A recent paper published by Voigt and Jovanovic tries to tackle the lack of a framework under which internal and enterprise crowdfunding could be established in an organisation (Voigt & Jovanovic, 2017). Both authors refer to this as corporate crowdfunding. Their paper rests on the principle they refer to as the wisdom of the crowd, which is used to promote the development of ideas and the evaluation of ideas.

Their framework provides factors to consider when thinking about implementing a corporate crowdfunding system. On the one side, the field of incentives for the crowd is lacking details, maybe because, again, the framework was influenced by a workgroup comprised of a top-down managerial standpoint and not from a bottom-up employees’ point of view. Secondly, the framework does not help to identify which elements need to be considered when introducing a corporate crowdfunding system or what factors to consider when enhancing an existing corporate crowdfunding system.

Corporate Crowdfunding Framework, Source: (Voigt & Jovanovic, 2017)

For the concept of developing a workplace of the future and based on insights from New Work concepts, three elements seem to be of significant importance

  1. Aim: Taping the crowds, organic innovation
  2. Governance: Shared ownership, the crowdfunding environment can co-exist with an organisations’ hierarchy but must be supported and actively lived in all hierarchical levels of organisation. Each level of hierarchy level and participant must be rewarded to participate.
  3. Incentives: The Aim must reward intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of employees.

The combination of these three factors comprises the organisation’s culture. Thus, in order to create an organisation that can utilize a corporate crowdfunding system the culture would need to be primed. A roadmap can be helpful in getting organisations from a simple corporate crowdfunding idea to a full-fledged corporate crowdfunding system that enable the workplace of the future. A single item missing in the framework provided by Voigt is the aspect or influencing factor of communication. Communication not only mirrors a organisations’ culture but also provides participation rules, delivers crowds with motivation and incentives and provides regular feedback on achievement of a goal and aim.