Crowdfunding: A Theory-Centered Review and Roadmap of the Multidisciplinary Literature

Abstract

Crowdfunding is a relatively nascent, rapidly growing phenomenon whereby individuals or ventures pursue funding from a potentially large number of backers via the Internet. This rapidly emerging literature invites a variety of conceptual lenses and offers significant potential to advance theoretical understanding of important organizational activities, such as how entrepreneurs and organizations are evaluated by external stakeholders or how the crowdfunding process shapes the strategic decisions of emerging organizations. Our integrative review seeks to discover how the extant body of crowdfunding research challenges, extends, and contributes to the theoretical understanding of management and organizational phenomena and how these insights might drive further theoretical advancement. To do so, we inductively identify ten dominant topics that span the crowdfunding landscape across disciplines (268 articles) and synthesize the major findings within each topic based on relevant theoretical concepts. In doing so, we highlight how each topic area has applied and advanced various organizational theories. We then leverage the ten topics to articulate opportunities for future research uncovered by our review that provide potential contributions to theories germane to the management literature and to guide the next decade of crowdfunding research.

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https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063251328267
Journal of Management
Vol. XX No. X, Month XXXX 1 –54
DOI: 10.1177/01492063251328267
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Crowdfunding: A Theory-Centered Review and
Roadmap of the Multidisciplinary Literature
Stephanie B. Escudero
Colorado State University
Aaron H. Anglin
Thomas H. Allison
Texas Christian University
Marcus T. Wolfe
University of North Texas
Crowdfunding is a relatively nascent, rapidly growing phenomenon whereby individuals or
ventures pursue funding from a potentially large number of backers via the Internet. This rap-
idly emerging literature invites a variety of conceptual lenses and offers significant potential to
advance theoretical understanding of important organizational activities, such as how entrepre-
neurs and organizations are evaluated by external stakeholders or how the crowdfunding pro-
cess shapes the strategic decisions of emerging organizations. Our integrative review seeks to
discover how the extant body of crowdfunding research challenges, extends, and contributes to
the theoretical understanding of management and organizational phenomena and how these
insights might drive further theoretical advancement. To do so, we inductively identify ten
dominant topics that span the crowdfunding landscape across disciplines (268 articles) and
synthesize the major findings within each topic based on relevant theoretical concepts. In doing
so, we highlight how each topic area has applied and advanced various organizational theories.
We then leverage the ten topics to articulate opportunities for future research uncovered by our
review that provide potential contributions to theories germane to the management literature
and to guide the next decade of crowdfunding research.
Keywords: crowdfunding; entrepreneurial finance; organizational theory
Supplemental material for this article is available with the manuscript on the JOM website.
Stephanie B. Escudero is now affiliated to Colorado State University.
Corresponding author: Stephanie B. Escudero, Department of Management, Colorado State University, USA.
E-mail: s.b.escudero@colostate.edu
1328267JOMXXX10.1177/01492063251328267Journal of Management / Month XXXXEscudero et al. / Crowdfunding
review-article2025

2 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Introduction
Crowdfunding involves financing a project, social cause, or venture—typically via an
online platform—with the combined contributions of several individual financial backers
(i.e., “the crowd”). Since crowdfunding’s emergence in the 1990s, it has become a prominent
means to launch and grow new ventures, channel resources to impoverished business owners
around the world, test product viability, and fund the arts—often benefiting numerous indi-
viduals or organizations that might not otherwise have access to funding (Anglin, Courtney,
& Allison, 2022a; Colombo, 2021; Greenberg & Mollick, 2017). For scholars, the public
accessibility of crowdfunding platforms grants visibility into facets of venture formation
including resource acquisition, product creation, and strategy formation that are often hidden
from view. Such accessibility has enabled crowdfunding research to flourish. Indeed, our
search of premier business outlets revealed 268 crowdfunding articles, generating over
49,000 Google Scholar citations, with 201 of these articles published within the last five
years. This rapidly emerging literature invites a variety of conceptual lenses and offers sig-
nificant potential to advance theoretical understanding of important organizational activities,
such as how entrepreneurs and organizations are evaluated by external stakeholders or how
the crowdfunding process shapes the strategic decisions of emerging organizations.
Because of its versatility in addressing a variety of research questions, crowdfunding has
become a focus of inquiry across a range of research traditions including entrepreneurship
(e.g., Anglin, Short, Drover, Stevenson, McKenny, & Allison, 2018a), strategic management
(e.g., Schweisfurth, Schöttl, Raasch, & Zaggl, 2023), organizational behavior (e.g., Li, Chen,
Kotha, & Fisher, 2017), information systems (e.g., Burtch & Chan, 2019), marketing (e.g.,
Xiang, Zhang, Tao, Wang, & Ma, 2019), among other disciplines. For example, in the entre-
preneurship and innovation literature, signaling theory has been pivotal in exploring how
crowdfunding campaigners convey trustworthiness and signal potential success to backers
(Scheaf, Davis, Webb, Coombs, Borns, & Holloway, 2018). In contrast, scholars in other
management sub-disciplines often adopt an institutional perspective (DiMaggio & Powell,
1983), examining how campaigner behaviors are shaped by the norms and expectations
unique to the crowdfunding environment (e.g., Taeuscher, Bouncken, & Pesch, 2021). This
work reveals how crowdfunding challenges traditional notions of legitimacy (e.g., Soublière
& Gehman, 2020) and regulatory requirements (e.g., Berkowitz & Souchaud, 2019).
Meanwhile, marketing scholars take a consumer-focused lens, framing crowdfunding as a
marketplace that offers insights into consumer behavior, rather than merely a tool for fund-
raising (Maciel & Weinberger, 2024). Different still, operations and information systems
scholars focus on the risks embedded in crowdfunding’s design, such as moral hazards
(Belavina, Marinesi, & Tsoukalas, 2020), fraud (Siering, Koch, & Deokar, 2016), project
failure (Yang, Wang, & Hahn, 2020), and regulatory uncertainty (Kim, Park, Pan, Zhang, &
Zhang, 2022).
For a phenomena as multidisciplinary as crowdfunding, an integrative literature review
is valuable to identify how crowdfunding intersects with and contributes to theoretical
frameworks commonly used in organizational research, ensuring that scientific knowledge
advances in well-thought-out directions. This sort of review effort serves as both a comple-
ment and a contrast to prior research in two key ways. First, prior crowdfunding reviews
often adopt relatively narrow perspectives, precluding them from providing a holistic
understanding of the crowdfunding phenomenon. For example, prior reviews have

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 3
examined questions surrounding success factors for a particular crowdfunding model (e.g.,
rewards-based, Alhammad, Tan, Alsarhani, & Zolkepli, 2022; equity-based, Mazzocchini
& Lucarelli, 2022; debt-based, Martínez-Climent, Zorio-Grima, & Ribeiro-Soriano, 2018)
or crowdfunding for a specific purpose such as sustainable development (Böckel, Hörisch,
& Tenner, 2021) or cultural heritage (Jelinčić & Šveb, 2021). Others have addressed
crowdfunding to a limited extent as one of many early-stage funding options (e.g.,
Colombo, 2021; Drover, Busenitz, Matusik, Townsend, Anglin, & Dushnitsky, 2017).
Second, there has been limited effort to evaluate the implications of crowdfunding research
for broader organizational theory. Only one review has focused on crowdfunding’s rein-
forcement of and contribution to organizational theory; however, because it took place
shortly after the literature’s inception, it missed the massive surge of crowdfunding studies
in the last 5 years (Alegre & Moleskis, 2016). (For a discussion of prior reviews please see
Appendix A and Table 1a.) In contrast, our review is both comprehensive and theory
driven. Specifically, we ask the questions: 1) How does the extant body of crowdfunding
research challenge, extend, and contribute to the theoretical understanding of manage-
ment and organizational phenomena? and 2) How can crowdfunding spur further advance-
ment to the theoretical understanding of management and organizational phenomena? By
synthesizing research across diverse dimensions of crowdfunding—spanning business dis-
ciplines and crowdfunding models—we provide a broad perspective that integrates find-
ings. Additionally, our review emphasizes the applications and extensions of organizational
theory within the crowdfunding context. This approach not only situates crowdfunding
research within established theoretical frameworks but also identifies opportunities for
advancing these frameworks in light of crowdfunding phenomena.
Our review is also motivated by crowdfunding’s growing societal and scholarly relevance,
which underscores the timeliness of this review. Crowdfunding gained substantial traction
during the 2008–2010 recession, providing a vital lifeline for entrepreneurs and small busi-
nesses when traditional funding sources were constrained (InfraShares, 2020). This period
set the stage for initial crowdfunding research. Since then, several converging factors have
propelled and enhanced academic engagement with crowdfunding research. Technological
advancements, such as blockchain and AI, have improved the efficiency and security of
crowdfunding platforms, making them more attractive to users and researchers alike (e.g.,
Gan, Tsoukalas, & Netessine, 2021). Additionally, regulatory changes, notably the JOBS Act
in the United States (McKenny, Allison, Ketchen, Short, & Ireland, 2017; Short, Ketchen,
McKenny, Allison, & Ireland, 2017), have expanded the opportunities for equity crowdfund-
ing, driving scholarly exploration of its impacts and mechanisms (e.g., Wang, Mahmood,
Sismeiro, & Vulkan, 2019). Moreover, the global expansion of crowdfunding platforms has
opened new markets, prompting studies on cultural and regulatory differences in crowdfund-
ing practices (e.g., Lewis, Cordero, & Xiong, 2021). These developments have enhanced
academic engagement, creating an increasingly rich environment for theoretical exploration
(Pollack, Maula, Allison, Renko, & Günther, 2021).
Our review provides three major contributions. First, we offer a comprehensive overview
of the crowdfunding literature focusing on the theoretical advancement of organizational
knowledge provided by crowdfunding research. We examine research published in premier
business outlets from the inception of this research area. Through an inductive process
(detailed below), we conduct a qualitative thematic analysis (e.g., Anglin, Kincaid, Short, &
Allen, 2022b; Rietveld & Schilling, 2021; Shepherd, Souitaris, & Gruber, 2021), identifying

4 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
and summarizing ten dominant topics prevalent throughout our sample. These topics are
organized within four overarching domains reflective of the crowdfunding landscape: (1)
campaign, (2) campaigner, (3) backer, and (4) environment. This organizational framework
provides a structured, useful way to understand the literature, consistent with how crowd-
funding operates in practice while highlighting how different topics and domains intercon-
nect and where they sit in relation to each other. Second, we evaluate how each topic identified
in our review engages with and progresses theoretical perspectives in organizational research,
highlighting crowdfunding’s diverse theoretical contributions as well as inconclusive find-
ings and emerging areas of opportunity. Third, we present a forward-looking research agenda.
We identify pathways for future studies to deepen our understanding of the crowdfunding
phenomenon and its theoretical implications. For instance, we highlight opportunities to
expand on theories such as institutional theory, signaling theory, and theories of persuasion.
In sum, given the trajectory of crowdfunding research in recent years, our review is an impor-
tant benchmark for the continued growth of the field.
Review Process
To provide structure to the crowdfunding literature and explore our guiding research
question, “How does the extant body of crowdfunding research challenge, extend, and con-
tribute to the theoretical understanding of management and organizational phenomena?”,
we conducted a topic-based integrative review (Cronin & George, 2023). An integrative
review distinguishes itself from a traditional narrative review by compiling knowledge from
a variety of communities of practice and uses these perspectives to generate new research
avenues (Torraco, 2005). As such, an integrative review is particularly well-suited for our
question as it synthesizes knowledge across diverse disciplines and theoretical perspectives
to provide a comprehensive understanding of complex phenomena (Torraco, 2005).
Crowdfunding is an inherently multidisciplinary domain, attracting attention from fields
including entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, and information systems, each with distinct
research paradigms and objectives. By adopting an integrative review methodology, we aim
to span these distinct conversations in order to evaluate how crowdfunding research has
informed and reshaped an array of organizational theories, ultimately fostering new oppor-
tunities for theoretical advancement.
Study Selection
To select our sample of studies, we first conducted a keyword search using the Boolean
phrase “crowdfund*” in the title, abstract, and keywords of academic articles to identify the
crowdfunding literature published or in-press as of December 31, 2023. We used Web of
Science because it is the oldest and most widely used authoritative database for research
publications and citations worldwide (Birkle, Pendlebury, Schnell, & Adams, 2020). The
aim of study selection for an integrative review is to include a complete and balanced rep-
resentation of findings across communities of practice (Cronin & George, 2023). To do this,
we followed the approach of other integrative reviews (e.g., D’Oria, Crook, Ketchen,
Sirmon, & Wright, 2021; Krause, Roh, & Whitler, 2022) by beginning our search with
Financial Times 50 journals, a list of the highest impact journals across business disciplines.
Then, since crowdfunding is distinctly important to the innovation literature, we expanded

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 5
our search to include a broader range of innovation journals—namely, Journal of Product
Innovation Management, Journal of Innovation and Knowledge, Journal of Knowledge
Management, Technovation, Journal of Small Business Management, and Small Business
Economics. Our initial search uncovered 305 articles. We supplemented our Web of Science
search by conducting a Google Scholar search, uncovering three additional articles to
enhance the sample (n = 307). We then excluded commentaries, introductions to special
issues, reviews, replications, and retractions (n = 25). These types of publications were omit-
ted because they typically lack original empirical findings, may introduce redundancy or
bias, and, in the case of retractions, reflect invalidated research. We also excluded five
articles that mention crowdfunding in their abstracts but do not meaningfully contribute to
the crowdfunding literature (e.g., Hashim, Kannan, & Maximiano, 2017, is a lab experiment
about digitization that presents crowdfunding as a future research direction). Furthermore,
since our review aims to examine crowdfunding as a mechanism for key business activities,
we also excluded articles that focused exclusively on charitable donations (n = 9). Our final
sample includes 268 articles.
Topic Abstraction
A fundamental aspect of the integrative review process involves abstraction, which
entails identifying higher-order themes that link individual studies together (Cronin &
George, 2023). We linked articles together by topic. To achieve this, we undertook an
inductive, manual coding process, starting without any preconceived topics. One author
began by thoroughly reading the abstracts of all articles and identifying emergent central
topics for each (e.g., Anglin et al., 2022b). In cases where articles addressed multiple top-
ics, the predominant topic was determined based on its emphasis, aligning with previous
review methodologies (Porter, Outlaw, Gale, & Cho, 2019). Through this inductive
approach, similar topics were consolidated into a parsimonious set of 10 topics that com-
prehensively account for all 268 articles: (1) campaigner behaviors, (2) demographic
influences, (3) backer-specific relationships, (4) lending-based crowdfunding, (5) plat-
form dynamics, (6) advances in Fintech, (7) environmental influences, (8) relation to
other funding types, (9) social dynamics, and (10) firm-specific relationships. Following
established protocols (e.g., Whittle, Vaara, & Maitlis, 2023), the author team discussed
and agreed upon these 10 topics based on their domain expertise, ensuring they accurately
captured the diverse landscape of crowdfunding research. Subsequently, two researchers
independently coded all articles according to these topics. The agreement between the
coders was 85%, with all disagreements resolved through discussion until 100% consen-
sus was reached. A senior author then evaluated and spot checked the coding of the arti-
cles (approximately 40 articles) and agreed with coders in all cases, providing further
confidence in the coding process. In addition to topic coding, we coded each article for its
theoretical foundation, which guided our synthesis of articles within each topic. Because
our review centers on crowdfunding’s contributions to organizational theory, each topic’s
findings were grouped by their usage of key theoretical concepts, providing a structured
framework for integrating diverse insights. These groupings are reflected in the subhead-
ings of each topic section reviewed below as well as in Table 2, which illustrates how
individual crowdfunding studies collectively advance theoretical understanding of
management and organizational phenomena.

