Reward-based crowdfunding—a systematic literature review

Abstract

This literature review presents a systematic analysis of current theoretical and empirical research in reward-based crowdfunding. Our review combines 122 academic articles from January 2010 through October 2024 to determine the main factors that affect reward-based crowdfunding campaign success. In doing so, our review uses theoretical frameworks such as signaling theory, information asymmetry theory or social capital theory to organize success factors into four categories: campaign characteristics, campaign presentation, entrepreneur’s characteristics, and entrepreneur’s networks. Our findings show that crowdfunding campaigns achieve success through strategic implementation of quality signals such as videos and authentic narratives. Social capital networks that exist both within crowdfunding platforms and outside them create trust and establish legitimacy for entrepreneurial projects. Moreover, the success of crowdfunding campaigns depends on various entrepreneur-specific characteristics which include experience with crowdfunding, gender, race, and geographical location. Our study makes several contributions to the literature on crowdfunding: First, our paper identifies contradictory findings in crowdfunding studies and potential contextual factors. Second, our study offers practical insights for entrepreneurs on strategies that effectively attract backers in crowdfunding campaigns. Third, this literature review outlines promising directions for future research on reward-based crowdfunding.