Transferring Knowledge from a Crowd to a Retail Company - A case study of Roamler Sweden

Sammanfattning: Background: Organizational spending on marketing needs to be justified and therefore measured. New technology has enabled new ways of conducting market research. Research question: How can knowledge be transferred from a crowd of consumers to a company operating in the retail industry? Purpose: To explore the process of knowledge transfer in a new type of market research company by creating an understanding of (1) how to gather knowledge through engaging and motivating a crowd to share information, (2) how to analyze and transfer it to the clients, and in the end (3) how the clients receive the information and are able to create knowledge internally. Methodology: Qualitative single case study through semi-structured interviews with the case company and two of their clients. This was combined with secondary data and observations. Conclusions: Motivated users are important when gathering knowledge through crowdsourcing. Focusing on gathering and transferring explicit knowledge makes it more actionable and therefore more valuable when it comes to market insights. Externalization was found to only be partly possible in the case company, which strengthens established theories published after Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Absorptive capacity and relationships had influence on the knowledge transfer and how the results were acted upon in the client organizations.