Impact of Crowdsourcing on Generating Innovations ; International Research Conference 2021

Crowdsourcing is an innovation technique implement through a combination of crowd and outsourcing. It is a kind of internet-based people outsourcing to accomplish organizational tasks. Traditional innovational aspects are a burden for companies because innovative ideas are only generated through internal organizational methods. In that case, crowdsourcing has become popular within the business sector in the last few years. Since people outsourcing through internet platforms is a common factor within IT sector, the IT industry is known as one of the most innovative business sectors. The Sri Lankan IT sector plays a major role in the country‟s economy as the fourth largest export income generator. The influence of crowdsourcing on generating innovations in Sri Lanka has not been explored in the existing literature. Therefore, this research has been carried out to find the impact, association, and the existing usage of crowdsourcing and innovations in Sri Lanka. The data were collected by distributing a self-developed questionnaire across 50 IT firms that are registered in SLASSCOM in the Colombo district. Data analysis was performed through descriptive analysis, correlation coefficient, and simple linear regression analysis. The results of the study denote that there is a strong positive relationship between crowdsourcing and innovations in Sri Lanka and also the existing usage of the concepts on developing innovations at a satisfactory level in the country. Outcomes of the research will lead policy makers to make decisions to increase the activities related to the crowdsourcing. The overall research findings provide managerial and theoretical implications for further enhancement of the crowdsourcing on generating innovations in Sri Lanka. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Innovations; Internet; IT Industry