A conceptual framework of influences on a non-profit GLAM crowdsourcing initiative: A socio-technical perspective

Crowdsourcing theory and research is in its infancy and fragmented with little theoretical agreement. This paper presents a conceptual framework that provides a holistic view of key influences on a non-profit GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) crowdsourcing initiative through an interpretive analysis. Three key themes of influences emerged from the case analysis: motivation, relational mechanisms and technology; however they were found to be mutually entangled in practice. The conceptual framework acknowledges the role of both crowd participants and organisational stakeholders through recursive use and interaction over time, and the emergence of multiple configurations of influences on crowdsourcing initiatives while aligning motivations of the crowd with that of the crowdsourcing initiative (i.e. motive alignment). The framework developed in this study extends existing knowledge of the key influences on non-profit crowdsourcing in a GLAM context and clarifies and expands our understanding of this phenomenon from a socio-technical perspective.