CSEIT172125 | Received: 12 Jan 2017 | Accepted: 22 Jan 2017 | January-February-2017 [(2)1: 113-118 ]
International Journal of Scientific Research in Computer Science, Engineering and Information Technology
© 2017 IJSRCSEIT | Volume 2 | Issue 1 | ISSN : 2456-3307
113
Deciding with the Crowd Wisdom : An Overview of Issues Facing the
Corporate Application of Prediction Markets
Henry Asante Antwi
1,2
, Zhou Lulin
1,2
, Ethel Asante Antwi
1,3
, Basil Kusi
1
, Tehzeeb Mustafa
1,2
, Zinet Abdullai
1
1
School of Management, Jiangsu University, 301 Xuefu Road, 212012, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China
2
Institute of Medical Insurance and Healthcare Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, P.R. China
3
School of Graduate Studies, Ghana Technology University, Private Mail Bag, Abeka-Accra, Ghana
ABSTRACT
Prediction markets (PM) have emerged as a major tool for contemporary decision making tools within economic,
financial and psychological literature. It is arguably one of the most efficient markets in history. Although
applicable within financial markets, the principles of PM can also be applied within political frameworks, corporate
environments public enterprise management. That is why since its discovery; other areas of human endeavour have
applied prediction markets for organization-wide decision making with different outcomes and recommendations for
improvement in prediction markets. This review examines the history of prediction markets, its ontology,
epistemology and paradigm. It also examines the early applications of prediction market to institutional decision
making and how early challenges have strengthened modern prediction markets. The key issues facing prediction
market as a decision making tool is revisited in the last section before summarizing our findings and future research
direction.
Keywords : Prediction Markets , Decision Making Tools , Iowa Electronic Markets , Hollywood Stock Exchange ,
General Electric , Virtual Concept Testing , PAM
I. INTRODUCTION
A relatively new phenomenon within economic,
financial and psychological literature, Prediction
Markets (PM) has emerged as ―arguably one of the
most efficient markets in history‖ (Sporer et al, 2010).
PM are defined as markets that are designed and run for
the primary purpose of mining and aggregating
information scattered among traders and subsequently
using this information in the form of market values in
order to make predictions about specific future events
(Berg and Rietz, 2003; Bagust et al, 2009). Although
applicable within financial markets, the principles of
PM can also be applied within political frameworks
and most notably for this paper, corporate
environments (Strumpf, 2009), an aspect that will be
later discussed in detail. Indeed, further to Berg and
Rietz‘s definition of PM, Strumpf states that PM utilize
the knowledge of a pool of individuals to help forecast
questions of importance to companies such as whether
a project will be completed in a timely manner or
whether a sales target will be reached (Abdel-Aal and
angoud, 2013). As both of the above definitions portray,
PM have built upon many of the conditions discussed by
Surowiecki and his peers, utilising the diversity of
wisdom that is available within a given gathered crowd.
As will be seen, there has been an ―exploding growth
of interest‖ in PM over the past two decades
(Tatziopoulos & Tziralis, 2007; Batchelor, et al, 2015)
with many major multinational businesses opting to
operate their own internal PM.
II. METHODS AND MATERIAL
A. The First Prediction Markets
PM were first introduced in a series of articles written by
Robin Hanson (1990a, 1990b, 1991, 1992) yet prior to
this in 1988 the earliest known application of PM, the
Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), were initiated. These