Skin in the game: Self-funding and reward crowdfunding success

Liang Zhao, Rotem Shneor and Zhe Sun

Business Horizons, 2022, vol. 65, issue 1, 89-100

Abstract: This article focuses on entrepreneurs’ self-funding behavior in the reward crowdfunding context and its relation to crowdfunding success. Theoretically anchoring our discussion in signaling theory, we argue that self-funding sends similar information to that conveyed by quick-fix bootstrapping efforts. Accordingly, we hypothesize that self-funding behavior is positively associated with crowdfunding success as it can help alleviate uncertainties around a fundraiser’s intent and quality as perceived by prospective backers. To show this, we use a sample of 1,583 campaigns collected from Zhongchou, the largest Chinese reward-based crowdfunding platform, to test our hypotheses. Our results demonstrate that entrepreneurs' direct self-funding is positively associated with crowdfunding success. Moreover, this effect is partially mediated by the quality of campaigns’ content elements.

Keywords: Self-funding; Crowdfunding success; Signaling theory; Reward crowdfunding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681321001920
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:65:y:2022:i:1:p:89-100

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2021.09.007

Access Statistics for this article

Business Horizons is currently edited by C. M. Dalton

More articles in Business Horizons from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().