题目：Better to Give than to Receive: Impact of a Donation Option on Reward-based Crowdfunding Campaigns

　　主讲人：De Liu 副教授

　　时间：2018.6.28（周四）下午4:00

　　地点：主楼317

　　内容简介：

　　Most crowdfunding sites rely on a single funding scheme (e.g., donation, reward, or equity) on their platform, while existing research on backer motivation suggests that backers can be motivated in multiple ways, through intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Thus, a natural question pertains to whether the use of multiple funding schemes could enhance crowdfunding outcomes. This question critically depends on the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. We provide empirical answers to this question by leveraging a natural experiment that took place on a leading reward-based crowdfunding platform that added a new donation option for all reward-based campaigns. Our results indicate that the addition of the donation option to reward-based campaigns has the impact of increasing their success relative to a control group of campaigns. This effect is observed even after accounting for inter-campaign differences via matched samples. To further account for inter-campaign differences, we track campaigns that experienced the site change during the fundraising process, and found that these campaigns gained more funds in the periods after the donation option was introduced. In addition, we find that the heightened crowdfunding success comes from an increase in the number of backers contributing to the campaigns. A finer analysis indicates that the increase in donations has a positive spillover effect on the reward-based contributions, leading to a greater overall outcome. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

　　主讲人简介：

　　Dr. De Liu is an Associate professor of Information and Decision Sciences and 3M Fellow in Business Analytics at Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He received his PhD degree from University of Texas at Austin, and his Master and Bachelor's degrees from Tsinghua University. His research interests include digital auctions, gamification, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and social commerce. His research has appeared in leading journal such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Market Research, and Production and Operations Management. He currently serves as an associate editor for Information Systems Research and Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, academic director for MS in Business Analytics program at Carlson School.