6 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Topic Juxtaposition
After abstracting higher-order themes (in our case, topics), integrative reviews must jux-
tapose the abstractions to highlight their interconnections (Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou,
2015). This involves taking a broader perspective to identify commonalities among the top-
ics, while still maintaining the nuanced details and critical distinctions within the diverse
body of literature (Cronin & George, 2023). We grouped our 10 topics into four overarching
and overlapping crowdfunding domains—the campaigner, the campaign, the backer, and the
environment—which mirror the crowdfunding landscape in practice. The campaigner is the
individual, group, or organization who initiates and manages a crowdfunding campaign.
They are responsible for creating the campaign, setting goals, describing the project or cause
they are seeking funds for, and promoting it to potential backers. Campaigners can include
entrepreneurs, artists, non-profit organizations, inventors, and anyone seeking financial sup-
port for a specific project or cause. The campaign is a specific fundraising effort created on a
crowdfunding platform with a defined goal, timeframe, and presentation of a project as
crafted by the campaigner, inviting contributions from backers. The backer is an individual
or entity that supports a crowdfunding campaign by contributing money in exchange for
consideration, which may be rewards, repayment, financial return, equity, or other perks
offered by the campaign creator. These different forms of consideration offered to backers
inform the short-hand labels for crowdfunding types, such as rewards- and equity-based
crowdfunding. (Please see Table 1 for a review of crowdfunding types.) Backers may be
drawn from users of the platform or from the external environment, which is the final of our
four domains. Campaigner, campaign, and backer domains all exist within, and are therefore
influenced by, the external environment. Our categorization allowed for topics to span more
than one domain, which gives a clear idea of where topics sit in reference to each other. Our
organizing framework can be seen in Figure 1 (also see Table 2).
Table 1
Common Forms of Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding Type Definition
Prominent
platform(s)
Equity-based crowdfunding
(also referred to as equity
crowdfunding)
Campaigner raises funds from the crowd by offering
equity stakes in their venture to backers, allowing them
to share in its success.
SeedInvest
StartEngine
Circle Up
Rewards-based
crowdfunding
Campaigner raises funds from the crowd by offering
non-financial rewards or incentives to backers. These
rewards can range from early access to products,
exclusive experiences, or other tangible items.
Kickstarter
Donation-based
crowdfunding
Campaigner raises funds from the crowd without offering
any financial return or rewards to backers. Backers
contribute simply to support a venture they believe in.
GoFundMe
DonorDrive
Peer-to-peer lending Campaigner borrows funds from the crowd by offering
repayment plus interest to backers.
LendingClub
Prosper
Microfinance crowdfunding Microfinance institutions raise funds from the
crowd which are then aggregated and disbursed to
entrepreneurs serving disadvantaged communities.
Backers receive repayment; however, any interest
income goes to the microfinance institution.
Kiva
Babyloan

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 7
Figure 1
Conceptual Domain of Crowdfunding Researcha
-
-
-
Note: aNumbers in parentheses denote the number of papers in each topic area.
Crowdfunding Review
Our review of the literature proceeds as follows: first, we will review each of the topics that
exist solely in one of our four overarching domains (campaigner, campaign, backer, environ-
ment). Then we will examine topics that operate across domains. Each topic section will syn-
thesize the major findings within that topic based on relevant theoretical concepts. In doing so,
we highlight how each topic area has applied and advanced various organizational theories and
concepts. After reviewing all ten topics, we will present a theory-driven roadmap for future
research, highlighting the potential cross-disciplinary impact of our recommended avenues.
Campaigner
Firm-Specific Relationships. Crowdfunding campaigns can be initiated by a wide range of
actors, from individual artists to well-established corporations, which fosters research from

8
Table 2
Summary of Crowdfunding Research by Topic
High-level domain Topic Theoretical concepts applied/advanced Sample studies
Campaigner Firm-specific
relationships
Legitimacy Taeuscher et al. (2021)
Innovation Chan and Parhankangas (2017)
Entrepreneurial/organizational learning Chemla and Tinn (2020)
Campaign Platform dynamics Governance and protection Blaseg, Schulze, and Skiera (2020)
Governance and promoting campaign success Gong, Pavlou, and Zheng (2021)
Balancing protection and promotion Belavina et al. (2020)
Advances in Fintech Agency and regulation of digital assets Gan et al. (2021)
Backer Backer-specific
relationships
Motivations Zhang and Chen (2019)
Perceptions Maier, Baccarella, Block, Wagner, and Voigt (2023)
Decision making Allison, Davis, Webb, and Short (2017)
Environment Environmental
influences
Regulatory contingencies Hornuf and Schwienbacher (2017)
Economic contingencies Kim and Hann (2019)
Cultural contingencies Josefy, Dean, Albert, and Fitza (2017)
Campaigner × Campaign Campaigner
behaviors
Signaling theory, signal cost, and signal portfolios Steigenberger and Wilhelm (2018)
Language and communication style Oo, Jiang, Sahaym, Parhankangas, and Chan (2023)
Evaluations of campaigners’ personal qualities Chandler, Anglin, Kanwal, and Short (2024)
Behavioral responses of campaigners Noonan, Breznitz, and Maqbool (2021)
Campaign × Backer Lending-based
crowdfunding
Information asymmetry and moral hazard Hildebrand, Puri, and Rocholl (2017)
Herding behavior Huang (2023)
Hybridity Moss, Renko, Block, and Meyskens (2018)
Campaigner × Backer Demographic
influences
Gender bias and expectations Prokop and Wang (2022)
Racial bias and expectations Younkin and Kuppuswamy (2018)
Campaigner × Campaign × Backer Social dynamics Social network centrality and embeddedness Chung, Li, and Jia (2021)
Social capital Buttice, Colombo, and Wright (2017)
Information flows Thies, Wessel, and Benlian (2016)
Relation to other
funding types
Signaling theory: the campaign as a signal Kleinert, Volkmann, and Grünhagen (2020)
Choice of funding vehicle Ralcheva and Roosenboom (2020)

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 9
both micro-level and macro-level perspectives. Our review of the literature revealed twenty-
four articles that adopt a macro, firm-oriented view of the campaigner and that focus on firm-
specific phenomena. These articles draw inspiration from firm-level theoretical frameworks,
management concepts, and strategic paradigms. This stream of crowdfunding research is
primarily focused on the question “Why do some ventures persistently outperform others?”
Accordingly, the majority of firm-centric work considers how ventures achieve performance
advantages in and through crowdfunding. More specifically, firm-specific crowdfunding
research provides theoretical insights into how ventures establish and leverage legitimacy,
manage innovation, and facilitate organizational learning in the context of crowdfunding.
Legitimacy. The concept of legitimacy within crowdfunding emerges as multifaceted and
context-dependent, revealing that uniqueness can serve as a distinct path to legitimacy. Unlike
traditional contexts, where alignment with established norms is essential (Singh, Tucker, &
House, 1986; Suchman, 1995), crowdfunding research suggests that a backer population
generally values novelty, allowing distinctiveness to enhance legitimacy. This insight chal-
lenges conventional legitimacy theory, which typically downplays the role of novelty, and
highlights the need for a contextual understanding of legitimation strategies in non-traditional
financing environments. For example, where institutional theory assumes that distinctiveness
counteracts legitimacy, Taeuscher et al. (2021) find that distinctiveness can become the basis
for legitimacy in crowdfunding due to atypical novelty expectations held by potential back-
ers. Furthermore, Chen (2023) finds that while most types of legitimacy are beneficial for
fundraising performance (i.e., pragmatic, associational, and consequential legitimacy), moral
legitimacy can have a negative impact on fundraising in rewards-based crowdfunding, indi-
cating that in such contexts, ventures offering their backers dominantly pragmatic gains may
outperform those ventures offering more social incentives. Notably, legitimacy is not only
something ventures benefit from when crowdfunding (Maurer, Creek, Allison, Bendickson,
& Sahaym, 2023) but also something they can acquire through crowdfunding. Acar, Dahl,
Fuchs, and Schreier (2021) find that people respond positively to products that are known
to be crowdfunded above and beyond the characteristics of the product itself, indicating that
knowledge of crowdfunding success may have a legitimizing effect. The legitimating effect
of being crowdfunded on market performance also improves crowdfunding performance
even in the presence of negative appraisals from experts (Roma, Natalicchio, Panniello, Vasi,
& Messeni Petruzzelli, 2023). Thus, being crowdfunded represents a strategy by which ven-
tures can acquire and display legitimacy (cf. Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002).
Innovation. The role of innovation in crowdfunding extends the theoretical understand-
ing of innovation management by showing that the success of innovation is contingent upon
its presentation (e.g., Oo, Sahaym, Hmieleski, Chan, & Parhankangas, 2025). This focus
on how innovation is communicated is a departure from the bulk of innovation research,
which examines the innovation process or the innovation itself (e.g., Genin, Ma, Bhagwat,
& Bernile, 2023; Leiponen & Helfat, 2010). Broadly, findings suggest that ventures need to
strategically present their innovations to maximize appeal without overwhelming potential
backers. Because radical innovations may be harder for backers to understand and appreci-
ate, incremental innovativeness typically outperforms radical innovativeness in crowdfund-
ing. Such findings appear to depart from much of the innovation literature, which celebrates
radical novelty and high-fidelity prototypes as drivers of appeal (e.g., Tushman & Anderson,

10 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
1986). Conversely, crowdfunding highlights the value of tempered innovation—where cam-
paigners convey a balance between ambition and reliability to secure backer confidence.
The literature does show, however, that radical innovativeness can perform well when the
campaign incorporates and emphasizes incrementally innovative elements, reducing uncer-
tainty associated with the radical innovation (Chan & Parhankangas, 2017). Moreover, the
more radical the innovation, the more necessary and beneficial information on future plans
becomes, and the less valuable information on past achievements and capabilities becomes
(Di Pietro, Grilli, & Masciarelli, 2023). Thus, these findings reveal that campaigner charac-
teristics in terms of communicated innovation influence crowdfunding success, and that this
also shapes the interpretation of different kinds of information (cf. Plummer, Allison, & Con-
nelly, 2016) and the degree to which this information is successful in reducing information
asymmetry between campaigner and potential backers of their campaign. In sum, such find-
ings show that the success of innovative ventures is shaped by strategic information sharing.
Crowdfunding research provides a new window for examining co-creation in new ven-
tures. Given the potential benefits of leveraging customers as co-creators for new product
development within established organizations (Lilien, Morrison, Searls, Sonnack, & Hippel,
2002), the literature reveals that crowdfunding can facilitate the involvement of customers as
co-creators to the benefit of campaign founders. Here, crowdfunding performance is influ-
enced by strategic decisions regarding innovation including product design and information
sharing. For instance, ventures seeking external capital for a new product line based on novel
technology may improve their campaign’s fundraising performance through optimal proto-
type fidelity (how closely the final product matches its prototype in appearance, functional-
ity, and features). Relevant to organizations seeking to engage their customers in product
development, crowdfunding research found that moderate prototype fidelity, rather than high
prototype fidelity, is ideal. Here, such prototypes demonstrate viability while creating an
opportunity for co-creation, which motivates backers to invest in contributing to further
product development (Wessel, Thies, & Benlian, 2022). This reveals backers’ expectation of
consultation—that they will provide not just funding but also developmental feedback on the
understanding that this will be acted upon and be reflected in the final product. These find-
ings also serve to address previous questions as to whether customers prefer to participate as
co-creators for more radical or incremental innovations (Bogers, Afuah, & Bastian, 2010).
Entrepreneurial/organizational learning. Crowdfunding offers a unique theoretical
perspective on organizational learning (Levitt & March, 1988), highlighting how direct
engagement with backers serves as a real-time feedback mechanism that influences ven-
ture adaptability. Crowdfunding presents ventures with an opportunity to quickly gather
large amounts of data from potential consumers. These can be leveraged to make important
strategic choices (Cappa, 2022). This process departs from organizational learning models
that often rely on slower, more formalized feedback channels (Argote, Lee, & Park, 2021;
Huber, 1991). Information obtained through crowdfunding is particularly valuable for highly
innovative ventures who are entering new markets, as there is significant uncertainty about
consumer preferences. In this way, crowdfunding is a chance to obtain proof of concept and
gauge demand (Chemla & Tinn, 2020). For example, Da Cruz (2018) found that the level
of support shown for unsuccessfully funded campaigns influences ventures’ decision to pro-
ceed and bring their product to market. For every 10% increase in the number of supporters,
the probability of the venture proceeding to release the product increased by 1.4 percentage

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 11
points. Additionally, learning through crowdfunding can inform decisions regarding optimal
product lines and pricing. Hu, Li, and Shi (2015) highlight the value of crowdfunding for
recognizing heterogeneity in consumers’ product valuations, enabling ventures to adjust to
include products of varying quality and price points, capturing more of the market. Finally,
the dynamic feedback loop in crowdfunding may mitigate moral hazard by heightening ven-
tures’ accountability to a wider audience. Thus, the theory of organizational learning can
be expanded to include crowdfunding as a mechanism that not only enhances adaptability
but also integrates reputation management as a core component of the learning process in
high-transparency, high-accountability environments. As more backers contribute, the stakes
are raised for the venture in terms of their reputation (e.g., Chandler, Wolfe, & Oo, 2025)
and expectations from their supporters, reducing incentives to engage in morally hazardous
behavior such as diverting funds (Chemla & Tinn, 2020). In sum, crowdfunding provides a
means to both accelerate and open new avenues into organizational learning which influence
creators’ persistence and reputation.
Campaign
Platform Dynamics. Forty-two articles in our review examine the role of the hosting plat-
form in crowdfunding. This includes studies on how platform dynamics protect (or fail to
protect) their backers and aid (or hinder) the success of their campaigners. Scholars also
present solutions for platforms to improve the support they provide for backers and cam-
paigners. Platform reputation, sustainability, and performance depend on their ability to pro-
vide support to campaigners and backers. These imperatives serve as the basis for many
solution-oriented articles, which seek to maintain a level of due diligence (which protects the
backers) without stifling innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit that makes crowdfunding
unique and beneficial to campaigners. As can be seen below, our review identifies a theoreti-
cal divide within platform dynamics research: while studies focused on backer protection
emphasize the importance of regulation and transparent information disclosures to reduce
moral hazards and information asymmetry, research on funding success reveals that transpar-
ency can sometimes inhibit funding outcomes, depending on the type and timing of disclo-
sures. This divergence suggests a gap in our understanding of how platform governance can
harmonize these conflicting objectives.
Governance and protection. One of the most important functions of the crowdfunding
platform is to provide backers with a positive experience, which necessitates some level of
protection against fraudulent campaigns. Because most crowdfunding platforms do not deter
or thoroughly vet campaigners, there is significant potential for moral hazards to go unde-
tected. While much of the governance literature focuses on formal structures, such as board
composition or ownership (Daily & Dalton, 1994; Joseph, Ocasio, & McDonnell, 2014), the
regulatory regime for most crowdfunding platforms is self-regulation. Here, users—back-
ers and campaigners—serve as a “neighborhood watch” to inform other users and the plat-
form when fraud or unethical behavior is suspected. This regime offers some protection but
is insufficient to detect many unethical behaviors or frauds in time. For example, Blaseg et al.
(2020) highlights how crowdfunding campaigns that make claims about price and value (i.e.,
advertising current discounted price in reference to a suggested market price) tend to charge
backers more, not less, than the eventual retail price. Thus, a key theoretical insight of this

