External supports in reward-based crowdfunding campaigns

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss some drivers which can promote reward-based crowdfunding campaigns and then compare their effects on two categories of cultural and creative projects. Design/methodology/approach The authors first distinguished the roles of “intrinsic qualities” and “external supports” in crowdfunding campaigns. Then based on the theories of reward-based crowdfunding, impression management and social capital, a research model was built to discuss the effects of external supports and a comparative study was conducted by using data collected from Kickstarter.com. Findings It indicates that the three dimensions of external supports (reward support, impression support, and relationship support) have positive effects on film and video and publishing projects. Besides, the authors also found that “category of a project” can moderate the relationship between impression support and crowdfunding performance. The effect of impression support on visual works is different from that on printed works. Research limitations/implications These findings not only prove that external supports actually play an important role in crowdfunding campaigns, but also reveal that for different categories of cultural and creative crowdfunding projects, the effects of external supports are different. Some other theoretical and practical implications are also provided. Originality/value This research reveals some details about the important role of external supports in crowdfunding campaigns and compares their effects on different categories of cultural and creative projects. It can provide useful suggestions for improving reward-based crowdfunding performance.

Social Consciousness and Perceived Risk as Drivers of Crowdfunding as a Socially Responsible Investment in Tourism

“…Reward-based crowdfunding is the model most employed in tourism, comprising the largest number of online platforms that post this kind of projects (Bao and Huang 2017; Beier and Wagner 2015; Z. Wang, Li, and Law 2015). These platforms facilitate access to an internal social capital made up of thousands of potential crowdfunders and encourage the generation of social awareness related to the project.…”

Filmmaking and Crowdfunding: A Right Match?

“…The items included in the questionnaire represent the result of distillation and synthesis of the literature review, especially concerning the types of rewards, the main benefits of using crowdfunding, the main barriers to its development and the main factors to take into account when creating a filmmaking crowdfunding campaign [6,7,12,[20][21][22][23]28,29,32,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. Therefore, the questionnaire has a solid scientific basis, building on the extant literature review and theoretical approaches.…”

“…However, the experts included in the survey were not all professionals, the authors including film students among the respondents as well. Financial sustainability of creative-cultural industries through crowdfunding is also advocated by other authors [23,24].…”

Crowdfunding

“…Second, external social capital is developed outside crowdfunding platforms or in other third-party social network websites. Closer relationships, like family and friends or personal acquaintances in the real world, had supported the internal social capital and other relationships from resources embedded in crowdfunding platforms, such as the social relationships developed and communities established through crowdfunding platforms supported the external social capital (Bao & Huang, 2017;Kendall, 2014). It can be seen that, compared to most other sources of entrepreneurial financing, crowdfunding has the advantage of getting financial support from platforms.…”