CROWDSOURCING INITIATIVES IN CITY MANAGEMENT: THE PERSPECTIVE OF POLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Abstract

The past decade has seen the significance of the Internet facilitating communication between local governments and stakeholders. A growing role in this dialogue has been played by crowdsourcing. The paper aims to identify areas, forms, and tools for implementing crowdsourcing in managing cities in Poland, as well as the assessment of benefits provided by crowdsourcing initiatives by representatives of municipal governments. The article utilised a quantitative study method of the survey on a sample of 176 city governments from Poland. Research has shown that crowdsourcing initiatives concern various areas of the city's functioning, including the most common as culture, city image, spatial management and environmental protection. Forms of crowdsourcing involve civic budgets, “voting/polls/surveys and interviews” and “debate/discussion/meeting, workshop, postulates and comments”. Local governments carry out crowdsourcing initiatives by utilising cities' official web pages, social media, and special platforms dedicated to public consultations. The larger the city, the more often its representatives employ the forms of crowdsourcing and the greater the value placed on the utility of crowdsourcing.