12 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
literature is that community governance should be paired with more formal governance struc-
tures. More formal platform regulation is associated with enhanced consumer protection. This
can be seen with another frequently cited problem for backers: campaigners’ failure to deliver
promised products after successfully raising funds (Mollick, 2014). Xu and Ni (2022) find that
campaigns with fewer pre-sales, despite meeting their funding goal, are less likely to deliver
promised products to backers. Furthermore, raising too much money can incentivize cam-
paigners to take the money and run, as the authors also find a negative relationship between
the amount of funds raised beyond the funding goal and product follow-through. However,
the authors find that platforms reduce product launch failures by 13% when they have policies
to regulate overfunded campaigns. Additionally, platform regulated risk disclosures are effec-
tive protection for backers. To that end, Kim et al. (2022) reveal that such disclosures have
positive effects by reducing information asymmetry, which helps backers avoid overly risky
campaigns or support such campaigns with a better understanding of the risks.
Governance and promoting campaign success. Another major role played by crowd-
funding platforms is ensuring that campaigns succeed, which benefits the platform itself and
platform users (campaigners and backers). The platform’s long-term viability depends on its
ability to generate revenue, which is typically a percentage of the funds raised in successful
campaigns. Because platform financial health is reliant on successful projects, there are many
scholars who research funding outcomes, exploring the platform dynamics that support or
impede campaign success. Transparency is the first platform dynamic related to campaign
success. Scholars find that different information disclosures can have both positive and nega-
tive effects on crowdfunding performance. On the one hand, requisite identity disclosures
have a net positive effect on fundraising success (Burtch, Ghose, & Wattal, 2015). On the
other hand, earnings visibility reduces backer base and engagement (Lin, Rai, & Yang, 2021).
Further, risk disclosures give backers the opportunity to opt out of risky investments, reducing
overall funding success rates (Kim et al., 2022). The timing of information sharing also mat-
ters. Platforms can improve campaign funding success by permitting campaigners to pre-fun-
draise (i.e., share campaign information with backers before the funding window opens; Wei,
Fan, You, & Tan, 2021) and by permitting backers to pre-fund (i.e., make non-binding com-
mitments before the funding window opens; Cumming, Hervé, Manthé, & Schwienbacher,
2022). Additionally, the funding scheme used by a platform affects the overall success rate of
the campaigns it hosts. Chan, Huang, Liu and Cai (2024) found that introducing a donation
scheme to rewards-based crowdfunding increased overall funding success by 19% whereas
Gong et al. (2021) found that a lottery scheme in rewards-based crowdfunding attracted more
backers but reduced contribution size and success. Overall, the governance literature offers
significant ability to explain and predict crowdfunding outcomes. Moreover, these findings
extend traditional perspectives on the relationship between governance and firm performance
(Coles, McWilliams, & Sen, 2001; Gai, Cheng, & Wu, 2021) by broadening our understand-
ing of how non-shareholder stakeholders react to information disclosures.
Balancing protection and promotion. In light of apparent concerns regarding backer pro-
tection and campaigner performance, a final subsection of articles focuses on developing
solutions that platforms might implement to address problems for backers and campaign-
ers. For example, in order to better protect backers from making poor investments in equity
crowdfunding, Aggarwal, Lee, Osting, and Singh (2021) developed a model that assesses

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 13
backers’ skills, distinguishing lead backers from lay backers in order to help platforms con-
nect lay backers with leaders to improve funding operations. In another response to backer
protection issues, Fu, Huang, and Singh (2021) designed a machine learning model that pre-
dicts post-campaign failure better than the crowd. By using such a prediction model, backers
could make more secure contributions. Siering et al. (2016) also design a solution for back-
ers by identifying deceptive language cues in campaign content, which can be used to aid
in detecting fraud. One study proposed a solution that both protects backers and improves
campaign funding. Namely, in response to the problem of excess funding creating an incen-
tive for fraud (Xu & Ni, 2022), Belavina et al. (2020) find that two mechanisms help miti-
gate this moral hazard while simultaneously boosting platform revenue: (1) short-stopping
the campaign once the goal is reached and (2) escrowing excess funds as a form of backers’
insurance. There are also solutions for funding performance that can recover campaigns with
poor performance early on. For example, Du, Hu, and Wu (2022) find that when contribu-
tions are lagging, making certain mid-campaign pivots like upgrading a product feature or
adding a limited-time offer can improve campaigns’ success rate by double digits.
The literature on platform dynamics has thus laid a foundation for future theoretical
exploration of the interdependence between protection and promotional functions, encourag-
ing the integration of these perspectives to develop balanced governance frameworks.
Theoretical advances might come from exploring how platforms can apply technological
solutions—such as machine learning models for fraud detection and models assessing backer
expertise—to simultaneously address security and performance. Such technologies, although
underutilized in practice, present promising avenues for governance theories that account for
both trust and risk mitigation within online platforms. Ultimately, the platform’s dual role as
protector and promoter emphasizes the need for adaptive governance theories, where regula-
tory measures and strategic innovations work in tandem to balance user trust, transparency,
and sustainable growth within the crowdfunding ecosystem.
Advances in Fintech. Under the umbrella of crowdfunding, one unique funding model has
emerged to leverage the growing importance of blockchain technologies. Cryptocurrency
crowdfunding in the form of initial coin offerings (ICOs) is a crowdfunding method that
allows campaigners to raise capital from backers in the form of cryptocurrencies like Bit-
coin or Ethereum in exchange for digital tokens or coins. Nine articles in our sample center
on ICOs, and these articles highlight the potential for the innovative capabilities of fintech
to create new opportunities for ventures and backers alike while also exploring how these
technologies reshape the crowdfunding ecosystem. ICO research advances agency and gov-
ernance theories by demonstrating how digital token structures and regulatory frameworks
uniquely influence risk, investor protection, and long-term project viability.
Agency and regulation of digital assets. Initial coin offerings (ICOs) contribute valuable
theoretical insights into crowdfunding and Fintech by highlighting the nuanced governance
and regulatory challenges unique to digital assets. Digital coins are the funding currency in
ICOs. These coins are hoped to increase in value as the project develops and gains adoption
and are catered to blockchain-based projects. ICOs are generally less regulated than many
other forms of crowdfunding, and this can create risks for backers. In unregulated envi-
ronments, ICO backers risk high agency costs, underproduction of goods and services, and
decreases in company value (Gan et al., 2021). It is thus unsurprising that ICOs are far more

14 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
common in countries with ICO-friendly regulations and more advanced financial systems
and digital technologies (Huang, Meoli, & Vismara, 2020). Such work suggests that formal
regulatory environments play a vital role in reducing agency costs, mitigating risk, and rein-
forcing the credibility of digital assets.
However, Gan et al. (2021) find that agency risks depend on the type of tokens. Utility
tokens—tokens used to consume the venture’s goods/services when they become available—
present the greatest agency risk whereas security tokens—tokens that become shares of
future profit—are advantageous because they naturally align the interests of everyone
involved, an advantage that persists even without regulatory oversight. Thus, security tokens
appear to be a fundamental mechanism to reduce agency concerns between buyers and sell-
ers of digital tokens. Although security tokens aid in mitigating some risk to backers, they do
present a major risk to the company. Security tokens invite a wide range of shareholders into
the company, risking inflation of the capitalization table. Moedl (2021) finds that this infla-
tion creates obstacles to raising subsequent rounds of investment. This insight extends agency
theory to illustrate how financial instruments shape risk dynamics, governance, and stake-
holder behavior within a digital funding environment.
Token liquidity, another key feature of ICOs, also plays a critical role in shaping stake-
holder incentives and outcomes. Similar to traditional forms of crowdfunding, successful
fundraising via ICO can predict important outcomes for the company, such as avoiding fail-
ure and enhancing growth. However, to achieve these outcomes, companies must ensure
token liquidity, meaning that their tokens are actively traded on exchanges and accessible to
the public (Howell, Niessner, & Yermack, 2020; Lee & Parlour, 2022). From an agency per-
spective, token liquidity incentivizes investor confidence and participation by creating
opportunities for immediate and tangible returns, while simultaneously introducing gover-
nance challenges as companies balance the competing interests of liquid token markets and
long-term growth aims.
Backer
Backer-Specific Relationships. Prior to the proliferation of crowdfunding, research exam-
ining non-professional, lay investor involvement with startups and creative projects was
exceedingly rare (see Drover et al., 2017). Crowdfunding introduced the study of “backers,”
opening the door for examination of how lay individuals respond to entrepreneurial and cre-
ative opportunities. There are forty articles in our sample that exclusively focus on backers
in crowdfunding. Because there are a large number of crowdfunding backers relative to other
types of investors (sometimes thousands of backers for a single project), there is signifi-
cant variance in their motivations and attributes. Unlike institutional or professional inves-
tors, evaluating the viability of early-stage ventures or projects is not the full-time job nor
chief expertise of most backers (Anglin et al., 2018a). As such, their motivations for making
financial contributions likely differ from those of professional investors. Furthermore, given
the elevated level of information asymmetry that is often present in crowdfunding contexts
(Cason, Tabarrok, & Zubrickas, in press), backers are less likely to base their decisions upon
objective data. Backer-specific research in crowdfunding highlights important theoretical
insights into the complexity and plurality of backer motivations, challenging assumptions
about the role of altruism versus financial gain in alternative investment contexts. Other

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 15
articles in this category explore the ways that backers perceive entrepreneurs and the deci-
sion-making processes used to inform whether backers contribute, which project they will
contribute to, and how much they will contribute. Backers are not merely passive participants
but actively evaluate project viability, a process influenced by factors such as product cre-
ativity, perceived entrepreneur passion, and campaigner track record. Theories of perception
and decision-making drawn from psychology are thus expanded by this active evaluation, as
backer perceptions mediate the effects of campaign information on funding decisions—an
often-overlooked dynamic in campaigner-focused research on signaling.
Motivations. Much of the research examining backer motivations focuses on the dis-
tinction between commercial and prosocial motivations. Commercial motivations revolve
around personal interests, financial returns, and access to unique products (Civardi, Moro, &
Winborg, 2023). In contrast, prosocial motivations are rooted in supporting causes, philan-
thropy, and contributing to social impact (Dai & Zhang, 2019). While some venture finance
research has begun to explore the role of socially oriented motivations compared to financial
motivations outside of crowdfunding (Lall & Park, 2022) and the finance literature has inves-
tigated social impact funds (e.g., Barber, Morse, & Yasuda, 2021), the targeted comparison
of such competing motivations in individual funding decisions arguably remains a distinct
domain of the crowdfunding literature.
Early work suggested that non-financial motives played essentially no role in backers’
crowdfunding behavior (Cholakova & Clarysse, 2015); however, most subsequent work has
shown evidence for prosocial motivations supplementing or at times substituting for com-
mercial motivations (e.g., Jiang, Wang, Yang, Shen, & Hahn, 2021). One common phenom-
enon that is frequently cited as an indicator of prosocial funding motivations is that projects
tend to accumulate funding in larger amounts and at an accelerated rate just before they reach
their funding target compared to right after. Scholars contend that this effect stems from
backers’ prosocial motivation to make an impact with their contribution and help ventures
realize their goals (Dai & Zhang, 2019; Kuppuswamy & Buyus, 2017). This effect is more
pronounced in public good projects compared to private good projects, further supporting the
prosocial motives explanation (Li & Wang, 2019). It is important to note, however, that com-
mercial motivations are just as, if not more, impactful than prosocial motivations in crowd-
funding. For example, when comparing the backers of commercial versus cultural campaigns,
Bürger and Kleinert (2021) found that backers of cultural projects are no more altruistic than
their commercial counterparts, and they are not inclined to support campaigns solely in
exchange for symbolic rewards that have no utilitarian value. Similarly, Zhang and Chen
(2019) show that funding decisions are more positively influenced by self-orientation than by
other-orientation.
Perceptions. Crowdfunding provides a domain to extend knowledge concerning how
individuals form perceptions and act upon them under high uncertainty (cf. Gifford, Bobbitt,
& Slocum, 1979). Models such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) (Petty & Briñol,
2011) and the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) (Chaiken & Ledgerwood, 2012) posit
that different forms of information will have varying influence on how individuals form key
perceptions. Such models are often called upon to examine backer perceptions. Here, crowd-
funding research extends these theoretical perspectives and provides insight into the unique
process of perception formation within crowdfunding contexts.

16 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Backer perceptions that influence crowdfunding performance encompass a wide range of
factors, including their assessment of product qualities, campaigner credibility, and the over-
all appeal of the project. This begins with perceptions about the product or reward offerings.
Jiang, Zhang, and Jiao (2024) find that backers rely heavily on their perceptions of reward
usefulness (whether the reward is catered to their needs) and complexity (whether they can
understand and make sense of the reward) when making funding decisions. Similarly, Davis,
Hmieleski, Webb, and Coombs (2017) find that backers’ perceptions about product creativity
have a significant effect on funding behavior, both directly and indirectly through positive
affect. Furthermore, the indirect effect is moderated by perceptions of the entrepreneur’s pas-
sion such that higher perceived entrepreneurial passion enhances the positive effect of cre-
ativity perceptions. Additionally, backers form perceptions about a campaign based on the
track record of the campaigner, past projects, and the campaigner’s ability to communicate
effectively. Maier et al. (2023) reveal that prior success of a startup in crowdfunding posi-
tively influences backer perceptions of legitimacy, which increases their willingness to buy
products or services from the startup, improves attitudes towards the startup’s brand, and
increases the likelihood that they recommend the startup to others. Conversely, when backers
perceive a high level of uncertainty regarding the state of product development, they are less
likely to evaluate the product positively and less likely to contribute (Kaminski & Hopp,
2020). Finally, perceptions often mediate the impact of campaigner actions on backers’
responses. Cornelis, Baker, and Ahsan (2022) found that when consumers publicly criticized
a venture in the comments section of the crowdfunding campaign, affective and cognitive
perceptions of the campaigner and product fully mediated the effect of campaigner’s
responses on backers’ subsequent funding intentions. In sum, these findings extend seminal
work from cognitive psychology regarding the formation of perceptions, and how specific
information and experiences can play a role in this process.
Decision-making. Backers’ crowdfunding decisions encompass a myriad of other factors
beyond their perceptions. Accordingly, several studies delve into the interplay of the vari-
ous decision factors, shedding light on how they are taken into account by diverse groups of
backers, compared, and balanced against one another. The main area of theoretical advance-
ment is furthering understanding of how lay backers make decisions differently than expert
backers. Novices tend to like new and creative ideas when they are presented in broad and
imaginative ways; meanwhile, experts prefer new ideas when they are described in detailed
and practical terms (Falchettie, Cattani, & Ferriani, 2022). Furthermore, novices are more
inclined to support campaigns that convey group identity, whereas sophisticated backers care
more about issue-relevant information like the education of entrepreneurs (Allison et al.,
2017). Lay backers also recognize and leverage variations in the expertise of early backers
to make investment decisions. Specifically, when lay backers detect early backer expertise
in terms of industry experience or investment experience, they are more influenced by them
than by other lay backers (Kim & Viswanathan, 2019). Similarly, inferences drawn from
early backers’ relationships to the campaigner can factor into investment decisions. When
early contributions are large, backers may infer that they were made by family or friends,
which reduces their willingness to contribute. The weight of fellow-crowd members’ fund-
ing decisions also varies based on the self-efficacy of the individual: Stevenson, Ciuchta,
Letwin, Dinger, and Vancouver (2019) find that individuals with high (compared to low)
self-efficacy place relatively large weight on the opinions of the crowd. Lastly, in terms of

