What drives people to crowdfund movies and web series? The mediating role of perceived trust and risk

Abstract

The digital revolution has largely influenced the way of doing business, of financing projects, and even of producing creative-cultural goods. Crowdfunding has become a last resort for raising capital in filmmaking, which is a costly and risky endeavor. We investigate the intention to crowdfund movies and web series in exchange of a capital share. Using PLS-SEM, we analyzed the influence of inner innovativeness, economic value, financial projections and equity share on perceived trust and perceived risk; the two variables were further tested in relation to their influence on participation intention (N=432). We find that the perceived trust in the platform and project initiator has a positive influence on the intention to crowdfund, whereas the perceived risk has a negative influence. Trust is significantly dependent on inner innovativeness, on the economic value attached to the investment and on disclosed financial projections. However, equity share is seen as a risk generator, due to the downsides of equity-based crowdfunding, such as equity dilution and potential changes in management and control.