IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/elcore/v25y2025i3d10.1007_s10660-023-09748-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Certified by social networks: the role of social certifications in medical crowdfunding

Author

Listed:
  • Wanting Hao

    (Renmin University of China)

  • Xianguo Li

    (Renmin University of China)

  • Fangliang Zhang

    (Guangxi University)

Abstract

Nowadays, medical crowdfunding platforms are faced with two challenges: the trustworthiness issue caused by inauthentic information provided by fundraisers and the trackability issue caused by insufficient information updates in the fundraising process. In the current research, we aim to examine the role of social certifications, a practice of turning fundraisers’ social networks into social certifiers of crowdfunding campaigns, in mitigating these two issues. By establishing a panel vector autoregression model based on data from a Chinese medical crowdfunding platform, we find that social certifications promote the contributing behavior of backers, mitigating the trustworthiness issue. At the same time, social certifications facilitate the information-updating behavior of fundraisers, alleviating the trackability issue. We also find that the diversity and professionalism of social certifiers strengthen the influences of social certifications on backers and fundraisers. Besides, fundraisers’ information-updating behavior promotes backers’ contributing behavior. The results have significant theoretical and practical implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Wanting Hao & Xianguo Li & Fangliang Zhang, 2025. "Certified by social networks: the role of social certifications in medical crowdfunding," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 1827-1864, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:elcore:v:25:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10660-023-09748-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10660-023-09748-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10660-023-09748-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10660-023-09748-8?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.

    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:spr:elcore:v:25:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10660-023-09748-8. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.