Social responsibility and crowdfunding businesses: a measurement development study

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of social responsibility of crowdfunding industry, an industry that is expanding rapidly as an alternative source of finance and new business model, while failing to sufficiently advance and adhere to good social responsibility practices. The paper develops a stakeholder-based rating system of corporate social responsibility (CSR) among crowdfunding platforms that could assist in making this industry more trustworthy and robust. Design/methodology/approach The approach is based on exploratory research methodology, using interviews as data collection tool, to develop an initial understanding of the dimension and issues that define a construct for measuring the social responsibility of crowdfunding businesses. Findings The paper offers a preliminary construct for measuring the social responsibility of crowdfunding businesses, which identifies the stakeholders’ dimensions to be measured, assigned a relative weight for those stakeholders within an aggregated CSR measure and identified the social responsibility issues to be gauged. Originality/value This research adds to the understanding of the under studied subject of social responsibility of crowdfunding industry by developing a stakeholder-based rating system of CSR among crowdfunding businesses that could assist in making this industry more trustworthy and robust, thereby laying out an agenda for further research on the topic.

Crowdfunding success: the role of co-creation, feedback, and corporate social responsibility

“…According to the results and consistent with the findings reported by Turker (2009b), if entrepreneurs are attentive to their funders or customers by providing high-quality products and offering accurate updates on their actions, funders will also feel proud to be part of that community. Accordingly, entrepreneurs are encouraged not only to look for feedback from funders to get to know them better but also to consider funders’ opinions, make decisions and take measures that meet the expectations of funders to achieve positive results and prevent negative outcomes (Marom, 2017; Freeman, 1984). Entrepreneurs must decide how and when to invest their efforts and resources in the process to strengthen and improve ties with funders (Oh et al , 2019).…”

“…The items were measured on five-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree) and were taken from the literature. The items proposed by Turker (2009a) and Marom (2017) were used to measure CSR. Two items were used to measure each of the four dimensions.…”

“…Several exploratory and qualitative studies (e.g. Spanos, 2018; Marom, 2017) have taken the first steps towards understanding the relationship between crowdfunding and CSR.…”

“…In the context of crowdfunding, Marom (2017) performed a qualitative study of the stakeholders of crowdfunding platforms, identifying entrepreneurs, funders, owners and shareholders of the platforms, regulating bodies, employees, collaborators with the platform, society and the environment as stakeholders. These stakeholders can be classified, according to Clarkson (1995), into two groups: primary (i.e.…”

The motivations of crowdlending investors in Spain

“…It relies on progressive programmes (Berman et al, 1999;McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). By applying these policies, companies show their commitment to long-term resource sustainability (Marom, 2017).…”