IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbvent/v32y2017i1p72-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does my contribution to your crowdfunding project matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Kuppuswamy, Venkat
  • Bayus, Barry L.

Abstract

In this study, we consider the dynamics of crowdfunding project support over time. We propose that people support crowdfunding projects financially when they believe that their contribution will make an impact. Because perceptions of impact are positively related to goal proximity, we predict that support for a crowdfunding project will increase as the project funding approaches its target goal. In addition, because motivation decreases after a goal is attained, we further predict that crowdfunding contributions will significantly decrease after the target goal is reached. We find strong support for these hypotheses from a large-scale field study involving Kickstarter. Furthermore, we show that several factors related to the expected impact moderate the effects of goal proximity; that is, the positive effect of goal proximity on project support is accentuated if the project is nearing its funding deadline, if the target goal is relatively small, or if the project has limited early support.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuppuswamy, Venkat & Bayus, Barry L., 2017. "Does my contribution to your crowdfunding project matter?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 72-89.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:32:y:2017:i:1:p:72-89
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2016.10.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883902616302075
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2016.10.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1999. "Distribution-free estimation of some nonlinear panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 77-97, May.
    2. Massimo G. Colombo & Chiara Franzoni & Cristina Rossi–Lamastra, 2015. "Internal Social Capital and the Attraction of Early Contributions in Crowdfunding," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(1), pages 75-100, January.
    3. Ethan Mollick & Ramana Nanda, 2016. "Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1533-1553, June.
    4. Mento, Anthony J. & Steel, Robert P. & Karren, Ronald J., 1987. "A meta-analytic study of the effects of goal setting on task performance: 1966-1984," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 52-83, February.
    5. Grant, Adam M. & Campbell, Elizabeth M. & Chen, Grace & Cottone, Keenan & Lapedis, David & Lee, Karen, 2007. "Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 53-67, May.
    6. John A. List, 2011. "The Market for Charitable Giving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 157-180, Spring.
    7. John Antonakis & Samuel Bendahan & Philippe Jacquart & Rafael Lalive, 2010. "On making causal claims : A review and recommendations," Post-Print hal-02313119, HAL.
    8. Ajay Agrawal & Christian Catalini & Avi Goldfarb, 2015. "Crowdfunding: Geography, Social Networks, and the Timing of Investment Decisions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 253-274, June.
    9. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    10. Ran Kivetz & Oleg Urminsky & Yuhuang Zheng, 2006. "The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention," Natural Field Experiments 00658, The Field Experiments Website.
    11. Mollick, Ethan, 2014. "The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16.
    12. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    13. Thomas H. Allison & Blakley C. Davis & Jeremy C. Short & Justin W. Webb, 2015. "Crowdfunding in a Prosocial Microlending Environment: Examining the Role of Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Cues," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(1), pages 53-73, January.
    14. Cryder, Cynthia E. & Loewenstein, George & Scheines, Richard, 2013. "The donor is in the details," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 15-23.
    15. Gordon Burtch & Anindya Ghose & Sunil Wattal, 2013. "An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Contribution Patterns in Crowd-Funded Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 499-519, September.
    16. Duncan, Brian, 2004. "A theory of impact philanthropy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2159-2180, August.
    17. Jenni, Karen E & Loewenstein, George, 1997. "Explaining the "Identifiable Victim Effect."," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 235-257, May-June.
    18. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    19. Aknin, Lara B. & Dunn, Elizabeth W. & Whillans, Ashley V. & Grant, Adam M. & Norton, Michael I., 2013. "Making a difference matters: Impact unlocks the emotional benefits of prosocial spending," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 90-95.
    20. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    21. Minjung Koo & Ayelet Fishbach, 2012. "The Small-Area Hypothesis: Effects of Progress Monitoring on Goal Adherence," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 493-509.
    22. Juanjuan Zhang & Peng Liu, 2012. "Rational Herding in Microloan Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 892-912, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikolaus Lipusch & Dominik Dellermann & Ulrich Bretschneider & Philipp Ebel & Jan Marco Leimeister, 2020. "Designing for Crowdfunding Co-creation," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 62(6), pages 483-499, December.
    2. Andreas Hoegen & Dennis M. Steininger & Daniel Veit, 2018. "How do investors decide? An interdisciplinary review of decision-making in crowdfunding," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 28(3), pages 339-365, August.
    3. Philipp B. Cornelius & Bilal Gokpinar, 2020. "The Role of Customer Investor Involvement in Crowdfunding Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 452-472, January.
    4. Chan, C.S. Richard & Parhankangas, Annaleena & Sahaym, Arvin & Oo, Pyayt, 2020. "Bellwether and the herd? Unpacking the u-shaped relationship between prior funding and subsequent contributions in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    5. Thomas Clauss & Thomas Niemand & Sascha Kraus & Patrick Schnetzer & Alexander Brem, 2019. "Increasing Crowdfunding Success Through Social Media: The Importance Of Reach And Utilisation In Reward-Based Crowdfunding," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(03), pages 1-30, May.
    6. Zaggl, Michael A. & Block, Joern, 2019. "Do small funding amounts lead to reverse herding? A field experiment in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 12(C).
    7. Yan Lin & Wai Fong Boh, 2020. "How different Are crowdfunders? Examining archetypes of crowdfunders," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(11), pages 1357-1370, November.
    8. Mingchun Chen & Zhiying Liu & Chaoliang Ma & Xiuyuan Gong, 2021. "A distinctive early bird price in reward-based crowdfunding," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 347-370, June.
    9. Aurélien Petit & Peter Wirtz, 2022. "Experts in the crowd and their influence on herding in reward-based crowdfunding of cultural projects," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 419-449, January.
    10. Friedemann Polzin & Helen Toxopeus & Erik Stam, 2018. "The wisdom of the crowd in funding: information heterogeneity and social networks of crowdfunders," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 251-273, February.
    11. Mohammadi, Ali & Shafi, Kourosh, 2015. "The contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors: Gender, Risk aversion and Observational learning," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 419, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    12. Yoo, Jenny Jeongeun & Song, Sangyoung & Jhang, Jihoon, 2022. "Overhead aversion and facial expressions in crowdfunding," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    13. Tanja Jovanović, 2019. "Crowdfunding: What Do We Know So Far?," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(01), pages 1-25, February.
    14. Hossain Mokter & Oparaocha Gospel Onyema, 2017. "Crowdfunding: Motives, Definitions, Typology and Ethical Challenges," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-14, April.
    15. Marco Bade & Martin Walther, 2021. "Local preferences and the allocation of attention in equity-based crowdfunding," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(8), pages 2501-2533, November.
    16. Ali Mohammadi & Kourosh Shafi, 2018. "Gender differences in the contribution patterns of equity-crowdfunding investors," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 275-287, February.
    17. Boudreau, Kevin J. & Jeppesen, Lars Bo & Reichstein, Toke & Rullani, Francesco, 2021. "Crowdfunding as Donations to Entrepreneurial Firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    18. Zvilichovsky, David & Danziger, Shai & Steinhart, Yael, 2018. "Making-the-Product-Happen: A Driver of Crowdfunding Participation," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 81-93.
    19. Ajay Agrawal & Christian Catalini & Avi Goldfarb & Hong Luo, 2018. "Slack Time and Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1056-1073, December.
    20. Yuho Chung & Yiwei Li & Jianmin Jia, 2021. "Exploring embeddedness, centrality, and social influence on backer behavior: the role of backer networks in crowdfunding," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 925-946, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:32:y:2017:i:1:p:72-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusvent .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.