Crowdfunding technological innovations: Interaction between consumer benefits and rewards

Publication date: Available online 30 May 2018Source: TechnovationAuthor(s): Haisu Zhang, Weizhi ChenAbstractThis research aims to examine how consumer benefits stated in the project title and the number of rewards in the crowdfunding context interactively impact the number of backers and funding success for technological innovations. The authors collected data of 674 technological projects from kickstarter.com. Data collection was completed at two points of time, Time 1 (projects were still active) and Time 2 (funding periods were over). Findings between them were highly consistent. Two coding assignments were used. First, two independent raters assessed consumer benefits claimed in the project title; second, the research team coded the number of reward levels in each crowdfunding project and the number of rewards included in each reward level. In total, 134,492 rewards across 4509 reward levels were recorded. The authors find that the number of backers increases the likelihood of funding success. Additionally, consumer benefits increase the number of backers. The average number of rewards affects the number of backers in an inverted-U shape, and it also moderates the relationship between consumer benefits and the number of backers in an inverted-U shape.

Source: Technovation - July 11, 2018 Category: Science Source Type: research