Investigating Crowdfunding Campaign Value Capture Strategy from the Consumer-based Perspective

Abstract

Knowledge about whether entrepreneurs’ backer-oriented actions help facilitate successful fundraising, and the mechanism behind it, is still limited. This study aims to mitigate this gap by exploring reward-based crowdfunding success through the consumer-based perspective (CBP). Using the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), we investigate how entrepreneurs’ backer-oriented behaviour influences potential backers’ information processing and changes their attitude towards campaigns. By analysing a unique dataset collected from China's largest reward-based crowdfunding platform, our empirical results demonstrate that an entrepreneur's backer-oriented behaviour and strength are positively associated with reward-based crowdfunding success. This paper provides a new angle to investigate reward-based crowdfunding success, emphasizing the importance of CBP during the fundraising stage. In addition to high-quality campaign content, entrepreneurs’ backer-oriented actions, such as answering questions and providing elaborate answers, are crucial in facilitating fundraising. The implications for future theory development, empirical research and crowdfunding practitioners are discussed.