This research examines the influence of backers’ social networks on their backing behavior using data from a large social networking site and a reward-based crowdfunding platform. We distinguish the roles of nodes and ties in a backer’s social network and assess the combined and differential effects of these two types of social relationship on the backer’s pledge decisions. As backers have different motives for engaging in different crowdfunding campaigns, which range from commercially oriented technological innovation to community-based social development, we further examine how these effects differ between technology-oriented campaigns and social-oriented campaigns. We find that node-level factors (e.g., centrality) have a greater influence on technology-oriented campaigns than on social-oriented campaigns, while tie-level factors (e.g., embeddedness) have a stronger impact on social-oriented campaigns. Considering the two forms of embeddedness in tandem, we find that the effects of relational embeddedness on backers’ pledge decisions are not only moderated by structural embeddedness but also contingent on campaign type. These results offer important theoretical insights into the drivers of contribution, which should be considered by crowdfunding operators and campaign proponents seeking to stimulate contribution.

这项研究使用大型社交网站和基于奖励的众筹平台的数据，研究了支持者社交网络对其支持行为的影响。我们区分了支持者社交网络中节点和纽带的角色，并评估了这两种类型的社会关系对支持者质押决定的组合和不同的影响。由于支持者参与不同众筹活动的动机各不相同，从商业导向的技术创新到基于社区的社会发展，我们将进一步研究这些影响在技术导向的运动和社会导向的运动之间有何不同。我们发现，节点级别的因素（例如，中心性）对以技术为导向的运动的影响要大于对社会取向的运动，而关系层次的因素（例如，嵌入性）对面向社会的运动产生更大的影响。考虑到串联的两种形式的嵌入，我们发现关系嵌入对支持者的质押决策的影响不仅受到结构嵌入的影响，而且还取决于活动类型。这些结果为贡献的推动力提供了重要的理论见解，众筹运营商和寻求刺激贡献的竞选支持者应考虑这一点。