Online crowdfunding means relying on the Internet to seek financial support from the general public. In this paper we examine success factors in the social capital networks of the top 5000 most funded projects in Kickstarter.com at the time of this study. We first look at how fundraisers and backers identify themselves with the projects they support in their own social networks. This is modelled using Facebook friends, and Facebook shares, respectively, guided by social identity theory. Secondly, we use signalling theory to investigate crowdfunding success based on backers' and fundraisers' ability to engage in a forum, modelled using the number of comments between them, or with unilateral signals using the number of updates from the fundraiser. This study suggests that funders and backers who identify themselves with the projects in their own social networks are associated with greater pledge/backer ratio. We also find that projects where the fundraiser and its backers exchange more signals in a joint forum, but not signals delivered unilaterally by the fundraiser, have a greater pledge/backer ratio. These findings, based on a scalable quantitative study, highlight the importance of a multi-theory approach, advance social identity theory and signalling theory in the context of crowdfunding, and could be applied to online and normal entrepreneurship environments alike.

This study extends theorisation of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the social entrepreneurship context by introducing firm performance as a construct for examining social enterprises (SEs) EO. Drawing on EO and firm performance research indicating that EO is related to a better firm performance, this paper argues that EO in SEs is positively related to organisational performance. This research empirically studies 303 social enterprises in Saudi Arabia and develops three hypotheses that examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and social entrepreneurs' firm performance. The results show that innovativeness and proactiveness, but not risk-taking, are positively associated with firm performance. Thus, whilst SEs cover a wide range of business activities there is generally a positive effect of EO across the contexts investigated. Also, this research found that EO can be used as a mechanism to overcome constraints imposed by limited resources in an environment where new opportunities rarely occur.

Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

No abstract

No abstract