Instrumental Crowdfunding as a Communication Innovation: When a Bank, a Non-Profit Organization and a Hotel Project Meet the Crowd

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of the theories and practice of crowdfunding. An in-depth literature review discusses relevant work on crowdfunding, its business models, and the type of actors. Next, a qualitative study focuses on an online campaign that assembled actors from the tourism, charity and banking worlds in Austria in 2015. Through this review and case study, the article analyzes the parameters linking actors, projects, and online crowdfunding operations. This analysis indicates that the practice of crowdfunding exists inside the increasingly blurred lines between e-commerce and financing, outside of the need for funds and the communication parameters that are conventionally viewed in the academic literature as an additional advantage to the use of crowdfunding. The case project exemplifies an instrumental version of crowdfunding centered on communication rather than on financing. These results provided further insights on the extant literature in the field of crowdfunding business models.