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 17
campaign information, Shafi (2021) finds that characteristics of the product or service are the
most significant factors in funding decisions. Meanwhile, campaigners’ level of motivation
and commitment have a smaller but significant influence while financial disclosures appear
to bear no weight in the funding decisions of backers.
Environment
Environmental Influences. Every crowdfunding campaign takes place within a greater exter-
nal context that bears influence on the outcomes for campaigners, backers, and crowdfunding
in general. Indeed, although crowdfunding has a global presence, it is evident that geography
plays a role in crowdfunding (e.g., Guenther, Johan, & Schweizer, 2018). Seventeen articles
in our review center on the environmental context surrounding crowdfunding. Although
much of this literature avoids adopting a specific theory, this work is best viewed through
the lens of contingency theory. A key proposition of contingency theory is that ongoing envi-
ronmental interaction leads organizations to adapt to a variety of external influences, which
provide a company with information on how it should organize (Boyd, Takacs Haynes, Hitt,
Bergh, & Ketchen, 2012). From this perspective, the literature on environmental influences
can be organized into subtopics on regulatory contingencies, economic contingencies, and
cultural contingencies. These contingencies then inform how platforms choose to organize
and interact with their environment providing insight into why and how crowdfunding mar-
kets evolve as they do. Broadly, examining these three contingencies reveals that regulatory
contingencies shape markets at the country level; however, economic and cultural contingen-
cies shape markets at more localized, regional levels.
Regulatory contingencies. The first prominent environmental influence in crowdfunding
research is policy. Crowdfunding and government policy are in constant conversation, each
affecting each other. Naturally, policy affects crowdfunding on the most basic level by deter-
mining its legality, particularly for equity crowdfunding. For instance, equity crowdfunding
became legal in the US in 2012 with the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act,
which required the SEC to devise regulations to allow ventures to solicit backers through
online platforms (Fricke, Fung, & Goktan, 2021). Likewise, crowdfunding also has major
influences on policy because it represents a fundamental shift in the way people raise money.
Before crowdfunding, government regulations were premised on the participation of accred-
ited investors and traditional financial intermediaries (like banks). Crowdfunding’s peer-to-
peer structure bypasses such intermediaries, which creates the need to rethink the regulatory
framework (Berkowitz & Souchaud, 2019). For instance, the JOBS Act allowed for reduced
regulatory requirements, enabling crowdfunding platforms to largely self-regulate in the US
(Fricke et al., 2021). In the rest of the world, crowdfunding policy varies. While crowdfund-
ing is legal and regulated in many countries, the specific rules, limits, and requirements
can differ significantly. Variations in regional policy have prompted scholars to examine the
impact of government involvement on the performance of crowdfunding markets in these
specific regions. Research suggests that crowdfunding is best poised to succeed in regions
characterized by hybrid regulation, where governance is the shared responsibility of the gov-
ernment and crowdfunding platforms (Berkowitz & Souchaud, 2019; Iurchenko, Petty, &
Jain, 2023). The optimal balance of government- and self-regulation for a region depends on
that region’s access to traditional venture financing alternatives. Hornuf and Schwienbacher

18 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
(2017) find that more regulation is harmful to crowdfunding markets in areas with ample
access to venture capital and angel capital compared to those with scarce funding alterna-
tives. These findings underscore a key tenet of contingency theory: that organizational and
institutional effectiveness are context-dependent, with the ideal regulatory approach varying
across regions.
Economic contingencies. Although crowdfunding is a global phenomenon with a sub-
stantial reach, a key takeaway from the environment literature is that the success and devel-
opment of crowdfunding markets depends heavily on local economies. When the local
economy is thriving, individuals may have more disposable income to contribute to crowd-
funding campaigns. Additionally, a strong economy might lead to increased entrepreneurial
activity (cf. Casson & Wadeson, 2007), as people feel more confident in launching new
ventures (Anglin, McKenny, & Short, 2018c). This, in turn, could result in more crowdfund-
ing campaigns seeking financial support. Of the macroeconomic influences on crowdfund-
ing which have been examined, housing prices appear highly influential. For example, Kim
and Hann (2019) suggest that entrepreneurs in areas that have declining house prices find
it harder to get collateral-based loans, prompting them to use crowdfunding. They find that
decreasing housing prices in a region does indeed lead to increased creation of crowdfunding
campaigns in that region; however, housing price changes have no effect on the success of
the projects. Cumming and Reardon (2022) suggest that the relationship between housing
prices and crowdfunding was altered during and since the 2019–2022 pandemic. Specifi-
cally, because of the large volume of pandemic-induced migrations in the US, housing prices
now indicate not only the demand and supply for capital in each region, but also the attitudes
and risk tolerance of backers toward long-term, illiquid investments in those regions. Thus,
in contrast to Kim and Hann’s (2019) study, Cumming and Reardon find that regions with
higher housing prices post-COVID saw major increases in the number of crowdfunding cam-
paigns and the success of those campaigns. It is also recognized by scholars that crowdfund-
ing has a reciprocal influence on the local economy, playing an important role in economic
development and vitality. Yu and Fleming (2022) find that higher levels of crowdfunding
lead to the creation of more tech firms and fewer conventional and local business registra-
tions. Notably, while the economy’s effect on crowdfunding is more pronounced in prosper-
ous regions (Cumming & Reardon, 2022), crowdfunding’s effect on the economy is stronger
in poor regions (Yu & Fleming, 2022).
Cultural contingencies. Regional culture significantly shapes crowdfunding activity by
influencing the types of projects that succeed, the level of trust and cooperation among back-
ers, and the overall attitudes towards the adoption of crowdfunding. The influence of regional
culture on the success of a particular campaign has to do with the alignment of campaign
characteristics with cultural values. For example, Josefy et al. (2017) found that communities
that place cultural emphasis on creativity, artistry, and a commitment to preserving histori-
cal values are more inclined to back crowdfunding initiatives for independent theaters that
uphold those values. Further, certain regions may be more culturally inclined toward crowd-
funding in general. For instance, there is evidence to support the notion that the altruism of
people in a region (local altruism) enhances crowdfunding success, especially when people in
that region share strong social connections (Giudici, Guerini, & Rossi-Lamastra, 2018). Simi-
larly, the political culture of a region can affect the acceptance and adoption of crowdfunding

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 19
in that region. Lewis et al. (2021) show that in the US crowdfunding tends to be less favored
and takes longer to gain legitimacy in conservative-leaning regions. However, they also note
that the legitimacy of crowdfunding plays a more crucial role in conservative areas such that
when a threshold of legitimacy is attained, adoption in conservative areas outpaces that in
liberal regions.
Thematic Intersections
Campaigner Behaviors. The largest topic in our sample, comprising fifty-four articles, cen-
ters on the behavior of crowdfunding campaigners, both within and beyond their campaigns.
While the former section on firm-specific relationships focused on the firm-level strategies
and actions when campaigning, this section focuses on individual campaigners and pays
greater attention to their shaping of, interaction with, and responses to the campaign. As
such, this topic sits at the intersection of the campaigner and the campaign on our conceptual
map. Broadly, this literature has advanced theoretical insights concerning signaling, pitch
language and communication, how the implied personal qualities of creators are evaluated,
and the behavioral responses of campaigners to their crowdfunding experience.
Signaling theory, signal cost, and signal portfolios. Signaling theory (Spence, 1973) occu-
pies a substantial role in crowdfunding research on campaigner behaviors. Signaling theory
explains how one party (the signaler) communicates certain attributes or intentions to another
party (the receiver) to reduce information asymmetry (Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel,
2011; Connelly, Certo, Reutzel, DesJardine, & Zhou, in press). In crowdfunding, campaigners
(signalers) use various types of signals to convey the credibility and potential success of their
projects to backers (receivers; Ahlers, Cumming, Günther, & Schweizer, 2015). There are
two primary types of signals: costly and costless. Costly signals require significant resources
or effort to convey, demonstrating commitment and reducing uncertainty for backers (Block,
Hornuf, & Moritz, 2018). Costless signals, on the other hand, involve language-based infor-
mation that, while less resource-intensive, can still effectively capture backers’ attention and
provide valuable insights (e.g., Patel, Wolfe, & Manikas, 2021b). Much of the findings lever-
aging signaling theory are consistent with broader signaling research illustrating the primary
importance of costly signals. Specifically, campaigners can improve their fundraising perfor-
mance by including costly information signals such as mid-campaign updates (Block et al.,
2018) or information about the expected future retail price to signal product quality and pre-
order value (Sewaid, Garcia-Cestona, & Silaghi, 2021). Prior experience and endorsements
also significantly boost funding prospects (Courtney, Dutta, & Li, 2017).
Crowdfunding scholarship departs from traditional signaling theory by emphasizing the
value of costless signals. Specifically, this work demonstrates that when used together as part
of a signaling portfolio, costly (e.g., Spence, 1973) and costless signals (e.g., Farrell, 1987;
Farrell & Gibbons, 1989; Farrell & Rabin, 1996) can significantly enhance campaigner out-
comes. Costless signals, such as language-based information, enrich communication by captur-
ing attention and providing relevant insights into the campaigner and venture attributes
(Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). As such, research suggests that signaling portfolios made up
of both rhetorical and costly signals are particularly influential in high-noise environments like
crowdfunding (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). For example, positive psychological capital
language used alongside human capital signals enhances funding performance (Anglin et al.,

20 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
2018a). Indeed, the concept of signal or information portfolios offers a particularly promising
framework for exploring the interplay between different types of information. Although such
work has begun both within and outside of crowdfunding research (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018a;
Plummer et al., 2016), crowdfunding offers a particularly intriguing domain in which to explore
such portfolios given the elevated importance of costless information compared to traditional
funding mechanisms. Furthermore, examining the role that signaling portfolios might play
within crowdfunding can provide additional insight into how such forms of communication
might influence attitudes and behaviors within the greater social media context in general
(Cheung, Xiao, & Liu, 2014; Saxton, Gomez, Ngoh, Lin, & Dietrich, 2019).
Language and communication style. The role of communication style and narrative in
campaign crafting is underpinned by theories of rhetoric and narrative persuasion (e.g.,
Downing, 2005; Gartner, 2007; Martens, Jennings, & Jennings, 2007). These theories, such
as narrative theory and language expectancy theory, emphasize how emotional displays,
storytelling techniques, and language choices influence backer support. Such research has
produced theory on how language and communication styles used in crowdfunding pitches
affects funding performance (Allison, McKenny, & Short, 2013). For instance, scholars have
shown that campaigners can use a variety of communication techniques that win backer sup-
port such as displays of emotion (e.g., Oo et al., 2023; Warnick, Davis, Allison, & Anglin,
2021), use of dynamic speech in the campaign video (Allison, Warnick, Davis, & Cardon,
2022), using image-based rather than concept-based rhetoric (Patel, Wolfe, & Manikas,
2021a), and framing their narrative prosocially (Defazio, Franzoni, & Rossi-Lamastra, 2021;
Nielsen & Binder, 2021). Although language is important across pitching contexts (Clarke,
Cornelissen, & Healey, 2019), crowdfunding research illustrates the elevated significance
of language choice in high noise environments. Indeed, compared to more professionalized
contexts that involve extensive due diligence and large funding amounts, the lack of such
processes on most crowdfunding platforms leaves backers to rely considerably on linguistic
cues provided by campaigners in their decision-making. Further, venture type serves as a
boundary condition that shapes the effectiveness of communication techniques. Here, crowd-
funding research enables a broader accounting of venture type than prior work examining
venture capital, where companies tend to be more similar (i.e., high growth, technology-ori-
ented). For example, social ventures benefit more than commercial ventures from a concrete
writing style because backers, as lay people, may find social ventures harder to make sense
of (Parhankangas & Renko, 2017).
Crowdfunding has extended knowledge of the role of storytelling in the fundraising pro-
cess. Research on storytelling in crowdfunding adopts a more holistic approach to examining
communication. This research tradition looks for overall narrative themes that influence
fundraising prospects (Martens et al., 2007). For instance, communicating a “results in prog-
ress” narrative is more effective than an “ongoing journey” narrative (Cappa, Pinelli,
Maiolini, & Leone, 2021) although both can be effective. Anglin, Reid, and Short (2023b)
use qualitative comparative analysis to uncover five storytelling configurations (entrepreneur
bettering society, traditional entrepreneur pitch, customer adventure, customer adventure and
product origin story, and entrepreneurial discovery enhances customer focus) that each
enable better fundraising outcomes. However, some of these (e.g., customer adventure) chal-
lenge the traditional problem-solution approach to pitching a new venture commonly taught

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 21
in business schools. Thus, crowdfunding research has been able to reveal new pathways to
pitching a new venture.
Evaluations of campaigners’ personal qualities. Embedded in the communication aspects
of the campaign are displays of campaigner personal characteristics, which have shown to
be pivotal in influencing campaign performance. This literature underscores that “who the
entrepreneur is” is a fundamental question asked by potential backers. Indeed, campaigns
in which campaigners extensively mention themselves outperform those that focus on the
venture (Gafni, Marom, & Sade, 2019), which indicates that backers place their trust in
campaigners over and above ideas alone. Whereas the first two topics involve intentional
alterations made by campaigners to convey specific information, the characteristic displays
research revolves around the natural or incidental communication that arises from campaign-
ers displaying their personal attributes. Here, the study of characteristic displays are rooted
in psychology and communications research on inherent traits (Allison et al., 2022, 2024;
Maurer, Creek, Allison, Bendickson, & Sahaym, 2024, 2025) and malleable personal quali-
ties (e.g., positive psychological capital: Anglin et al., 2018a).
A key insight from this literature is that the characteristics themselves are not inherently
beneficial or damaging, with research suggesting that most characteristic displays have both
positive and negative pathways often based on the extent to which the characteristic is dis-
played, the context in which it is displayed, and who displays the characteristics. As such,
scholars have found many counterintuitive effects of characteristic displays. For example, dis-
plays of negative affect, Machiavellianism, and narcissism—conventionally negative charac-
teristics—can have positive performance effects when displayed to optimal extents (Anglin,
Wolfe, Short, McKenny, & Pidduck, 2018b; Calic, Arseneault, & Ghasemaghaei, 2023; Huang,
Uy, Liu, Foo, & Li, 2023). Likewise, enthusiasm and smiles—conventionally positive charac-
teristics—can have negative performance effects under certain conditions, such as when cam-
paigners are perceived to have low domain expertise (Jiang, Yin, Liu, & Johnson, 2023) or
when consumers are prevention-focused in high-risk situations (Wang, Mao, Li, & Liu, 2017).
Thus, researchers must consider more than just the presumed valence of a particular character-
istic when theorizing about how displayed characteristics shape funding outcomes.
While the literature has uncovered a variety of personal quality displays that can influence
crowdfunding, another critical takeaway from this work is that such qualities are not inter-
preted in isolation. Their influence is a function of the extent to which a quality is displayed,
other personal qualities of the campaigner (e.g., experience, gender), its perceived authentic-
ity (e.g., Oo & Allison, 2024), and the context of the display. For instance, more experienced
campaigners have greater latitude to discuss their political views (Chandler et al., 2024),
while campaign category and gender shape the effectiveness of assertiveness (McSweeney,
McSweeney, Webb, & Devers, 2022). Thus, exploration of a particular characteristic needs
to include an accounting of its boundary conditions to make a meaningful contribution to this
literature. To that end, crowdfunding offers an ideal context within which to further our
understanding of perspectives such as social role theory (Eagly & Wood, 2012), which cen-
ters on how displays that either conform to or defy commonly prescribed social categoriza-
tions can result in beneficial or detrimental outcomes for the individuals who engage in such
displays. By examining how campaigners’ personal qualities can be interpreted by potential
backers, and the ultimate outcomes of such interactions, we gain insight into the nuances of
how social perceptions and norms influence individual outcomes.

