Internal Crowd Work as a Source of Empowerment - An Empirical Analysis of the Perception of Employees in a Crowdtesting Project

Internal crowd work has emerged as a new form of digital gainful employment that changes the nature of work. However, the possible effects of internal crowd work on the individual level have been largely neglected. In this paper, we therefore present our research in progress which is concerned with the effects of work characteristics in internal crowd work that have impact on the individual’s empowerment and satisfaction. Thus, we developed our research model and conducted an online survey amongst 118 internal crowd workers of a Swiss bank who were asked to test new software. Our expected contribution will increase the understanding of internal crowd work and provide important insights for organizations to (re-) design work on internal IT-platforms.