Journal
SMALL BUSINESS ECONOMICS
Volume 57, Issue 2, Pages 667-683Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11187-020-00419-8
Keywords
Entrepreneurship; Arts; Cultural and creative industries; Crowdfunding; Backer community; Self-determination theory; Motivation
Categories
Funding
- Projekt DEAL
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Backers of commercial projects are motivated by attractive product offerings, while backers of cultural projects value rewards that engage them with their community. Surprisingly, backers of cultural projects are not more altruistic than commercial backers when it comes to supporting campaigns for symbolic rewards.
Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines differences in the motivation of backers to support cultural and commercial entrepreneurs through reward crowdfunding. We propose that backers of commercial campaigns are a community of early-customers motivated by the prospects of attractive product offerings, while backers of cultural projects constitute a distinct community motivated to support capital-constrained cultural entrepreneurs and connect with like-minded individuals. We use data from the largest German crowdfunding platform, Startnext, and analyze 2334 rewards from 225 cultural and commercial projects. Our results provide support for our hypotheses: Rewards involving price discounts matter particularly for backers of commercial projects and rewards that engage backers with their community matter more for cultural backers. Surprisingly, however, backers of cultural projects are not altruistic; they are no more likely than commercial backers to support campaigns selflessly in response to symbolic rewards.
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