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This chapter critically reflects on current crowdfunding research and practice while highlighting eight dilemmas that are expected to shape the future of crowdfunding. Each dilemma is critically discussed and is followed by relevant suggestions for future research. These dilemmas include: (1) the balance between idealism and pragmatism; (2) the extent of cooperation between crowdfunding platforms and traditional financial institutions; (3) measurement of crowdfunding success and performance in financial and socio-economic terms; (4) the balance between quantity and quality in campaigns approved for publication by platforms; (5) domestic versus international growth of crowdfunding platforms; (6) manoeuvring between facilitation of collective decisions as crowd wisdom while avoiding crowd madness, as well as intentional and unintentional harmful crowd behaviour; (7) the focus of platforms’ technological developments in terms of efficiency gains versus community support; and (8) the balance between informing the public and constraining our understanding of crowdfunding in educational efforts.

The chapter introduces the phenomenon of crowdfunding while presenting its definition and main manifestations in recent years. It then discusses the roles played by the various parties to a crowdfunding transaction, as well as the benefits each may gain from such engagement. Overall, it argues for a win-win situation, where all parties become better off from involvement in a responsible crowdfunding engagement. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the process dimension of crowdfunding, as represented through a series of three main stages, which are further specified into a seven sub-stage model. Each stage in the process depends on successful completion of the stage preceding it and relates to concrete activities and considerations that should be taken at different points in time. The chapter concludes with a review of the chapter contributions included in this book and highlights their main contributions.

The article departs from empirical studies of two competitive firms in an organisationally thin region in Norway. The main question in the article is how these firms have achieved global competitiveness. The article focuses its inquiry on how the firms organise their innovation activity, giving special attention to the firms' organisational learning and absorptive capacity. It is found that find that workplace learning enables the firms to utilise knowledge in uncommon ways. The learning rests on specific organisational traits in the firms, such as broad participation, long-term on-the-job training, the use of practice-based knowledge in innovation projects, and links to national and global knowledge sources. The characteristics of thin regions indicate that these traits make up a generally applicable strategy in such regions.

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