22 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Behavioral responses of campaigners. Another area of research examines the behavioral
responses of campaigners to crowdfunding experiences. This line of research emphasizes how
crowdfunding can affect campaigners by evoking responses to success, failure, or feedback.
This literature provides a much needed look at post-campaign consequences, which remains
an understudied outcome in the crowdfunding literature and provides deeper insight into how
campaigners use their experience during the campaign to shape their strategic response. For
example, Noonan et al. (2021) found that fundraising success can prompt ventures to relo-
cate, shaping their decisions about where to relocate by providing insight into local market
sizes. Naturally, crowdfunding success also affects entrepreneurs’ subsequent actions regard-
ing the fulfillment of obligations to their backers. In rewards-based crowdfunding in par-
ticular, higher levels of success require greater action to follow-through with manufacturing
and delivering rewards. Murray and Fisher (2022) find that when crowdfunders use rhetoric
to craft their campaigns effectively, driving contributions up, the success that follows often
proves to be unmanageable in terms of rewards-delivery obligations. Meanwhile, campaign-
ers with more moderate success are better able to respond appropriately and manage reward
delivery. In this way, the success of a campaign necessitates a behavioral response, but also
dictates the efficacy of that response. Thus, both the decision to use crowdfunding and its
consequences should be incorporated into the venture’s broader strategy, although it remains
unclear as to the level of consideration crowdfunding is given as a part of venture strategy.
Understanding how people respond to failure in organizational settings has received sub-
stantial attention in the psychology, organizational behavior, and entrepreneurship literatures
(Dahlin, Chuang, & Roulet, 2018). The crowdfunding literature has enriched this discussion
within the entrepreneurial finance literature, which has largely focused on prior venture suc-
cess or failure, but not the outcomes or learning that comes from the funding process (Drover
et al., 2017). Here, crowdfunding has extended the study of failure to the fundamental task of
acquiring financial resources. For instance, the severity of the failure and the personality
qualities of the campaigner affect their responses to failure. Piening, Thies, Wessel, and
Benlian (2021) found that there is a positive (though nonlinear) relationship between the
extent and duration of negative performance feedback and search distance (i.e., the figurative
distance ventures go in their search for solutions). Furthermore, Allen, Stevenson, and Wang
(2021) find that the intangible knowledge, skills, and abilities that a campaigner possesses
increase the probability and pace of transition after failure.
Beyond funding success or failure, campaigners’ experiences in crowdfunding may
evoke cognitive and behavioral responses that enable (or impede) learning. For instance,
when campaigners obtain market validation through crowdfunding, they become more per-
sistent and perform better commercially due to learning that occurred during the fundrais-
ing process. (Stevenson, Allen, & Wang, 2022a). However, crowdfunding experience can
also take a toll on campaigners’ strategic foresight. Peterson and Wu (2021) find that what
a campaigner learns in one campaign negatively affects their predictive accuracy such that
they exceed their projected product launch timelines by approximately six additional
weeks with each subsequent project. As such, while learning is typically regarded as a
positive consequence, such research illustrates that crowdfunding success may lead to
limited and myopic thinking that ultimately harms funding performance. It is unclear
how such myopic thinking cultivated during the funding process may shape future firm
performance, suggesting that progress still needs to be made to connect learning through
crowdfunding to future venture outcomes.

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 23
Lending-Based Crowdfunding. Our review identified twenty-five articles focused on lend-
ing-based crowdfunding, which includes two distinct approaches: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending
and microfinance crowdfunding (sometimes referred to as prosocial lending or crowdfunded
microfinance). P2P lending platforms like Prosper enable backers to lend money directly to
campaigners in exchange for interest returns. In contrast, microfinance crowdfunding plat-
forms like Kiva serve as an intermediary between backers and microfinance institutions,
who use the funds pooled by backers to provide small, low-interest loans to entrepreneurs
and individuals who may not have access to traditional financial services (Anglin, Short,
Ketchen, Allison, & McKenny, 2020). Lending-based crowdfunding research is at the inter-
section of campaign and backer on our conceptual map because scholars largely focus on
backer outcomes and campaign nuances unique to lending-based models. By examining P2P
lending and microfinance crowdfunding, this literature contributes to the theoretical under-
standing of information asymmetry and moral hazard, herding, and hybridity.
Information asymmetry and moral hazard. Part of what distinguishes P2P lending
research is its attention to outcomes for backers. Whereas most rewards- and equity-based
crowdfunding research concentrates on the campaigners’ success in raising funds, many
P2P lending articles consider loan repayment (or default) as the focal outcome, building
our understanding of how backers can make well-informed and secure investments. A criti-
cal theme in this literature is information asymmetry, which manifests in two key relation-
ships: between backers themselves and between campaigners and backers. First, information
asymmetry between backers arises when sophisticated backers exploit their informational
advantage over less-experienced backers. For instance, Hildebrand et al. (2017) highlight
this dynamic, showing that group leader fees—typically perceived as signals of loan qual-
ity—can mislead amateur backers. Sophisticated backers, incentivized by these fees, pro-
mote numerous loans, many of which frequently default, thereby driving down interest rates
and harming uninformed investors. Removing such fees, however, curtails this moral hazard,
as sophisticated backers then promote fewer but better-performing loans. This underscores
the need for platform interventions to curb harmful practices that disproportionately disad-
vantage less-informed participants. The issues of information asymmetry and moral hazard
are further compounded by the mechanisms through which platforms present and price loans.
Loans priced by platforms—without input from backers—are more likely to default than
those determined by crowd auctions, illustrating how pricing systems can either exacerbate
or alleviate asymmetries between informed and uninformed participants (Wei & Lin, 2017).
Second, information asymmetry between campaigners and backers complicates backers’
ability to assess loan quality. Campaign information, such as the language used in loan
descriptions, affects backers’ decision-making. Readable, positive, and deception-free lan-
guage signals trustworthiness and is associated with lower default rates, while emotional
appeals that mention family, religion, hardship, or pleading increase the likelihood of default
(Gao, Lin, & Sias, 2023; Netzer, Lemaire, & Herzenstein, 2019). More so than any other
topic in the literature, this work illustrates the adverse impact of misinterpreting campaign
information. While much of the campaigner behaviors literature takes a positivist view of
campaign information—trying to determine which and how such information enhances fund-
ing outcomes—the lending literature illustrates how campaign information that increases
funding performance can nevertheless harm backers. Thus, it provides a sobering look at the
role of campaign information. To that end, lending-based crowdfunding affords scholars the

24 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
ability to further extend their understanding of the potential moral hazards related to lending
across environments (Corsetti, Guimaraes, & Roubini, 2006; Hébert, 2018).
Herding behavior. Next, P2P lending research expands the literature on herding in finan-
cial domains. Herding occurs when potential backers make contribution decisions based on
the actions of others, rather than based on independent assessments of campaigners. It has
shown to be a common phenomenon in large public financial markets (Zhang & Liu, 2012),
such as the New York Stock Exchange. In crowdfunding, herding behavior often leads back-
ers to mimic the investment choices of others, rather than making decisions based on inde-
pendent analysis. Thus, this literature illustrates that evolving forms of finance are subject to
similar herding behavior as public markets (see Chan, Parhankangas, Sahaym, & Oo, 2020,
for a non-P2P [rewards-based] study of herding in crowdfunding). Such behavior is usually
associated with social pressure, fear of missing out, or a desire to conform (Banerjee, 1992).
For example, Hildebrand et al.’s (2017) study, discussed above, is an example of herding
whereby the promotion of a loan by a sophisticated backer causes many other backers to herd
towards that loan, conforming to the choices of others to the neglect of their own due dili-
gence. Moderators of herding include platform characteristics: the cumulative amount funded
on the platform and the platform’s share of the market, both of which increase herding while
the platform’s time in operation and government regulation both reduce herding (Jiang, Ho,
Yan, & Tan, 2018). Huang (2023) also finds that platform regulations also reduce herding.
Specifically, platform-set loan prices lead to less herding (relative to auction-determined loan
prices). Taken together, these findings suggest that when there is more information disclosure
and stricter operational standards due to regulation, backers are less inclined to herd. Even
the simple disclosure of an early backer’s name can reduce herding behavior. For example,
Jiang, Ho, Yan, and Tan (2022) found that backers are more likely to herd toward loans with
prior investments made by anonymous backers compared to those with prior investments by
known backers. Interestingly, herding in this case challenges the effectiveness of endorse-
ments in lending-based crowdfunding and their role in herding behavior. Signaling logic
would suggest that typically well-known backers would have a positive influence on herding
behavior as they provide an indication of quality, yet this work shows the opposite.
Hybridity. The final subtopic in lending-based research focuses on the concept of hybrid-
ity in microfinance crowdfunding. In this case, hybridity refers to an organizational struc-
ture or business model that combines social objectives with commercial, for-profit activities
(Moss et al., 2018). This hybrid approach allows organizations to pursue a social or envi-
ronmental mission while also generating revenue and sustainability through commercial
endeavors. A central theoretical question concerning research on hybridity is how organiza-
tions with hybrid motives can balance the tension between social and financial objectives
(Battilana & Lee, 2014). The crowdfunding literature extends this debate to fundraising con-
cerns and investigates how potential backers respond to hybrid motives. More specifically,
hybridity is central to microfinance crowdfunding because the largest microfinance crowd-
funding platform, Kiva, focuses exclusively on loans with hybrid aspects. Hybridity results
in backers responding more positively to social indicators relative to commercial ones (e.g.,
Allison, Davis, Short, & Webb, 2015; Anglin et al., 2020; Gafni, Hudon, & Périlleux, 2021a).
In fact, Moss et al. (2018) found that backers prefer loans that singularly emphasize social
impact rather than balancing communication of their hybrid objectives. This dominance of

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 25
social indicators is not absolute, however. Notably, one study by Berns, Figueroa-Armijos,
da Motta Veiga, and Dunne (2020) found that social signals can deter backers in the absence
of commercial signals and that loan quality signals are the most influential in securing loans.
Further, when examining campaign narratives, research finds backers favor learning about
campaigner entrepreneurial characteristics over their virtuous or religious motivations for
seeking funds (e.g., Anglin, Milanov, & Short, 2023a; Moss, Neubaum, & Meyskens, 2015).
This reveals a theoretical tension between prosocial motivations and practical financial con-
cerns: Backers are often drawn to the idea of social impact but ultimately prioritize signals of
loan quality and campaigner capability when making individual lending decisions. As such,
hybrid crowdfunding can assist in furthering ongoing conversations related to ventures pur-
suing so-called “double-bottom line” performance outcomes (Wesemann & Antretter, 2023;
Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum, & Shulman, 2009).
Demographic Influences. The topic of demographics in crowdfunding is situated at the
intersection of the backer and campaigner on our conceptual map, as research on this topic
is dedicated to the influence of population-level attributes belonging to both categories of
crowdfunding participants (i.e., backers and campaigners). Examination of demographic
influences in crowdfunding yields insights on how social norms and stereotypes shape fund-
ing decisions in low information environments, particularly through the lenses of role the-
ory and expectancy violations theory. There are a total of twenty-two articles that center on
demographics, and while some individual articles explore the effects of demographics like
religion (Anglin et al., 2023a), immigration status (Butticè & Useche, 2022), and indigenous
heritage (Parhankangas & Colbourne, 2023), the overwhelming majority (14 articles) focus
on gender and a smaller subset focus on race. Scholars seek to answer questions such as how
bias affects performance, whether shared demographics between campaigner and backer
matter, and how demographic-associated role expectations help or hinder campaigners.
Gender bias and expectations. Gender is the most studied demographic variable in
crowdfunding research, undoubtedly due to the contrasting gender effects seen in crowd-
funding relative to most other fundraising contexts. Women entrepreneurs have been shown
to face substantial disadvantages to raising funds from angel investors, venture capitalists,
and other financial institutions, yet crowdfunding scholars consistently find that women are
more likely to succeed in fundraising, particularly in industries where they are least repre-
sented (e.g., Johnson, Stevenson, & Letwin, 2018; Seigner, Milanov, & McKenny, 2022).
Thus, crowdfunding appears to challenge the status quo of the broader venture finance lit-
erature. Accordingly, several articles seek to explain and theorize about the nature of these
atypical gender effects in crowdfunding. For example, Prokop and Wang (2022) find that
crowdfunding successfully closes the fundraising gender gap for first time crowdfunders,
but women are less successful than men in subsequent crowdfunding campaigns. Further,
Liao (2021) suggests gender influences performance via an effect on quality signals in
crowdfunding. She found that women campaigners benefit from signals of social ties but
less from signals of competence and qualification. Some scholars consider the gender pref-
erences of backers and the gender of backers themselves, finding that women’s fundraising
advantage is largely among women backers (Bapna & Ganco, 2021; Gafni, Marom, Robb,
& Sade, 2021b). Greenberg and Mollick (2017) theorize that women backers’ preference for
women campaigners may not solely stem from homophily based on gender similarity, but

26 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
also homophily based on perceptions of shared societal barriers as women. Additionally,
because gender comes with expectations for human behavior and interaction, many articles
draw from role theories to explain women’s superior performance in crowdfunding, yet find-
ings in such studies are inconsistent and even contradictory. For instance, Cowden, Creek,
and Maurer (2021) suggest that role congruity may explain gender effects on performance
in rewards-based crowdfunding, finding that women are rewarded for projecting feminine
qualities and men are rewarded for projecting masculine qualities. However, Wang, Li, Wu,
Ling, and Long (2023) find that woman entrepreneurs’ masculinity has an inverted U-shaped
relationship with rewards-based crowdfunding performance. Thus, some indication of mas-
culine characteristics could be beneficial for women. Indeed, Davis, Warnick, Anglin, and
Allison (2021) show that gender role expectancy violation leads to superior performance in
the context of microlending crowdfunding such that women benefit from making stereotypi-
cally masculine facial expressions while men benefit from making stereotypically feminine
facial expressions.
Despite some inconsistencies, the research on gender generally suggests that crowdfund-
ing is effective in leveling the playing field for women entrepreneurs, who may otherwise
struggle to raise funds. This challenges conventional gender roles, as women’s increased
presence and mutual support suggest a shifting normative framework. However, in light of
the findings that women may lose their advantage in subsequent crowdfunding rounds and be
punished for departing too heavily or not enough from gender role expectations, this “woman
advantage” appears somewhat fragile.
Racial bias and expectations. The second most researched demographic variable in the
crowdfunding literature is race. Because crowdfunding is more accessible than traditional
venture finance channels, it has the potential to reduce racial disparities in entrepreneur-
ship and society. In some ways it has succeeded in doing so; for instance, crowdfunding
has been used to fund racial equality initiatives (e.g., Agarwal & Sen, 2022). However,
where crowdfunding research shows a reduction and even reversal of common gender
dynamics seen in traditional venture finance, the racial dynamics in crowdfunding mirror
those seen in other forms of funding. People of color are less successful in raising funds
than their white counterparts (Younkin & Kuppuswamy, 2018). This happens across dif-
ferent minority racial groups (Black and Asian), categories of racial cues (campaigner- and
product-based), and mediums (photo and text) with the result that racial anonymity is
more successful than any form of minority racial cue (Rhue & Clark, 2022). Anglin et al.
(2022a) was the only study in our sample that showed a positive racial effect for people
of color, and the effect was only beneficial for women campaigners funding social (versus
commercial) ventures, as their race and gender are perceived as congruent with the role
expectations of social entrepreneurs.
Relative to gender, the role of race and its contingencies are far less understood, creating
substantial potential for further research on race in crowdfunding. Understanding the nuanced
ways in which race influences crowdfunding success could uncover strategies for mitigating
biases and enhancing support for campaigners of color. Furthermore, despite the focus on
gender, and increasing emphasis on race, studies adopting an intersectional view—where
both factors are simultaneously considered—remain exceedingly rare. We consider this a
fundamental misstep by this literature that should be corrected. Indeed, work across social
science has argued that intersectional approaches are imperative to better understanding how

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 27
gender and race jointly influence outcomes for individuals (Rosette & Livingston, 2012;
Smith, Watkins, Ladge, & Carlton, 2019). We return to this point in our Future Research.
Social Dynamics. At the intersection of campaign, campaigner, and backers, social dynam-
ics encompass the human connection element of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding platforms are
inherently social and community-driven, more so than traditional venture finance, which typi-
cally involves formal, institution-driven interactions (e.g., meetings with venture capitalists or
banks). Crowdfunding campaigns rely heavily on the collective action and support of a large
number of backers, making the study of social networks in crowdfunding helpful in under-
standing collective behavior, trust, and influence. Fourteen articles in our sample study social
dynamics in crowdfunding: the interactions and relationships of various participants within
the crowdfunding ecosystem, often through the campaign itself. Articles on crowdfunding’s
social dynamics use theories of social networks, social capital, and information flow.
Social network centrality and embeddedness. A social network refers to a structured rep-
resentation of social entities (such as individuals, organizations, or nodes) and the various
social ties or relationships that exist among them (Granovetter, 1973; Knoke & Yang, 2008).
These relationships encompass communication patterns, collaborations, friendships, and
other forms of interaction. Two elements of networks have been shown to impact crowdfund-
ing outcomes: centrality and embeddedness. Centrality refers to the prominence or impor-
tance of a specific individual (node) within the network, describing how well-connected
and influential an individual is in relation to that network (Lawyer, 2015). Embeddedness
focuses on the relationships between individuals (edges) and their connections with others,
describing how tightly integrated or connected someone is within the social fabric of the net-
work (Aral & Walker, 2014). For instance, scholars find that when a crowdfunding campaign
is shared on social media, the poster’s network centrality has more impact on technology-
oriented campaigns (Chung et al., 2021) whereas their network embeddedness exerts a more
pronounced impact on socially-oriented campaigns (Chung et al., 2021; Hong, Hu, & Burtch,
2018). This implies that being highly connected is what matters in technology-oriented cam-
paigns while the strength and quality of connections matters more for social causes; thus,
crowdfunding campaign type serves as a boundary condition to the effectiveness of centrality
versus embeddedness.
Crowdfunding platforms have also created a new type of financing network allowing
researchers to expand the boundaries of research examining social networks. Here, even
without the use of external social media, crowdfunding platforms foster an environment
where information is collectively pooled. Thus, campaigners may benefit from the positive
effects of larger on-platform networks. For example, Estrin, Khavul, and Wright (2022) find
that the size of the backer network on a crowdfunding platform can amplify the success of a
campaign that communicates effectively. Campaigners can also leverage the network of
other campaigners on crowdfunding platforms to improve project execution. Kao, Hsiao, Su,
and Ku (2022) show that reciprocity and accessibility between campaigners improves the
project execution of the entire network and that campaigners who attain influential positions
in the network reap personal benefits in terms of campaign success. Thus, from a social net-
work theory perspective (see Brass, 2022), campaigners can become “brokers” of informa-
tion to benefit themselves and others on crowdfunding platforms.

