IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i18p7642-d414397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Right Time for Crowd Communication during Campaigns for Sustainable Success of Crowdfunding: Evidence from Kickstarter Platform

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. Ryoba

    (Department of System Science, Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200000, China
    Department of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Dar es Salaam University College of Education, University of Dar es Salaam, P.O. Box 2329 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)

  • Shaojian Qu

    (Department of System Science, Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200000, China
    Department of Decision, Management Engineering School, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210000, China)

  • Ying Ji

    (Department of System Science, Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200000, China)

  • Deqiang Qu

    (Department of System Science, Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200000, China)

Abstract

Only a small percentage of crowdfunding projects succeed in securing funds, the fact of which puts the sustainability of crowdfunding platforms at risk. Researchers have examined the influences of phased aspects of communication, drawn from updates and comments, on success of crowdfunding campaigns, but in most cases they have focused on the combined effects of the aspects. This paper investigated campaign success contribution of various combinations of phased communication aspects from updates and comments, the best of which can help creators to successfully manage campaigns by focusing on the important communication aspects. Metaheuristic and machine learning algorithms were used to search and evaluate the best combination of phased communication aspects for predicting success using Kickstarter dataset. The study found that the number of updates in phase one, the polarity of comments in phase two, readability of updates and polarity of comments in phase three, and the polarity of comments in phase five are the most important communication aspects in predicting campaign success. Moreover, the success prediction accuracy with the aspects identified after phasing is more than the baseline model without phasing. Our findings can help crowdfunding actors to focus on the important communication aspects leading to improved likelihood of success.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. Ryoba & Shaojian Qu & Ying Ji & Deqiang Qu, 2020. "The Right Time for Crowd Communication during Campaigns for Sustainable Success of Crowdfunding: Evidence from Kickstarter Platform," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-22, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7642-:d:414397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7642/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7642/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wessel, Michael & Thies, Ferdinand & Benlian, Alexander, 2017. "Opening the floodgates: the implications of increasing platform openness in crowdfunding," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 109637, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    2. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Vismara, Silvio, 2019. "Sustainability in equity crowdfunding," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 98-106.
    4. Bento, Nuno & Gianfrate, Gianfranco & Groppo, Sara Virginia, 2019. "Do crowdfunding returns reward risk? Evidences from clean-tech projects," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 107-116.
    5. Jörn Block & Lars Hornuf & Alexandra Moritz, 2016. "Which updates during an equity crowdfunding campaign increase crowd participation? An exploratory analysis," Research Papers in Economics 2016-06, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    6. Aladino Fernandez-Blanco & Joaquin Villanueva-Balsera & Vicente Rodriguez-Montequin & Henar Moran-Palacios, 2020. "Key Factors for Project Crowdfunding Success: An Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-19, January.
    7. Chan, Ho Fai & Moy, Naomi & Schaffner, Markus & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "The effects of money saliency and sustainability orientation on reward based crowdfunding success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 443-455.
    8. Mi (Jamie) Zhou & Baozhou Lu & Weiguo (Patrick) Fan & G. Alan Wang, 0. "Project description and crowdfunding success: an exploratory study," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-16.
    9. Sheng, Jie, 2019. "Being Active in Online Communications: Firm Responsiveness and Customer Engagement Behaviour," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 40-51.
    10. Anton Miglo & Victor Miglo, 2019. "Market imperfections and crowdfunding," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 51-79, June.
    11. Broderick Crawford & Ricardo Soto & Gino Astorga & José García & Carlos Castro & Fernando Paredes, 2017. "Putting Continuous Metaheuristics to Work in Binary Search Spaces," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-19, May.
    12. Xiaobei Liang & Xiaojuan Hu & Jiang Jiang, 2020. "Research on the Effects of Information Description on Crowdfunding Success within a Sustainable Economy—The Perspective of Information Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-36, January.
    13. Wessel, Michael & Thies, Ferdinand & Benlian, Alexander, 2017. "Opening the floodgates: the implications of increasing platform openness in crowdfunding," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 87237, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    14. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2000. "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1441-1478.
    15. Davies, William E. & Giovannetti, Emanuele, 2018. "Signalling experience & reciprocity to temper asymmetric information in crowdfunding evidence from 10,000 projects," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 118-131.
    16. Mollick, Ethan, 2014. "The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Konhäusner & Robert Seidentopf, 2021. "Digital Marketing Effects of Clubhouse on Crowdfunding in the Context of COVID-19," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Peter Konhäusner, 2021. "Crowdsourcing in Sustainable Retail—A Theoretical Framework of Success Criteria," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Agnieszka Szewczyk & Zbigniew Stempnakowski, 2021. "Social Energy as the Driving Force behind Crowdfunding—Analysis and Classification of Selected Attributes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-32, September.
