowdsourcing as a means of IT service delivery. Essay three will utilize a design science perspective to examine the ability of crowdsourcing marketplace platforms to meet the needs of IT service buyers and IT service workers as identified in Essay’s one and two.
Joseph Taylor’s Powerpoint can be viewed here.
About Joseph
MISE
Joseph Taylor is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Systems in the Carson College of Business. He received an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird before working in the Information Systems Division of Walmart Stores, Inc., eventually becoming the director of IT strategy, innovation and governance. While at Walmart Joseph led teams that developed feasibility analysis and proof of concept projects for hundreds of emerging technologies, working with leading technology companies such as Microsoft, Motorola, Intel, HP, IBM and others to evaluate the potential business impacts of technology implementations. Originally from the Spokane area, Joseph’s academic research interests focus on crowdsourcing and the use of technology to create business value. He currently resides in Pullman with his wife DeNeal and their five children.