28 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Social capital. Social capital is the intangible collective value that arises from rela-
tionships and interactions within a community or among individuals (Eiteneyer, Bendig,
& Brettel, 2019). It influences how individuals and groups can benefit from their connec-
tions. While related to social network formation, whereas networks provide structure, social
capital is the result of the trust, shared values, and reciprocity within those networks (e.g.,
Walker, Kogut, & Shan, 1997). There are two primary forms of social capital: external and
internal. In crowdfunding, external capital is the social capital a campaigner has outside the
crowdfunding platform with individuals, groups, or organizations in broader online or offline
communities. Conversely, internal social capital is the social capital specific to the relation-
ships formed within a particular context—in this case, the crowdfunding platform (Colombo,
Franzoni, & Rossi–Lamastra, 2015).
Crowdfunding research focuses primarily on internal social capital, as internal social cap-
ital is regarded to be unique to crowdfunding (not present in other venture funding methods;
Buttice et al., 2017); thus, crowdfunding enables researchers to expand their knowledge con-
cerning types of social capital and how internal social capital is built. Here, internal social
capital has a strong influence on crowdfunding performance while external social capital is
less crowdfunding-specific and shows no direct effect on performance (Colombo et al.,
2015). One way campaigners can build and leverage internal social capital is through serial
crowdfunding. Serial crowdfunders can take advantage of their social connections with back-
ers of their earlier campaigns. Doing this helps them perform better in subsequent campaigns
compared to first-time crowdfunders (Buttice et al., 2017). However, serial crowdfunding
may not improve performance if prior campaigns failed to build backer trust. Skirnevskiy,
Bendig, and Brettel (2017) find that when a campaigner has a good track record (i.e., they
have consistently met their backers’ expectations in prior campaigns), they can tap into their
social capital for improved fundraising performance. Another way campaigners can build
and leverage internal social capital is through strategic partnerships. A partner’s track record
can have a similar performance effect to a campaigner’s own track record such that partner-
ing with a campaigner who has prior success can help establish a connection with backers
and improve fundraising performance (Theokary, Sarangee, & Karniouchina, 2023). It is
worth noting, however, that while some work has been done to understand how campaigners
can build social capital with backers (transparent communication and consistent delivery on
promises), there is still a paucity of work seeking to understand how trust and reciprocity are
built and maintained between various parties within these digital communities.
Information flows. The final stream of research under the social dynamics topic focuses
on information flows or the transmission and exchange of information between individu-
als in crowdfunding, specifically, information cascades. With information cascades, each
decision-maker in the sequence tends to rely on the information and actions of those who
came before, often without giving significant weight to their own private information (Bikh-
chandani, Hirshleifer, & Welch, 1992). This is similar to herding behavior (discussed under
the lending-based crowdfunding topic), but information cascades emphasize sequential deci-
sion-making with the main source of information coming from prior actors rather than simul-
taneous conformity to the crowd. Studying information cascades provides insights into the
broader field of behavioral economics, furthering knowledge of how individuals make deci-
sions in environments with high uncertainty and limited information. Traditionally, informa-
tion cascades are believed to be a feature of public financial markets (Cong & Xiao, 2024),

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 29
but less of a feature of entrepreneurial capital markets. Thus, crowdfunding provides a new
domain to probe the development and impact of such cascades.
Specifically, the literature focuses on the flow of information from early backers to later
backers in the form of information cascades (Parker, 2014). Vismara (2018) highlights an
example of information cascades in crowdfunding: Backers with public investment profiles
attract additional backers who follow their decisions based on the information (i.e., curricu-
lum vitae and track record) transmitted from their profiles. Indeed, action-based information
like prior investment performance is conducive to cascades. This is further supported by
Thies et al. (2016) who show that popularity information—the measurable popularity of a
campaign—bears more weight on the investment decisions of subsequent backers than elec-
tronic word of mouth (opinion-based information from online discussions). Furthermore, the
expertise of early backers can be a significant factor in whether or not information cascades
occur. For example, when professional angel investors invest through equity crowdfunding
platforms, they often make early investments that are larger than the typical, non-profes-
sional backer can afford to make. Indeed, Wang et al. (2019) find that backers rely heavily on
these large angel contributions to inform their investment decisions. In sum, this research
suggests that the timing and order of backer participation are critical where campaign strate-
gies should aim to create a strong initial push to set off positive cascades.
Relation to Other Funding Types. Ventures continually face choices about which funding
method to adopt, whether crowdfunding or more traditional avenues like angel investments
or venture capital. The decisions they make in this regard impact not only the success of their
current funding efforts but also their prospects for subsequent rounds of fundraising. This
topic examines the interplay between crowdfunding and other funding methods. It is one
of the smallest topics in our sample with only twelve articles, but it sits at the center of our
conceptual map, tying together elements of each domain (campaign, campaigner, and backer
all embedded in the environment). It explores the factors influencing the choices made by
ventures and backers when considering crowdfunding in comparison to alternative sources
of capital as well as the spill-over effects, synergies, and conflicts arising from sequential
fundraising activities across different channels.
Signaling theory: The campaign as a signal. While other studies focus on how signals
are transmitted and interpreted within the crowdfunding ecosystem itself (e.g., Block et al.,
2018), this topic examines how crowdfunding acts as a signal to others, particularly to tra-
ditional investors like venture capitalists (Kleinert et al., 2020). Successful crowdfunding
campaigns have the potential to send strong positive signals about a venture’s viability, mar-
ket potential, and entrepreneurial competence (Oo, Creek, & Sheppard, 2022), which can
enhance prospects for subsequent rounds of traditional funding (Roma, Vasi, & Kolympiris,
2021; Thies, Huber, Bock, Benlian, & Kraus, 2019). For example, crowdfunding success
leads to a higher likelihood of success raising funds via venture capital (e.g., Thies et al.,
2019). However, even more important than funds raised by the crowd is the crowd’s sen-
timent towards the campaign’s product. Venture capitalists place more weight on the mar-
ket validation provided by campaigns (i.e., feedback, number of backers, comments) than
the amount of money raised when making their own funding decisions (Colombo & Shafi,
2021). When successful, crowdfunding can have a stronger certification effect than prior
venture capital backing if the crowd’s certification is coupled with patents and a historically

30 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
successful founding team (Roma et al., 2021). Conversely, failed campaigns can signal
potential weaknesses, adversely affecting future funding opportunities. For instance, Roma,
Gal-Or, and Chen (2018) find that venture capitalists are very unlikely to fund ventures
with failed crowdfunding campaigns, so ventures who know in advance that they will need
venture capital subsequent to their campaign might consider setting low goals to ensure suc-
cess, as the risks of failure and sending negative signals to venture capital investors may out-
weigh market validation benefits. In sum, the dual role of crowdfunding as both a fundraising
mechanism and as a costly signal itself underscores its strategic importance for entrepreneurs
seeking to navigate the broader financial landscape.
Choice of funding vehicle. For decades, the new venture finance literature arguably oper-
ated under the implicit assumption that entrepreneurs would simply accept the money they
were offered by investors. In short, the agency of those seeking funding was downplayed or
ignored. However, more recent work has challenged this notion and emphasized the entrepre-
neur’s choice in what type of funding to seek and who it should be sought from (e.g., Drover,
Wood, & Fassin, 2014; Schückes & Gutmann, 2021). The crowdfunding literature has been
the key contributor to this conversation.
Early scholarship cast crowdfunding as a last resort for ventures unable to obtain institu-
tional capital, but recent work (Stevenson, McMahon, Letwin, & Ciuchta, 2022b) reveals
that many ventures strategically select crowdfunding because of its unique nonfinancial
advantages (e.g., market validation, feedback, connection with customers) and alignment
with their venture (e.g., stakeholder values, corporate structure). For instance, Miglo and
Miglo (2019) find that ventures choose crowdfunding over bank loans when the demand for
their product is either exceptionally low or exceedingly high. In contrast, ventures prefer
bank loans over crowdfunding when the quality of their venture (probability of bankruptcy)
is either very low or very high. Venture characteristics influence the choice between different
forms of crowdfunding (i.e., rewards- versus equity-based). In fact, Ralcheva and
Roosenboom (2020) reveal that when dealing with significant asymmetric information, high-
quality ventures favor reward-based crowdfunding over equity-based crowdfunding because
it is less likely that low-quality ventures will copy them. This is because the all-or-nothing
funding model common to rewards-based platforms is riskier for low-quality ventures, as
they are at greater risk of receiving nothing. Inversely, crowdfunding has also given indi-
vidual backers a choice of whether to provide capital to ventures indirectly through financial
intermediaries or more directly via equity crowdfunding. The central trade-off between these
approaches is that crowdfunding is presumed to have lower costs, but higher risk compared
to traditional financial intermediaries. As such, evidence suggests that when an investment
carries intermediate levels of risk, backers opt for a combination of equity crowdfunding and
financial intermediation as the equilibrium choice; however, in markets where transaction
costs are high due to investment opacity, backers prefer equity crowdfunding over financial
intermediation (Van Tassel, 2023).
In sum, crowdfunding has meaningfully evolved within the broader entrepreneurial
ecosystem. With a variety of funding models to choose from, crowdfunding is no longer
seen as a last resort for entrepreneurs, but as a strategic choice, offering unique advantages
(beyond immediate capital) such as market validation, customer feedback, and alignment
with stakeholder values. It also gives individual backers more control over their risk port-
folio by allowing them the flexibility to calibrate the proportion of their investments

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 31
between crowdfunding and traditional intermediation according to their risk tolerance and
cost preferences.
Future Research Directions
In this section, we outline several promising directions for future inquiry, building on the
insights gained from our integrative review. Each recommendation is framed within one of
the ten key topics that emerged from our analysis and is associated with theoretical perspec-
tives most likely to be advanced by further study. In some cases, we also identify the specific
business disciplines whose readership is likely to benefit from a recommendation, highlight-
ing the potential cross-disciplinary impact of these research avenues. However, our primary
goal is to provide theoretically driven questions that can best extend the extant body of
knowledge on crowdfunding. Table 3 provides a summary of the presented research ideas. To
provide further context, we offer an overview of each discipline’s main contributions to
crowdfunding research in Appendix B and Table 1b, helping to situate these future directions
within the broader academic landscape. Before moving forward, we offer a note of caution
concerning knowledge silos and redundancy of work across disciplines.
A Note of Caution Concerning Future Research
The multidisciplinary efforts of crowdfunding researchers have enabled the rapid
advancement of knowledge concerning a disruptive phenomenon that embraces a wide
variety of theoretical lenses and research designs. We consider such efforts to be largely
positive for the understanding of crowdfunding as a phenomenon and for the advance-
ment of organizational theory. However, such rapid growth across distinct disciplines
creates the threat of knowledge silos and redundancy. We see evidence of such occur-
rences. For instance, entrepreneurship scholars discovered that backers increase contribu-
tions as the campaign nears its goal and significantly decrease afterwards, suggesting
backers are more motivated when they believe their contribution will make a difference
(Kuppuswamy & Bayus, 2017). Two years later, marketing scholars observe the same
phenomenon with similar empirical context, theory, and findings (Dai & Zhang, 2019).
As another example, both Anglin et al. (2020) and Berns et al. (2020)—the first published
in entrepreneurship and the latter published in finance—show that the financial and social
aspects of partnering microfinance institutions (MFIs) influence crowdfunding perfor-
mance in crowdfunded microlending with very similar research designs and findings.
Likewise, entrepreneurship (e.g., Warnick et al., 2021) and information systems (e.g.,
Raab, Schlauderer, Overhage, & Friedrich, 2020) have shown similar effects of facial
expressions of emotion on crowdfunding outcomes. While we do not contend that studies
examining the same phenomena are exactly the same, and we do believe that each can add
its own value, the increasing overlap among studies merits attention.
Accordingly, we offer some thoughts on areas that research should avoid (and embrace)
to reduce such redundancy. First, while we provide ideas to advance signaling research
below, we believe that simple applications of signaling theory (e.g., X signal leads to more
funding) should be avoided. The crowdfunding literature clearly shows that the traditional
tenets of signaling theory hold and that well-worn signals, such as experience or prototypes,
are influential. Thus, similar examinations are unlikely to yield additional knowledge,

32
Table 3
Future Research Opportunities
Topic Suggested Future Research Questions Theoretical Lens(es)
Firm-specific
relationships
• Which boundary conditions constrain the otherwise positive impact of legitimacy on new ventures and organizations?
• How do varying backer motivations align (misalign) with the institutional norms on campaign platforms?
• How do campaigners calibrate their offerings over time based on crowd feedback and what factors predict changes in
offerings?
Institutional theory
Learning theories
Value co-creation
theories
Platform dynamics • How can platforms simultaneously promote campaign success and backer protection?
• What role do costless signals play in backers’ perception of platform protections?
• Which costless signals accrue the highest ex-post costs for platforms when promises are not kept?
Stakeholder theory
Signaling theory
Situational crisis
communication theory
Advances in Fintech • To what extent do Fintech-oriented funding approaches (e.g., ICOs) draw from and differ from traditional (generalized)
crowdfunding?
• What mechanisms can be used to align the interests of backers and campaigners in ICOs, thereby reducing the inherently
high agency costs?
Institutional theory
Agency theory
Backer-specific
relationships
• How do backers’ intersecting identities influence their funding choices?
• How do backers’ individual differences bear influence on their funding decisions?
• In what ways do psychological factors cause backers to form and revise their attitudes about crowdfunding campaigns?
Identity theories/
Intersectionality
Human capital
Hubris
Environmental
influences
• What role do environmental and institutional variation between developing and developing economies play in
crowdfunding?
• How do environmental influences shape the development of campaign content and its reception?
Institutional theory
(macro- and micro-
institutions)
Campaigner
behaviors
• How do backers value costly and costless signals and make sense of signaling portfolios?
• How do non-language aspects of communication influence crowdfunding outcomes?
Signaling theory
Theories of persuasion
Lending-based
crowdfunding
• How do religion and spirituality affect key lending-based crowdfunding outcomes?
• Do mentions of children or a signal parent status increases funding performance?
Moral foundations theory
Stigma management
communication theory
Demographic
influences
• How do multiple minority classes interact (i.e., intersectionality) in ways that affect crowdfunding experiences and
outcomes?
Role theories
Social dynamics • Which elements of network configurations (e.g., strong vs. weak ties, different types of ties) matter the most in
crowdfunding?
• Do backer identities developed through serial crowdfunding determine the amount and frequency of support they provide?
Social networks
Social identity theory
Relation to other
funding types
• To what extent do crowdfunding platforms facilitate or limit social resource exchanges compared to traditional resource
providers?
• Does exchange orientation have influence ventures’ choice of crowdfunding vehicle?
Social exchange theory
Exchange orientation