    4. René Vásquez-Ordóñez, Luis & Lassala, Carlos & Ulrich, Klaus & Ribeiro-Navarrete, Samuel, 2023. "Efficiency factors in the financing of renewable energy projects through crowdlending," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PB).
    5. Oguzhan Aygoren & Stefan Koch, 2021. "Community Support or Funding Amount: Actual Contribution of Reward-Based Crowdfunding to Market Success of Video Game Projects on Kickstarter," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-18, August.
    6. Han-Chiang Ho & Candy Lim Chiu & Somkiat Mansumitrchai & Zhengqing Yuan & Nan Zhao & Jiajie Zou, 2021. "The Influence of Signals on Donation Crowdfunding Campaign Success during COVID-19 Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-25, July.
    7. Sven Siebeneicher & Ilker Yenice & Carolin Bock, 2022. "Financial-Return Crowdfunding for Energy and Sustainability in the German-Speaking Realm," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-23, September.
    8. Irene Comeig & Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez & Pau Sendra-Pons & Amparo Urbano, 2020. "Rational Herding in Reward-Based Crowdfunding: An MTurk Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-21, November.
    9. Lingfei Deng & Qiang Ye & DaPeng Xu & Wenjun Sun & Guangxin Jiang, 2022. "A literature review and integrated framework for the determinants of crowdfunding success," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-70, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xiaobei Liang & Xiaojuan Hu & Jiang Jiang, 2020. "Research on the Effects of Information Description on Crowdfunding Success within a Sustainable Economy—The Perspective of Information Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-36, January.
    2. Han-Chiang Ho & Candy Lim Chiu & Somkiat Mansumitrchai & Zhengqing Yuan & Nan Zhao & Jiajie Zou, 2021. "The Influence of Signals on Donation Crowdfunding Campaign Success during COVID-19 Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-25, July.
    3. Moradi, Masoud & Badrinarayanan, Vishag, 2021. "The effects of brand prominence and narrative features on crowdfunding success for entrepreneurial aftermarket enterprises," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 286-298.
    4. Michael J. Ryoba & Shaojian Qu & Yongyi Zhou, 2021. "Feature subset selection for predicting the success of crowdfunding project campaigns," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 31(3), pages 671-684, September.
    5. Chan, Ho Fai & Moy, Naomi & Schaffner, Markus & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "The effects of money saliency and sustainability orientation on reward based crowdfunding success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 443-455.
    6. René Vásquez-Ordóñez, Luis & Lassala, Carlos & Ulrich, Klaus & Ribeiro-Navarrete, Samuel, 2023. "Efficiency factors in the financing of renewable energy projects through crowdlending," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PB).
    7. Saif Ullah & Yulin Zhou, 2020. "Gender, Anonymity and Team: What Determines Crowdfunding Success on Kickstarter," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-26, April.
    8. Sven Siebeneicher & Ilker Yenice & Carolin Bock, 2022. "Financial-Return Crowdfunding for Energy and Sustainability in the German-Speaking Realm," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-23, September.
    9. Zhao, Liang & Shneor, Rotem & Sun, Zhe, 2022. "Skin in the game: Self-funding and reward crowdfunding success," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 89-100.
    10. Rotem Shneor & Urszula Mrzygłód & Joanna Adamska-Mieruszewska & Anna Fornalska-Skurczyńska, 2022. "The role of social trust in reward crowdfunding campaigns’ design and success," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(3), pages 1103-1118, September.
    11. Han Jiang & Zhiyi Wang & Lusi Yang & Jia Shen & Jungpil Hahn, 2021. "How Rewarding Are Your Rewards? A Value-Based View of Crowdfunding Rewards and Crowdfunding Performance," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(3), pages 562-599, May.
    12. Davies, William Edmund & Giovannetti, Emanuele, 2022. "Latent network capital and gender in crowdfunding: Evidence from the Kiva platform," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Nielsen, Kristian Roed, 2018. "Crowdfunding through a partial organization lens – The co-dependent organization," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 695-707.
    14. Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Natalicchio, Angelo & Panniello, Umberto & Roma, Paolo, 2019. "Understanding the crowdfunding phenomenon and its implications for sustainability," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 138-148.
    15. Berns, John P. & Jia, Yankun & Gondo, Maria, 2022. "Crowdfunding success in sustainability-oriented projects: An exploratory examination of the crowdfunding of 3D printers," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    16. Tuo Gladys & Yi Feng & Sarpong Solomon & Wang Wenxin, 2020. "The Second Round Resource Acquisition of Entrepreneurial Crowdfunded Ventures: The Relevance of Campaign and Project Implementation Performance Outcomes," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-21, July.
    17. Thomas Niemand & Sascha Kraus & Martin Angerer & Ferdinand Thies & Alicia Mas-Tur, 2019. "More is not always better—non-linear effects in crowdfunding," International Journal of Quality Innovation, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Carolin Bock & Sven Siebeneicher & Jens Rockel, 2022. "The “C” in crowdfunding is for co-financing: exploring participative co-financing, a complement of novel and traditional bank financing," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(9), pages 1559-1602, November.
    19. Seyb, Stella K., 2022. "Red flags and rave reviews: Explaining too-good-to-be-true crowdfunding campaigns," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 69-78.
    20. Danielle Logue & Matthew Grimes, 2022. "Platforms for the people: Enabling civic crowdfunding through the cultivation of institutional infrastructure," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 663-693, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7642-:d:414397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.