ABSTRACT
In crowdsourcing, a problem is outsourced to an undefined network of people who self-select and solve the problem with no ex ante agreements/contracts. In the era of grand challenges, governments and non-profit organizations faced fundamental problems whose solutions they believed would have broad and lasting positive effects on society. These governments neither knew how to solve the problems nor who could be designated to solve them via, for example, ex ante contracts. The use of crowdsourcing to solve problems has been around since at least the 1700s. In fact, crowdsourcing was being used to solve major challenges before businesses started conducting formal in-house R&D. More globalization has increased not only competition, but also the number and diversity of the markets that firms can serve. In developed economies, there have been dramatic shifts from brick-and-mortar economies to digital economies.
