In a digital economy, organizations may strategically open up to crowds and communities for various management functions such as strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship or marketing. Indeed, crowds and communities play a critical role in (supporting) the emergence of new organizations (e.g., start-ups using crowdfunding), are a potential source of value creation for existing organizations, or even contribute to an organization’s demise (e.g., social media ‘shitstorms’ severely threatening an organization’s legitimacy). Given that crowds and communities are a potential source of value creation/destruction and competitive (dis-) advantage, it is imperative for organizations to skillfully interact with these social structures. However, opening up to these social structures comes with several ramifications, considerations, if not dilemmas, which we will discuss in this session. On this panel, we bring together scholars that shed light on various aspects in the management of crowds and communities from various theoretical perspectives. This presentation was part of the SMS 41st Annual Conference held virtually.
