Abstract As a special type of social information systems, crowdfunding platforms draw researchers’ attention in recent years for their increasing popularity. In supplement to big-data analyses on user-generated content, behavioral research using survey and interview observations provide insights on why people like or hesitate to use such platforms. Nevertheless, extant studies focus on user intention and equity/reward-based projects, leaving the knowledge body on why people actually engage in donation-based crowdfunding underdeveloped. Based on Activity Theory, this study explores the critical success factors of crowdfunding in terms of website acceptance, crowd familiarity, and donation reciprocity. It then develops a research model that adapts relevant constructs from e-commerce and charitable behavior literature to predict user trust and readiness leading to actual donation. To test the hypothesized relationships, a structural equation modeling analysis was conducted on 744 survey responses collected from crowdfunding platform users in multiple countries. Results provide supporting evidence to most hypotheses and reveal the influential factors of technological utilization and social collaboration in the crowdfunding activity.

中文翻译：

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人们为什么光顾基于捐赠的众筹平台？关键成功因素的活动视角

摘要 众筹平台作为一种特殊的社会信息系统，近年来越来越受到研究者的关注。作为对用户生成内容的大数据分析的补充，使用调查和访谈观察的行为研究提供了人们为什么喜欢或犹豫使用此类平台的见解。然而，现有的研究集中在用户意图和基于股权/奖励的项目上，而关于人们为什么实际参与基于捐赠的众筹的知识体系不发达。本研究基于活动理论，从网站接受度、人群熟悉度和捐赠互惠性方面探讨了众筹成功的关键因素。然后开发了一个研究模型，该模型采用电子商务和慈善行为文献中的相关结构来预测用户对实际捐赠的信任和准备情况。为了测试假设的关系，对从多个国家的众筹平台用户收集的 744 份调查回复进行了结构方程建模分析。结果为大多数假设提供了支持证据，并揭示了众筹活动中技术利用和社会协作的影响因素。