61 The literature review provided grounding for the dissertation based on the observed literature found at the intersection between sustainability, innovation, and consumer (end-user) behavior:
later defined as SEI. This allowed for a structured delimitation of the dissertation from the broad SEI literature to sustainable crowdfunding. In order to tackle the lack of both adequate definitions and conceptual understanding of this phenomenon (see Mollick 2014), the dissertation then set out to conceptualize the process of crowdfunding from an organization perspective (see Table 6).
Table 6. Organizing the crowdfunding process: The co-dependent organization (Paper 2) Content
Purpose To define and conceptualize the process of crowdfunding from an organizational perspective.
Background
The phenomenon-driven and often article dependent approach to crowdfunding has resulted in a paucity of theory and overall definitions on what crowdfunding is and how it functions.
Methodology Conceptual arguments drawing on the literature on respectively crowdfunding and complete and partial organization
Findings
Crowdfunding could be conceived of as a “co-dependent organization” where the central organizing agent’s (the platforms’) reliance on external actors (founder campaigns and crowdfunders) has become so embedded that you can no longer organizationally discern them as separate.
Main contribution
To conceptualize and define crowdfunding within a larger theoretical discourse.
To observe how organizational theory can be utilized to explain emergent and fluid forms of organizing.
To observe how a disparate crowd can be mobilized to carry out core organizational competences.
Limitations
The paper is dependent on theory derived concepts and applies them to the phenomenon of crowdfunding in order to gauge its organization. It therefore lacks empirical foundation to support the conceptualized propositions.
Implications
The current phenomenon-driven approach to crowdfunding ignores the fluid co-dependencies inherent in the process and instead presents it as a stable collection of “things”. The “co-dependent” perspective, however, proposes that we must eventually ascertain how each component of the crowdfunding process shapes the other, if we are to better understand it.
Having delimited the focus of the dissertation and sought to conceptualize and define the process of crowdfunding from an organizational perspective, the dissertation then adopted the noted multimethod quantitative approach. It employed in Paper 3 a case study analysis of a longitudinal dataset (acquired on the reward-based crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo), while Paper 4 was a web-based experiment run in late 2016 that recreated a hypothetical crowdfunding
scenario. The case study dataset assumed a longitudinal time horizon in order to observe the distributive qualities of the innovation finance derived from the platform, while the web-based experiment was a between groups cross-sectional study of the US. Paper 3 is outlined in Table 7.
Table 7. Crowdfunding and institutional change: Towards re-institutionalization? (Paper 3) Content
Purpose To investigate the distributive qualities of crowdfunding in terms of access to innovation finance.
Background
Proponents of crowdfunding often argue that it has led to an expansion of innovation finance available to entrepreneurs enabling a broader range of persons and regions to benefit. The study explores this proposition longitudinally building on institutional change theory.
Methodology Quantitative – Longitudinal dataset – Geocoding – OLS and Logit Findings
Crowdfunding enables a diversity of actors and regions by offering increased access to innovation finance. However, there are also trends pointing towards increased clustering of resources around specific regions and actors.
Main contribution
The study finds that crowdfunding is enabling increased access to innovation finance. However it also observes an increased concentration of finance around certain geographic areas. It also shows that prior experience and success, team size, local affluence, and local social capital are strong predictors of campaign success.
Limitations
The study is limited to only IndieGoGo. While a significant reward-based crowdfunding platform, the study is therefore in no way representative. In addition the observations are broad characterizations, where campaign specific details and variations are lost.
Implications
If these dynamics of clustering around regions and individuals continue over time it could lead to a rich-get-richer dynamic, as the lion’s share of funding recipients come to be garnered by more professionalized campaigns in particular areas.
The case study of IndieGoGo was done in efforts to establish a macro-level descriptive understanding of the crowdfunding phenomenon and how it has evolved. Moreover the case study sought to identify some general antecedents of successful reward-based crowdfunding campaigns. The paper observes – in line with previous literature – that crowdfunding does appear to expand innovation finance access (see Agrawal et al. 2015; Sorenson et al. 2016), but it also revealed trends that point towards a (re)concentration of innovation finance, which has not been observed in the prior literature. Nonetheless there are some good indications that crowdfunding does enable new actors to gain access to innovation finance and hence at least in this regard offer some potential for sustainable entrepreneurship.
63 Having observed that crowdfunding does in some capacities result in an expanded access to innovation finance the final paper of the dissertation sought to explore the motivations of consumers to pledge towards specific campaigns. It explores how randomly assigned value frames embedded within product campaign descriptions influenced individual pledging behavior.
Specifically the paper uncovers whether consumers are attracted to campaigns that highlight a product’s egocentric values (what is in it for me), altruistic values (what is in it for others), or biospheric values (what is in it for the environment).
Table 8. Reward-based crowdfunding and sustainable entrepreneurship (Paper 4) Content
Purpose To empirically examine the causation between individual investment behavior and the (un)sustainability-orientation of the crowdfunding product campaign.
Background
A diversity of papers has sought to explore the correlation between the sustainability-orientation of the given campaign and subsequent chances of achieving funding success reaching competing conclusions. All of which indicates a need for new methods to be adopted that can effectively at observe causality.
Methodology Quantitative – Between groups cross-sectional study – Web-based experiment – Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression
Findings
All three value frame orientations (egocentric, altruistic, biospheric) have a significant but entangled effects on pledges.
Personal values in certain circumstances significantly impact pledging behavior.
Product specifics are significant predictors of which value frame orientations influence pledges; thus disentangling the prior entangled effects.
While altruistic and biospheric value frames do correlate as generally assumed, there are also examples where they diverge.
Main contribution
The paper observes that mono-causal conclusions on whether crowdfunding is an attractive proposition for sustainable entrepreneurs are misplaced. Instead it concludes that competing motivations, value orientations and most importantly product specific details play significant roles in determining whether crowdfunders are attracted to pledge in a sustainably-oriented campaign.
Limitations
The web-based experiment was hypothetical in nature and there may therefore be a component of social desirability that emerges from the data.
The sample is not 100 pct. representative of the US population.
Individual value orientations were collected on a one-dimensional Likert scale and therefore the possible trade-offs and opportunity costs which are typically associated with acting or choosing in an egocentric/altruistic/biospheric fashion may have been lost.
Implications
Crowdfunding appears for certain types of campaigns as an enabler of sustainable product and service innovation, while in other circumstances it appears to support hedonistically (or egocentrically) oriented campaigns.
In exploring the RQ – Under which conditions and to what extent can sustainable entrepreneurs with social and/or environmentally-oriented products draw benefit from reward-based crowdfunding? – each paper serves an individual standalone role with the larger dissertation, given its paper-based nature. The literature review serves to pace the dissertation within a larger stream of literature; the conceptual paper in turn serves to create a common language when addressing the phenomenon; and finally the two quantitative papers use this understanding as a means to take the first steps towards answering the RQ. However – and as noted in this chapter – each paper is limited both by the author’s(s’) own constraints and by the constraints of the theories and methods applied. Therefore an in line with the dissertation’s critical realist research philosophy these, insights are only initial ones that need to be replicated and tested using alternative theories and methods. Chapter 10 of the dissertation outlines areas considered worthwhile for future research.
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