Unpacking the Antecedents of Crowdfunding Campaign’s Success: The Effects of Social Media and Innovation Orientation

Abstract

We applied a capabilities view as the theoretical underpinning to investigate the integrative role of orientation (IO) and the strategic use of social media (SSM) on a firm’s crowdfunding campaign success (CFS). We suggest that IO promotes a firm’s ability to succeed with crowdfunding campaigns, and that this relationship is mediated by the SSM. To check our contentions, we surveyed professionals from 322 firms that conducted crowdfunding campaigns. For IO and SSM, we used preexisting scales, while for CFS we created and validated our own seven‐item scale. We found that IO alone does not fully account for CFS, but rather its effect is based on a firm’s ability to SSM. Our findings contribute to the literature on strategic entrepreneurship, media strategy, and public policy.

Notes

Chan and Parhankangas (2017, p. 237) state, “Because crowdfunding campaigns characterized by greater incremental innovativeness are more comprehensible and generate more user value for typical crowdfunders, incremental innovativeness may result in more favorable funding outcomes. By comparison, campaigns that feature greater radical innovativeness are riskier to develop, harder for crowdfunders to understand and result in less favorable funding outcomes. This negative effect of radical innovativeness may be mitigated by incremental innovativeness, which may help crowdfunders to understand and appreciate radical innovativeness more.”

Wright and Hinson’s 2012 survey found that Facebook was accessed by 80 percent of public relations practitioners, followed by Twitter at 73 percent and YouTube at 52 percent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Avimanyu (avi) Datta

The authors would like to thank Brandon Gustafson and Michael Howard for their insights on the earlier versions of this manuscript.

All authors contributed equally to this work.

Avimanyu (Avi) Datta is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the College of Business, Illinois State University.

Arvin Sahaym

Arvin Sahaym is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship, Washington State University.

Stoney Brooks

Stoney Brooks is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University.