The future course that Ai –Land should Argue for in the meeting.
The fact that crowd outsourcing is a technique that has both its advantages and disadvantages, there is need to carefully make decisions that will ensure the continued survival of the company. It is thus imperative for Ai-Lan to argue for sustainability of the crowd sourcing strategy to instigate the success of the enterprise. To begin with, the objectives of the crowd sourcing project should be aligned with the strategic aims of the company (Daft, 2015). The other factor relates to the competence levels of the human capital. With the need to process quality products, there is need to ensure that the quality that was desired is always upheld. Though the crowd has the role of giving suggestions, they should be those that are well thought and those that do not lower the standards of the products in accordance to the professional objectivity of the employees.
As a good gesture to the crowd, the company should be able to pay the contributors for the benefits that they have brought forward for the organization. Due to the increased sales; the management should share the prospects with the contributors. To add on, to be able to reach a larger crowd, there is need to improve the infrastructure used by the crowd. Internet connectivity should be availed to instigate continued feedback and brainstorming with the crowd. The internet access should be affordable, convenient and reliable to the users. Moreover, it is important for the company to access the macro economic factors that influence crowd sourcing to determine if it is viable at the specific prevailing conditions (Poetz & Schreier, 2012).
Lastly, the whole organizational design should not be based on the crowd sourcing initiative so as to reduce the negative impact that it has on human capital. A specific percentage should be reached (Marjanovic, Fry & Chataway, 2012). It should be a percentage that will ensure that the business core beliefs and attitudes are not absorbed into the fabric of crowd sourcing initiatives. Training of the employees should not seize, and the quality of the products should be maintained.
And what personal decisions does she face if Off the Hook decides to put the crowd completely in charge when it comes to T-shirt design?
She has to decide on whether the business is still offering her the opportunities that it had initially before resolving to the crowd initiatives. If she does not feel motivated or objective enough in the organization, then she has to decide on whether to stay or leave the organization. It is also important to note that she needs to consider if she will ultimately utilize her professionalism in the context of the situation at hand(Kohler, 2015). If at all she will not be able to then she has a choice to make in the light of the ethical requirement. The other factor that relates to ethics is the technical competencies that she has to depict in the business. If at all the crowd will be given priority to make decisions with limited skills then she has to determine if she will argue otherwise with the management or remain silent on the situation at hand.
What to do
I would go to the meeting and argue for abandoning crowd sourcing for now in favor of maintaining the artistic integrity and values that Off the Hook always stood for.
References:
Daft, R. L. (2015). Organization theory and design. Cengage Learning.
Kohler, T. (2015). Crowdsourcing-Based Business Models. California Management
Review, 57(4), 63-84.
Marjanovic, S., Fry, C., & Chataway, J. (2012). Crowdsourcing based business models: In search
of evidence for innovation 2.0. Science and public policy, 39(3), 318-332.
Poetz, M. K., & Schreier, M. (2012). The value of crowdsourcing: can users compete with
professionals in generating new product ideas?. Journal of Product Innovation
Management, 29(2), 245-256.
