Details
Year: 2019
Published in: Sustainability, 11, 2019, 4, p. 1175
Cited as: Rey-Martí, A.; Mohedano-Suanes, A.; Simón-Moya, V. Crowdfunding and Social Entrepreneurship: Spotlight on Intermediaries. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1175.
Abstract
This study contributes to the literature by describing how crowdfunding platforms that host social entrepreneurship projects build and preserve legitimacy. We study three intermediaries, analyzing the actions they take to ensure that creators and funders perceive crowdfunding as a trustworthy form of alternative finance. This study shows that the legitimacy that funders ascribe to a project’s social and/or environmental aims is also a source of legitimacy for the intermediaries that promote social entrepreneurship projects. These intermediaries act as agents of social change, using a range of mechanisms to promote projects that seek to create social and/or environmental value in addition to economic value. Our study also has practical implications. We highlight the mechanisms used to reduce potential risks for intermediaries, creators, and funders and ensure their trust in crowdfunding
Recommendations from this resource
Future Research
1) Due to the small number of cases considered in this study, future studies should cover more cases for each crowdfunding model.
2) Consider crowdfunding platforms from other countries, while exploring similarities and differences in processes and mechanisms. This could be useful to highlight the possible effect of cultural differences.
3) Taking into account the perspective of intermediaries (i.e., the crowdfunding platforms). The perspective of creators and funders should also be adopted to consider the viewpoints of all crowdfunding actors.
4) Finally, future studies should compare the results from ths article with the perceptions of users to establish new crowdfunding procedures, tools, services, or even financing mechanisms for platforms to offer.
