Crowdfunding: Is It About You or Is It About Me?

Research Questions The prevalence of the Internet has led firms and entrepreneurs to a new era of new product development. It allows them to reach out to the general public outside of the organizational boundary to obtain additional support, including innovative ideas (known as crowdsourcing) and financial resources (known as crowdfunding). In this research, we base our study on the context of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is defined as an open call over the Internet for financial resources in the form of monetary contribution, and those who offer project creators financial support are called backers. The conceptualization of crowdfunding suggests that such a behavior relies on the backer's voluntary funding decision on new projects either as donation or in exchange for rewards. Due to the voluntary nature, prior research has predominantly assumed that the intrinsic motivation of backers is to help others (e.g. the project creators), which is inherently rooted in altruism. However, in this research we contend that the backer's pledge to a new product development project does not necessarily rely on his or her altruistic intention to help others, but also is catalyzed by his or her self-interest, which is rooted in egoism. We suggest that such self-interest as feeling the power as a backer and gaining personal satisfaction also plays a key role in the backer's funding decision. In line with the altruism vs. egoism contrast in the literature, this research investigates two dimensions of intrinsic motivation: other-oriented and selforiented. Furthermore, we examine the relationship difference between men and women. H1: The backer's other-oriented motivation is positively related to likelihood of pledging money to a crowdfunding project. H2: The backer's self-oriented motivation is positively related to likelihood of pledging money to a crowdfunding project. H3: The backer's self-oriented motivation has a stronger positive effect than his or her other-oriented motivation on likelihood of pledging money to a crowdfunding project. H4: The relationship between other-oriented motivation and likelihood of pledging money to a crowdfunding project is stronger for women than men. H5: The relationship between self-oriented motivation and likelihood of pledging money to a crowdfunding project is stronger for men than women. Method and Data The authors conducted three studies to examine the hypotheses. Summary of Findings Results show that while other-oriented motivation was not related to likelihood of backing, the effect of self-oriented motivation was significant. Thus, H1 is not supported but H2 is supported. We ran a t-test to compare the two coefficients. Results show that the two coefficients were significantly different, supporting H3. Furthermore, the interaction of otheroriented motivation and sex was positively associated with likelihood of backing; the interaction of self-oriented motivation and sex was negatively associated with likelihood of backing. Hence, H4 and H5 are supported. Key Contributions A main function of marketing is segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Using this concept, project creators on crowdfunding platforms should learn to recognize potential targets and attract backers, and position projects in an effective way to obtain financial resources. To explore this phenomenon, our research emphasizes the importance of motivational differences between men and women in the backing behavior. Most prior innovation literature focuses on personality-motivation effects in new product development. When considering the crowdfunding industry and motivation studies, existing studies have been limited. This research attempts to investigate the emerging crowdfunding industry by examining intrinsic motivation and the moderating role of sex. Our results confirm and extend the theoretical concept of the effectiveness of self-benefit and other-benefit marketing appeals. Furthermore, this research explores motivation in a gender-specific norm in crowdfunding practice. In contrast to some findings that other-benefit appeals are more effective than self-benefit appeals for certain consumer behavior, this research leads to an opposite perspective that selforiented motivation is much more effective in crowdfunding practice. Applying to marketing tactics in crowdfunding practice, a notable implication of this research is the importance of messages delivered to potential backers. To attract more visitors and backers, a male-preferred (e.g., sports and video game) can use more self-oriented appeal to arouse psychological need for self-recognition. On the other hand, female-preferred projects (e.g., cooking and fashion) can rely on more other-oriented motivation by reinforcing the need of helping others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]