Crowdfunding revisited: a neo-institutional field-perspective

Crowdfunding, which relies on the aggregated financial power of the many non-institutionalised individuals, who pledge small amounts is seen in the literature as a particularly well-suited form of entrepreneurial finance. A reason for this may be that the investment decisions are more based on the value propositions of a venture than on purely financial factors. Yet, the communication and translation of the value propositions of a venture into various cultural and regulatory contexts requires specialised services and joint efforts. These services are enabled by so-called Crowdfunding Platforms (CFPs) which provide the necessary tools and services. However, they also influence and potentially limit the field through their actions. Applying an institutional field-perspective in order to gain more holistic insights on the interplay between structure and agents, we revise the originally proposed model developed in our 2013 article in Venture Capital based on an extensive update of the literature and provide new insights from additional empirical cases to triangulate the recent scholarly contributions. We finally enhance theory on crowdfunding on an institutional field-level with a better conceptualization of the interconnectedness between actors and their activities, as well as their positions and links within the structure and crowdfunding platforms as powerful central actors.