题目：The Small Predicts Large Effect in Crowdfunding
时间：2018年12月27日13:30-15:00
地点：商学院武东路校区106
演讲者：范亭亭，香港中文大学商学院市场营销系助理教授
摘要：Entrepreneurs are increasingly relying on Internet crowdfunding — the use of online platforms to raise money from a large number of people — as a means of financing their ventures. This research explores the proposition that the amounts contributed by the majority of funders in the early stages of a crowdfunding campaign may have a counterintuitive influence on follow-up contributions and on the campaign’s likelihood of fundraising success. Findings from an analysis of real-world large-scale crowdfunding data, online social network data, and four experiments show that potential funders are more (vs. less) likely to contribute to a newly launched project when early contributions consist mainly of relatively small (vs. large) amounts. We further show that this Small Predicts Large effect is driven by people’s relationship inferences: when contributions made at the early stage of a crowdfunding campaign mainly comprise relatively large amounts, consumers tend to infer that the large contributions were made by the entrepreneur’s friends or relatives. This relationship inference is further shown to negatively affect consumers’ willingness to contribute. However, if a crowdfunding campaign provides more diagnostic information about the project, these inferences and their effects attenuate.