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 33
regardless of the field in which they are conducted. As such, we recommend an emphasis on
signaling portfolios below.
Second, we encourage scholars to think more deeply about the relationship between emo-
tional (and similar) expressions and funding. Indeed, the study of emotions in crowdfunding
pitches is a lively topic across disciplines (e.g., Davis et al., 2021, entrepreneurship; Hou,
Zhang, & Zhang, 2023, information systems; Li et al., 2017, organizational behavior; Xiang
et al., 2019, marketing). This body of literature has established that emotions matter with
most common expressions of emotions having positive and negative pathways to funding
performance. As such, does simply assessing the effect of another emotion truly expand our
understanding of crowdfunding? We suggest that it does not. Below, we recommend scholars
focus on the intersection of emotions with other understudied factors (e.g., race) as well as
focusing on the emotions of backers, which have received less attention.
Third, we also caution against the simple examination of a specific type of language or
characteristic display and its direct effects on funding. For instance, several studies show the
varied effects of narcissistic expressions on crowdfunding outcomes (Anglin et al., 2018b;
Bollaert, Leboeuf, & Schwienbacher, 2020; Buttice & Rovelli, 2020). Would a study examin-
ing expressions of hubris add much beyond these works? We believe future research should
be both judicious in its selection of characteristics as well as be willing to probe the nuances
of linguistic expressions. These choices should be made such that the research advances
organizational theories and literatures.
Fourth, we caution against treating backers as a monolith. Although the marketing and
entrepreneurship literatures provide insight into backer differences, the literature as a whole
tends to make simplifying assumptions concerning backer composition. This is valuable in
establishing baseline effects. However, given the substantial knowledge produced in recent
years, many baseline effects have been established. As such, we strongly believe that all
disciplines can benefit from a more nuanced examination of backer variation.
Finally, we encourage research to consider new dependent variables. It is perhaps unsur-
prising that the bulk of the crowdfunding literature assesses funding performance, regardless
of discipline, as this is the most obvious and immediately salient dependent variable.
However, crowdfunding also shapes learning outcomes, evaluation by professional inves-
tors, and future venture performance, among other potential outcomes. By doing this,
researchers can provide a more varied and potentially impactful understanding of how
crowdfunding relates to the broader business environment.
Firm-Specific Relationships
Legitimacy and Institutional Theory. The firm-specific relationships topic highlighted the
effects of legitimacy in crowdfunding. A major contribution from this body of work, which
is largely rooted in the strategic management tradition, is the recognition of crowdfunding
as a distinct institution with its own norms, structures, and regulatory frameworks. In doing
so, this work reveals that crowdfunding challenges traditional notions of legitimacy (e.g.,
Soublière & Gehman, 2020) by highlighting novelty as an “institutional norm” important
to gaining backer support, while also building knowledge about the various types of legiti-
macy that shape campaign effectiveness. To push this stream forward, we identified two
key areas for future research. First, given the wide array of crowdfunding types and variety
of firms seeking crowdfunding, refining institutional theory by adding boundary conditions

34 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
that constrain the positive impact of legitimacy on campaigns is essential. Notably, crowd-
funding has become an important resource for social ventures. However, previous research
(Chen, 2023) established that moral legitimacy, often important for social ventures, can harm
rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns. Future studies should explore the potential risks of
different forms of legitimacy (pragmatic, associational, consequential) in socially-oriented
crowdfunding, as these may not align with the core social concerns of such ventures and
could disappoint backers focused on social legitimacy (Chen, 2023; Garud, Schildt, & Lant,
2014). Indeed, as socially-oriented crowdfunding continues to grow, research finds that
backers have different expectations regarding these campaigns compared to those that are
more commercially-oriented (Anglin et al., 2022a), suggesting that how socially-oriented
campaigns gain legitimacy and leverage legitimacy may vary. For example, further examina-
tion might reveal that while moral legitimacy hinders rewards-based performance, it could
be valuable for campaigns with a social imperative.
Second, recent work reveals differences in how backers respond to institutional norms on
the basis of gender. For instance, Waddingham, Chandler, Alexander, Zafar, and Anglin
(2025) show that women backers are much less punitive of nonconformity to “greedy institu-
tions” such as workaholism. However, the firm-specific relationships literature has largely
ignored individual backer variation in response to institutions. We suggest that such research
could look to the marketing literature, which has a distinct focus on the backer, for inspiration
on how to assess individual backer differences in response to institutional norms. This litera-
ture highlights how individual motivations tie to individual backer willingness to fund a
campaign (e.g., Simpson, Schreier, Bitterl, & White, 2021; Zhang & Chen, 2019). As such,
future research could examine how varying backer motivations align with the institutional
norms on crowdfunding platforms. Such investigations could reveal which backers react
more strongly—whether positively or negatively—to emerging norms in crowdfunding, pro-
viding insight into how both campaigners and platforms might strategically cultivate norms
consistent with backers’ expectations.
Innovation and Organizational Learning. We believe there is considerable potential for
research on innovativeness and learning through crowdfunding to work together as both
are tied to future firm performance and because learning should improve innovativeness.
As noted in our review, crowdfunding can enhance the link between venture innovative-
ness and performance by enabling market insights from backers. Given the role of customer
stakeholders in value co-creation theories (Fernandes & Remelhe, 2016), it would seem that
crowdfunding offers an ideal mechanism for learning customers’ perspectives on proposed
innovative products and using those insights in strategic decision-making. For instance, using
the game, design, and technology categories in Kickstarter—categories that often have serial
campaigners, innovative products, and crowd interaction—future research could examine
how campaigners calibrate their offerings over time based on crowd feedback and what fac-
tors predict changes in offerings. These factors could then be compared against company
performance to determine the influence of the crowd on venture performance.
At the same time, we believe that more work is needed concerning whether what is
“learned” during a campaign is necessarily valuable or aids the venture. Indeed, limited work
suggests that co-creation can go awry if the advice from the crowd is not managed judi-
ciously (e.g., Murray & Fisher, 2022). Here, we suggest that future work begin by separating
learning processes and outcomes (Dahlin et al., 2018) to better disentangle how learning

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 35
processes involved in co-creation enable better or worse outcomes. This could lead to more
refined theory surrounding crowdfunding as a mechanism for learning and how learning
leads to beneficial outcomes for campaigners.
Platform Dynamics
Stakeholder Theory. The literature on platform dynamics examines governance mecha-
nisms that protect backers from unscrupulous behavior from campaigners and factors
that contribute to campaign success. This body of work spans the disciplinary domains of
operations, information systems, finance, and strategic management. Here, the literature
sheds light on the balance platforms must strike between protecting backers and foster-
ing campaign success. Notably, however, most work focuses on one of these objectives
without considering consequences for the other. A natural next step for future research is
to develop integrated frameworks that balance backer protection and campaign success.
For instance, studies could investigate how platforms can use phased information disclo-
sures to maintain transparency without jeopardizing campaign success. This would involve
determining the most effective types and timing of information shared to maximize trust
while still promoting successful funding outcomes. Such an approach could also contribute
to advancing stakeholder theory (Freeman, 2008) by offering new insights into how plat-
forms, as intermediaries, balance competing stakeholder interests. Indeed, a core question
sought by stakeholder theory research is who the firm serves and how firms can manage
competing stakeholder expectations (Parmar, Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Purnell, & De
Colle, 2010). By studying mechanisms that simultaneously protect backers and support
campaigners, researchers could deepen our understanding of how organizations manage
tensions between stakeholder groups, addressing trade-offs in a way that maximizes value
creation for all parties.
Signaling and Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Another potential avenue for
future research involves borrowing from signaling theory, which is widely applied in
other crowdfunding topic areas, such as campaigner behaviors, but less so in the platform
dynamics topic area. Specifically, we call for future studies to bring a costless signaling
framework to bear on how backers perceive platform protections for backers. Costless
signaling, despite the name, may involve costs (penalties) after the signal is sent. These
ex-post costs are suffered by signalers if and when they are perceived to have lied (e.g.,
Patel et al., 2021b). This provides an opportunity for future research to leverage a comple-
mentary theory alongside signaling to explain these ex-post costs. For example, given the
self-regulation of crowdfunding platforms, backers rely on platform honesty and, crucially,
that platforms should suffer negative costs if and when they are discovered to have failed
in claims about backer protection. Thus, research could investigate which costless signals
are both highly influential among backers and highly detrimental when promises are not
kept. Further, it remains unclear as to how crowdfunding platforms can best restore confi-
dence among potential backers. Situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007;
McKenny, Fisher, Short, Ketchen, & Allison, 2024) is a potential complementary theory
that could be used to examine the effectiveness of different communication strategies (e.g.,
apologies, corrective actions, transparency) in moderating the negative impacts of failed
signals and restoring trust among backers.

36 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
Advances in Fintech
Institutional Theory. Research related to the emerging area of Fintech centered on crypto-
currency in the form of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and focused on identifying and manag-
ing agency concerns. The emphasis on agency is likely driven by such work being largely
conducted by finance and accounting scholars, with the entrepreneurship literature contrib-
uting relatively few studies. What is curious is that this research is so far removed from the
study of traditional crowdfunding. We suggest that future research focus on to what extent
do Fintech-oriented funding approaches (e.g., ICOs) draw from and differ from traditional
(generalized) crowdfunding. Our concern is that without first appraising the differences, par-
ticularly from equity crowdfunding which has similar financial motives, that ICO research
could produce redundant insights. To do so, Fintech work will need to more readily engage
with the governance literature addressing platform dynamics. Here, research might employ
an institutional theory approach to examine whether Fintech platforms borrow the legiti-
macy earned from crowdfunding by isomorphic design choices, adopting the terminology of
crowdfunding and mirroring some of the funding schemes employed.
Agency Theory. We believe that a significant opportunity for future research comes from
the principal-agent problem prevalent in ICOs due to relative anonymity, lack of regulation,
and the global reach of cryptocurrency markets, which contribute to high agency costs such
that backers bear significant risks related to mismanagement, fraud, and project failure (Gan
et al., 2021). Recent work has shown that some equity crowdfunding platforms may suffer
from “hidden” agency problems, where platform management may contribute funds to cam-
paigns to spark investment by others and later pull such funds (Mataigne, Meoli, Vanacker,
& Vismara, 2025). The lack of regulation in crypto markets could suggest similar hidden
agency problems yet to be uncovered. In addition, future research might work toward devel-
oping mechanisms to better align the interests of campaigners and backers, thereby reducing
agency costs in ICOs. Specifically, scholars could investigate new incentive structures that
enhance transparency and accountability. One potential Fintech advancement that could con-
tribute to addressing agency problems in ICOs and build out this relatively small stream of
literature is the implementation of smart contracts that automatically enforce terms agreed
upon by backers and campaigners. Smart contracts can release funds incrementally based on
the achievement of predefined milestones, ensuring that campaigners remain committed to
delivering on their promises (Kher, Terjesen, & Liu, 2021). However, it remains to be seen
whether this simply shifts the agency problem to the determiner of whether given milestones
have been met or, for milestones which are algorithmically monitored, whether this creates
market manipulation incentives for management. Furthermore, the users of cryptocurrency
crowdfunding platforms are likely more technologically adept compared to the average
crowdfunding user, making them an ideal audience for early adoption of advanced features
like smart contracts. This could establish legitimacy for such features, paving the way for
broader adoption in traditional crowdfunding, boosting trust and efficiency across platforms.
Backer-Specific Relationships
Intersectionality. The backer-specific topic of our review consisted of research related to
attributes and motivations of backers, backers’ perceptions of campaigns, and backers’

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 37
decision-making processes. Broadly, this topic received substantial attention from the mar-
keting and entrepreneurship literatures. This body of literature seeks to move away from the
simplifying assumptions made by other areas of research that treat the crowd as a monolith
of laypersons and recognize the individual differences inherent in a pool of backers. How-
ever, as research continues to advance there is still much to learn about the ways in which
backers differ from one another. As noted in our review, apart from a few studies recognizing
that race and gender can influence backers’ perceptions and motivations (e.g., Greenberg &
Mollick, 2017), little is known about how backers’ diverse identities affect their reasons for
contributing, how they interpret campaign information, and why they choose to fund certain
campaigns. The intersectionality literature examines how the intersection of identities influ-
ences both the motivations and actions of individuals (Thatcher, Hymer, & Arwine, 2023);
thus, providing a foundation for examining how backers’ intersecting identities influence
their funding choices. For instance, we know that women tend to support women creators due
to beliefs that women creators are at a disadvantage compared to men (Greenberg & Mollick,
2017). By this logic, Black women—due to possessing two subordinate role identities—
could be viewed by backers as being at an exceptional disadvantage. Yet, we do not know if
a creator’s race alters how backers view men versus women. Likewise, we know virtually
nothing about how backer age, career choices, social status, disability status, or other identi-
ties relate to their involvement and decision making when funding campaigns.
Human Capital and Backer Cognitions. Although research is beginning to understand
how certain backer attributes contribute to funding choices, there are several areas that
future research can pursue. For example, the potential influence of backer human capital
is unknown, as is whether backers themselves consider their own education and experi-
ence when evaluating whether to fund campaigns. This is surprising as backers surely bring
varying levels of general and specific human capital with them as they make decisions. In
addition, while research has shown how positively valanced characteristics, such as proso-
cial motivation (e.g., Dai & Zhang, 2019; Kuppuswamy & Buyus, 2017), influence backer
decision-making, there is room to better understand the role of negatively valanced charac-
teristics. Because some backers may frequently fund campaigns, hubris could significantly
impact backer decision-making processes as they gain experience. This could lead to an
overestimation of their ability to pick successful campaigns, potentially resulting in riskier
investment behaviors. Indeed, the entrepreneurship literature has frequently investigated the
hubris of entrepreneurs (e.g., Sundermeier, Gersch, & Freiling, 2020), but rarely investigated
the influence of the hubris of resource providers. Exploring these unexamined backer-spe-
cific aspects of crowdfunding may lead to advancing theory on individual decision making
which underlies contribution decisions. Here, we expect that experimental designs will be an
important method for conducting such research as backer information is difficult to obtain
on crowdfunding platforms.
Environmental Influences
Institutions and Environments. Our review of environmental influences uncovered that
research on this topic centered on the reciprocal influence of crowdfunding and local pol-
icy, economic conditions and crowdfunding activity, and the role that culture plays in
crowdfunding. Such findings are consistent with contingency theory. While contingency

