The first, which is most prominent in economics-related disciplines, management sciences, and marketing, sees crowdfunding as a potential alternative means for citizens and businesses to fund projects. Numerous works use mathematical models from microeconomics to analyze various players’ interests in using crowdfunding (Belleflamme et al. 2014). Such strategic and economic (Belleflamme et al. 2015) interests are also present in articles that emphasize the importance for companies of integrating crowdfunding as a specific tool within company strategy (Bessière and Stephany 2014; Berg Grell et al. 2015). In fact, crowdfunding makes it possible to outsource tasks and to reduce the need for fundraising and investment. However, according to Belleflamme et al. (2012), nonprofit organizations are more successful at raising funds than for-profit companies: a smaller interest in profitability supposedly increases the chance of a successful campaign. Lambert and Schweinbacher (2010) make the same observation but give a diferent possible explanation: within the crowdfunding framework, companies are more inclined to concentrate on the quality of their product or service rather than seeking profit. Another contribution by Belleflamme et al. (2014) focuses on crowdfunding as a pre-sales system, demonstrating the emergence of a threshold beyond which crowdfunding becomes less viable than classical financing with a single investor. They also show the importance of the benefits generated through ‘community building’ during crowdfunding campaigns. These benefits (whose value is above all ‘informational’ and ‘communicational’) can be seen as a way to validate original ideas with a specially targeted audience.
The second category of literature, which we will mention only briefly here, is concerned with problems of national and international legislation stemming from the extension of crowdfunding to all economic sectors. In the United States, Barack Obama’s 2012 Jobs Act provided for regulated financial exchanges through these platforms, and also allowed them to extend their activities—for example, by ofering equity or investment in companies (Cunningham 2012). Since 2013, numerous European countries have also adopted legislation aimed both at regulating these funding methods and allowing their potential expansion to other economic sectors (Dushnitsky et al. 2016).
The third category of literature focuses on understanding the motivations of project creators and backers. For a number of scholars (Gerber and Hui 2013; Yang, Bhattacharya and Jiang 2014; Choy and Schlagwein 2016; Ryu and Kim 2016), motivations are analyzed according to models developed by behaviourist psychology, such as the work of Ryan and Deci (2000). These last identify intrinsic motivations (pertaining to the individual) and show that motivations vary from one person to another according to specific contexts (extrinsic motivations). References to this approach in research on crowdfunding aim to show what entices people to take part and contribute financially, in order to optimise campaigns and indicate what strategies should be pursued by project carriers. The work of Ethan Mollick (2015) uses econometric methods to analyze the practices of project creators on Kickstarter, and the factors involved in their success or failure. Interestingly, he notes the importance of signals about the quality and preparedness of the project and its creators: teaser videos, updates on the progress of the project, the size of the team and their presence on digital networks—all of which involve implementing ‘signalling’ strategies. He also notes a positive correlation between the creative output of a geographical area and the success of a campaign. This importance of geography can also be seen in the significant territorial diferences in the number of projects proposed and funded, in variations in the themes proposed, and in motivations associated with proximity (Agrawal et al. 2010; Le Béchec et al. 2017).
Introduction
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