ABSTRACT

Rewards-based crowdfunding presents an information asymmetry for participants due to the funding mechanism used. Campaign-backers trust creators to complete projects and deliver rewards as outlined prior to the fundraising process, but creators may discover better opportunities as they progress with a project. Despite this, the all-or-nothing (AON) mechanism on crowdfunding platforms incentivizes creators to set meager funding-targets that are easier to achieve but may offer limited slack when creators wish to simultaneously pursue emerging opportunities later in the project. We explore the related issues of how funding targets seem to be selected by the creators, and how dissatisfaction with the rewards outcomes may arise for the backers. We constructed a quasi-experimental (QE) research design based on an extensive dataset from Kickstarter with nearly 390,000 campaigns. Our findings show that creators who set particularly meager funding-targets for their campaigns are more likely to receive sufficient funds but are less likely to satisfy backers with the project outcomes they deliver. We also test the moderating roles of creator and campaign characteristics. Overall, this study provides evidence that the funding mechanism used in rewards-based crowdfunding may be unsustainable in its current form, unless new mechanisms are introduced to realign the diverging incentives for creators and backers.

摘要

由于所使用的资金机制，基于奖励的众筹给参与者带来了信息不对称。竞选支持者信任创作者在筹款过程之前完成项目并提供奖励，但创作者可能会在项目进展过程中发现更好的机会。尽管如此，众筹平台上的全有或全无 (AON) 机制激励创作者设定更容易实现的微薄资金目标，但当创作者希望在项目后期同时追求新兴机会时，可能会提供有限的松懈。我们探讨了创作者如何选择资助目标的相关问题，以及支持者如何对奖励结果产生不满。我们构建了一个准实验(QE)研究设计基于来自 Kickstarter 的广泛数据集，其中包含近 390,000 个活动。我们的研究结果表明，为其活动设定的资金目标特别少的创作者更有可能获得足够的资金，但不太可能让他们提供的项目成果让支持者满意。我们还测试了创作者和活动特征的调节作用。总体而言，这项研究提供的证据表明，以奖励为基础的众筹中使用的资助机制在当前形式下可能不可持续，除非引入新机制来重新调整对创作者和支持者的不同激励。