How different Are crowdfunders? Examining archetypes of crowdfunders

Abstract

We unpack the complexities of the crowdfunder community by identifying different archetypes of crowdfunders funding technology projects on Kickstarter. com. Drawing on the extant literature on innovation adoption and opinion leadership, we propose two dimensions of crowdfunders that capture the heterogeneity in crowdfundersʼ behavior: opinion leadership and interest specialization of crowdfunders. Using a set of variables representing these two dimensions, our analysis revealed five distinct archetypes of crowdfunders: the Vocal Actives, the Silent Actives, the Focused Enthusiasts, the Trend Followers, and the Star Seekers, who each adopted distinct crowdfunding strategies. We established external and criterion-related validity of the cluster solutions in multiple ways. Our results suggest that the composition of crowdfunders is complex, even within a single platform.

Who sells knowledge online? An exploratory study of knowledge celebrities in China

“…Following prior research using LDA topic modeling (e.g. Geva et al , 2019; Lin and Boh, 2020), we set the Dirichlet hyperparameters, α = 0.1 and ß = 0.01 and the number of iterations to 1,000.…”

“…Sellers' performance may vary across different online identities. For instance, in the context of online crowdfunding, researchers found that crowdfunding projects' performance differed by the creator identity types and suggested platform operators attracting and promoting different project creators (Lin and Boh, 2020; Ryu and Kim, 2018). Although prior research suggests that sellers' identity signaling may predict their sales performance (Verbeke et al , 2011), how different online identities are related to sales performance has not been empirically studied.…”

“…However, in reality, they may deliberately adopt different public personae to capitalize on their unique value proposition (Li et al, 2016). Research on a crowdfunding marketplace shows that even among successful project creators, their performance varies across personal Knowledge celebrities in China identity types (Lin and Boh, 2020;Ryu and Kim, 2018). Nonetheless, there is no empirical investigation conducted in the context of knowledge celebrities.…”

The role of project owners' and potential backers' implicit social ties in crowdfunding project success

“…Finally, in another stream of the literature, scholars have examined project backers' role in crowdfunding project success. Some of these researchers have investigated backers' motivations for supporting crowdfunding projects (Baber and Fanea-Ivanovici, 2023;Bretschneider and Leimeister, 2017;B€ urger and Kleinert, 2021;Lin and Boh, 2020). Meanwhile, some scholars have studied backers' crowdfunding-related behaviors, such as herding behavior (Liu et al, 2015;Kim et al, 2020;Saxton and Wang, 2014) and funding decisions (Gleasure and Feller, 2018;Kromidha and Robson, 2016;Lin and Viswanathan, 2016).…”

“…The prior literature has shown that crowdfunding project success is associated with various factors related to the three different actors involved in crowdfunding (Efrat and Gilboa, 2020;Deng et al, 2022;Baber and Fanea-Ivanovici, 2023;Coakley et al, 2022). However, the authors of previous studies have mainly examined factors related to platforms, project owners, or project backers (Kl€ ohn, 2018;Clauss et al, 2018;Lin and Boh, 2020). Few researchers have yet examined crowdfunding project success through factors related to both project owners and backers, though such an approach could explain their different roles in depth.…”