38 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
theory provides a useful way to organize this literature, we believe that other theories should
be brought to bear when examining the broader crowdfunding environment. For instance,
environments shape institutions and institutions shape environments (Manolova, Eunni, &
Gyoshev, 2008), making institutional theory a valuable framework to extend knowledge
concerning crowdfunding environments. To potentially advance institutional theory, further
research should examine the differences in antecedents, processes, and outcomes of crowd-
funding in developing versus developed economies. With few exceptions, there is a lack of
research on how environmental and institutional differences among economies impact the
use and the performance of crowdfunding (cf. Di Pietro & Butticè, 2020). While substantial
research has been conducted in developed economies, studies on crowdfunding in devel-
oping economies have mainly focused on prosocial lending activities (Berns et al., 2020;
Figueroa-Armijos & Berns, 2022). This research shows that backers from developed “West-
ern” nations may impose their “Westernized” expectations on campaigners (e.g., Anglin
et al., 2023a; Moss et al., 2015). As such, some crowdfunding domains provide a situation in
which layperson backers from one institutional regime may interact with campaigners from
a different institutional regime. This presents questions about how the institutional pressures
faced by ventures within developing contexts shape how campaigners communicate and are
perceived. Such research is valuable as crowdfunding continues to emerge as a viable fund-
ing source for those who live in less-developed economies.
Contingencies Across Levels of Analysis. While much of the environmental influences
examined how policy, economic, and cultural conditions shaped the use and adoption of
crowdfunding, there remains little work on how the environment influences the actions of
individual campaigners. For instance, we know virtually nothing about how environmental
factors shape the development of content for the campaign, such as image choice, video
content, linguistic style, or choice to highlight particular causes. Work has also not addressed
how the external environment influences how such content is received by backers. In both
cases, researchers might leverage micro-institutional research which specifically examines
how macro-oriented factors influence individual decisions and actions (e.g., Schilke, 2018).
Thus, opportunities exist for research examining the interplay between environmental factors
and campaigner behaviors as well as backer-specific relationships.
Campaigner Behaviors
Signal Cost and Signal Portfolios. The campaigner behaviors topic of our review unveiled
research centered on campaign signals and signaling portfolios, language and communica-
tion styles, evaluation of campaigner characteristics, and campaigners’ behavioral responses
to crowdfunding experiences. This topic was the central focus of the entrepreneurship lit-
erature examining crowdfunding. However, virtually all disciplines exhibit some interest in
campaigner behaviors. Here, we believe that this literature has the opportunity to provide a
more nuanced look at signaling and to further knowledge on nonverbal communication.
Signaling theory has served as a key lens for understanding campaigner behavior, with
opportunities for additional extensions of this literature. Much of the current literature
focuses on the signaler and the signal itself. There is little emphasis on the signal receiver.
Thus, we call upon future work to look at the crowdfunding literature in marketing as well as
consumer response to signals for inspiration (e.g., Berger, 2019). By placing the emphasis on

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 39
the receiver (i.e., backer), researchers can develop a more refined understanding of how
backers value costly and costless signals and make sense of signaling portfolios (e.g.,
Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). Doing so would answer the recent call by Connelly et al.
(in press) to investigate how different receivers observe and react to the same signal as well
as how they weigh signals when examining multiple signals at once. Further, while tradi-
tional signals are assumed to have a cost, such work could uncover how individual receivers
view the cost of signals, as well as how variation in perceptions of signal costs shapes fund-
ing outcomes. For instance, do men and women backers view the cost of signaling differ-
ently? At the same time, researchers could employ qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)
to uncover unique signaling portfolios that either aid or inhibit funding.
Nonverbal Communication. Although considerable research has examined the importance
of language and rhetoric in crowdfunding, only recently has scholarly attention shifted to
examine how non-language aspects of communication can play a role in campaign success.
Recent research demonstrates that factors such as vocal tone (Allison et al., 2022) and facial
expressions (Davis et al., 2021) can impact potential backers’ intentions and behaviors. In
line with such findings, a key opportunity for future research is to probe deeper into how
non-language aspects of communication can influence crowdfunding outcomes, which is
particularly important as many crowdfunding platforms encourage campaigners to make
video pitches of their ideas. To that end, researchers can leverage work regarding nonverbal
aspects of persuasion (Cesario & Higgins, 2008; Guyer, Briñol, Petty, & Horcajo, 2019)
for insights into nonverbal factors that influence the persuasiveness of crowdfunding cam-
paigns. As cognitive theories have shown promise in understanding crowdfunding (Chan,
Parhankangas, Hsu and Oo, 2024), we suggest that several social cognitive models including
the Social Accuracy Model, the Social Relations Model, the Truth and Bias model of human
judgment, as well as the Brunswik lens model could be employed to extend understanding
of non-verbal communication in crowdfunding. Likewise, artificial intelligence programs—
commercial examples of such programs include Empathic and Amazon Rekognition—can
serve as tools to capture aspects of non-verbal communication in campaign videos.
Lending-Based Crowdfunding
Moral Foundations Theory. For the lending-based crowdfunding topic, we found that
research primarily focuses on loan default and repayment in peer-to-peer lending, backers’
herding behavior in peer-to-peer lending, and the paradox of prosocial loans in microfinance
crowdfunding. Future research on microfinance crowdfunding could benefit significantly
from exploring intersections with other topic areas, such as demographic influences. For
instance, religion, a key demographic factor, has scarcely been studied in crowdfunding
(Anglin et al., 2023a). Given the inherently prosocial nature of many lending-based crowd-
funding platforms, there is a growing need to understand how religion and spirituality might
influence key outcomes in this domain. Religion profoundly shapes morality, ethics, and
decisions about acting for the benefit of others. Moral foundations theory (Haidt & Graham,
2007), which explores the psychological underpinnings of ethical decision-making, offers
a valuable framework for examining how religious beliefs shape backers’ motivations and
behaviors in lending-based crowdfunding. Investigating how religious beliefs impact lending-
based crowdfunding can enhance our understanding of prosocial motivation and behavior,

40 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
both within entrepreneurship and in other literatures. The complexity of these relationships is
underscored by recent findings that potential backers prefer to hear about the entrepreneurial
characteristics of the campaigner rather than their virtuous or religious motivations for seek-
ing funds (e.g., Anglin et al., 2023a; Moss et al., 2015). However, some backers on platforms
like Kiva cite religious reasons for wanting to help others. Thus, future research needs to
delve deeper into the role of religion in crowdfunding contexts to elucidate how it shapes
crowdfunding processes. For example, religion scholars have long been interested in how
specific religious tenets shape greater societal attitudes and behaviors (Luckmann, Kaden, &
Schnettler, 2022). To that end, considerable attention has been given to the Islamic concept of
mudharabah, a form of contract that details a profit-sharing partnership between an investor
(i.e., rab al maal) and a borrower (i.e., mudarib). Previous studies detail the potential ben-
efits that these agreements can have in terms of fueling entrepreneurial activity (Suhendri,
Triyuwono, Mulawarman, & Baridwan, 2017), with recent investigations specifically focus-
ing on how these relationships factor into the crowdfunding context (Ishak, Kamaruddin,
& Aderemi, 2022). However, the application of these forms of contracts remains relatively
limited and have been primarily seen as a mechanism to transform conventional financial
products to be Sharia-compliant. As such, future research will be needed to develop a better
understanding of how such religious factors can be leveraged to maximize the benefits they
pose for crowdfunding efforts.
Stigma Management Communication Theory. In addition to religion, campaigner profiles
tend to reveal personal information such as parental status, mentions of family, references to
neighbors and community, and campaigner age. In some cases, platforms will tag such infor-
mation, making it highly salient (e.g., Kiva has created a category for single parents). How-
ever, it remains unclear as to whether providing such information is helpful or harmful to
fundraising efforts. For instance, future research could investigate whether mentions of chil-
dren or a single parent status increases funding performance. Stigma management communi-
cation theory (Goffman, 2009) offers insights into the potential risks of disclosing personal
information. Campaigners may face challenges if backers stigmatize certain characteristics,
such as being a single parent or older in age, particularly if these attributes are associated
with stereotypes about financial risk or ability to repay loans. Answering such questions is
important given that campaigners in this domain are often encouraged to share this informa-
tion by the microfinance institutions where the loan originates (Anglin et al., 2020).
Demographic Influences
Intersectionality. While research on individual demographic factors in crowdfunding is
growing, there is little investigation into the experiences of individuals with multiple minor-
ity classifications (i.e., intersectionality). This gap is important because the dual minor-
ity stress model posits that individuals with multiple minority identities face higher stress
levels and unique challenges (Meyer, 1995, 2003). These challenges could hinder their
crowdfunding success, but intersectionality might also foster resilience and grit (Meyer,
2010, 2015), potentially offering advantages. Recent research underscores the complex-
ity of intersectionality and entrepreneurship (Swab & Wolfe, 2023), highlighting the need
for more studies in crowdfunding. In conducting such investigations, researchers should
consider minority classifications beyond gender and race, including age, sexual orientation,

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 41
and disability. To understand how intersectionality impacts crowdfunding outcomes, we
can draw from related fields. General management literature shows that multiple minority
statuses have a nuanced and complex relationship with organizational outcomes (Salter,
Sawyer, & Gebhardt, 2021). It also emphasizes the importance of considering how indi-
vidual identities are represented and contextualized (Thatcher et al., 2023). Efforts to
explore intersectionality in crowdfunding could benefit from using a comprehensive inter-
sectionality framework, as suggested in recent entrepreneurial finance research (Scott &
Hussain, 2019). More specifically, crowdfunding research has begun to show that the same
characteristics and behaviors of campaigners may have different effects depending on who
exhibits them, mostly noting gender differences between men and women. As crowdfund-
ing research embraces intersectionality, we believe that doing so creates opportunities for a
more nuanced understanding of campaigner behaviors. For instance, while men and women
may be judged differently depending on the emotions expressed during a pitch (e.g., Davis
et al., 2021), we know very little of how race, skin tone, age, sexual orientation, gender
identity, gender expression, parental status, or other characteristics influence the evaluation
of emotions, experience, or stories told by creators.
Social Dynamics
Social Networks. For the social dynamics topic, our review found that research primarily
examined social networks of campaigners and backers, social capital within crowdfunding
networks, and information cascades in crowdfunding. While substantial work has considered
the overall influence of social networks on crowdfunding performance, fewer studies have
examined the specific configurations of these networks—such as strong versus weak ties and
different types of ties. In order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of social
network ties within crowdfunding contexts, future efforts could leverage relevant findings
regarding the relationship between specific social ties and innovation. For example, innova-
tion research suggests asymmetry regarding the influence that business versus political ties
have on innovation efforts. Specifically, business ties have a positive impact whereas politi-
cal ties have an inverted U-shaped impact on innovation (Wu, 2011). Moreover, geographical
ties have a positive impact on exploitative innovation but a negative impact on exploratory
innovation (Ozer & Zhang, 2015). These distinctions imply that campaigners with strong ties
of different types may see different benefits. Future research could explore how these differ-
ent types of ties affect various crowdfunding outcomes such as resource mobilization, prod-
uct innovation, and campaign legitimacy (e.g., Allison & Anglin, 2025). Such work may be
particularly relevant for scholars in operations and information systems, given their interests
in the structure and dynamics of digital networks. Understanding how the configuration of
social ties shapes campaign outcomes could inform theories of network design and optimiza-
tion in digital environments. Moreover, insights into the types of ties that foster innovation
or legitimacy could guide the development of platform features that facilitate specific social
interactions to enhance crowdfunding performance.
Social Identity Theory. There is a need for research on the cognitions and behaviors of serial
crowdfunding backers, with a focus on social identity. While some work exists on campaign-
ers’ serial creation of successive crowdfunding campaigns (e.g., Buttice et al., 2017), little
work has been done on serial backers’ successive involvement in multiple campaigns. Serial

42 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
backers may develop a strong social identity associated with their role in the crowdfunding
community, which can influence their behaviors and decisions. For instance, backers with
a well-established identity as frequent supporters of innovative projects may be more likely
to support campaigns that align with their personal values and interests. This social identity
can also lead to a form of social capital, where their endorsement of a campaign signals
credibility and attracts additional backers. Future research could examine how backer identi-
ties developed through serial crowdfunding determine the amount and frequency of support
they provide, which campaigns they choose to support, and their influence on other backers.
Understanding these identities can provide entrepreneurship scholars with insights into how
crowdfunding ecosystems foster loyalty and sustained engagement. Additionally, for organi-
zational behavior scholars and social psychologists, this line of inquiry offers a compelling
context for studying identity-based behaviors (e.g., Oo, Allison, Sahaym, & Juasrikul, 2019),
social capital formation, and influence mechanisms in novel, computer-mediated settings.
Relation to Other Funding Types
Social Exchange Theory. Synthesizing the work on the topic of crowdfunding’s relations to
other funding types revealed that many prior studies have focused on campaigners’ choice
between fundraising alternatives. To better understand ventures’ choice of fundraising outlet,
future studies should examine the extent to which crowdfunding platforms facilitate or limit
social resource exchanges compared to traditional resource providers. Traditional resource
providers, such as venture capitalists and angel investors, often provide not only financial
support but also valuable social resources, such as mentorship, networking opportunities, and
strategic advice (Drover et al., 2017). Crowdfunding platforms, on the other hand, typically
focus on financial contributions from a broad base of backers, often with minimal social inter-
actions between the campaigner and backers. Future research could investigate how exchange
orientation affects ventures’ choice to pursue crowdfunding versus other forms of venture
finance. Ventures might choose traditional funding sources not just for financial reasons but
for the social capital they provide (e.g., Alexy, Block, Sandner, & Ter Wal, 2012). Thus, those
with a higher exchange orientation may be more apt to seek out traditional funding sources.
Meanwhile, ventures that rely on crowdfunding might hold different values or priorities, such
as a preference for broad-based community support over specialized mentorship.
Relatedly, scholars should consider the role of exchange orientation within different
types of crowdfunding models (e.g., rewards-based, equity-based, donation-based). For
example, in equity-based crowdfunding, backers might expect some level of ongoing com-
munication and involvement in the venture, similar to traditional investors, because the
value of their equity stakes hinge on the future performance of the venture (Estrin, Gozman,
& Khavul, 2018). Conversely, in rewards-based crowdfunding, the primary exchange is
usually a one-time transaction where backers receive a product or service in return for their
financial contribution. Additionally, donation-based crowdfunding may attract backers
who are motivated by altruism rather than financial returns, resulting in different expecta-
tions regarding social interactions and exchanges. They may expect ongoing communica-
tion regarding the impact of their donations (Boudreau, Jeppesen, Reichstein, & Rullani,
2021). This suggests that exchange orientation likely has implications for the choice of
crowdfunding modality, with more highly exchange-oriented ventures prioritizing long-
term exchange relationships gravitating towards equity-based or donation-based models,

Escudero et al. / Crowdfunding 43
while those focusing on immediate, tangible exchanges might prefer rewards-based mod-
els. Examining these dynamics could provide valuable insights into how ventures tailor
their crowdfunding strategies to align with their exchange orientations and the specific
expectations of their backers.
Both of the above recommendations may be of particular interest to marketing scholars,
who are distinct in their study of crowdfunding as a marketplace rather than a fundraising
mechanism for growth. Specifically, marketing scholars have focused on backers as consum-
ers (e.g., Maciel & Weinberger, 2024); however, there has not yet been work that examines
ventures as consumers, evaluating their decision to select a specific funding vehicle as a form
of consumer preference or behavior. Such research could yield valuable insights into market-
ing opportunities for crowdfunding platforms, particularly in terms of how they position their
models to attract ventures with varying exchange orientations and resource needs.
Conclusion
Crowdfunding has been a game-changing innovation for those seeking to fund new and
emerging ventures, to test product viability, to provide capital to under-resourced business
owners in need of funding, and to quickly learn from a large number of individuals. We offer
an integrative review of the multidisciplinary crowdfunding literature organized in terms of
ten topics within four high-level domains and focused on how crowdfunding has contributed
to the advancement of organizational theory. Our review reveals a vast, diverse, and complex
literature that has made great strides in understanding the dynamic nature of crowdfunding.
However, substantial gaps in our knowledge remain. As such, we present opportunities to
further advance theory across business disciplines and crowdfunding topics to spur the next
decade of crowdfunding research.
ORCID iDs
Stephanie B. Escudero https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4324-5943
Aaron H. Anglin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0857-2081
Thomas H. Allison https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8873-9798
Marcus T. Wolfe https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2430-5709
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