What Impacts Backers' Behavior to Fund Reward-Based Crowdfunding Projects? A Systematic Review Study

Abstract

Background: With Covid-19 spreading across the world, many economic issues have raised. Effort is continued to support vulnerable individuals and start-ups to survive during this pandemic. Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF) is seen as alternative sustainable finance in the Fintech industry. It allows fund-seekers to pledge an investment through RBCF platforms such as Kickstarter for funding their projects. Backers will get a reward in return. Research has shown that factors impacting the backers' behavior are crucial in determining the success of RBCF campaigns. However, there is a literature gap in providing a holistic view of these factors. Therefore, this paper aims to review and identify factors impacting backers' behavior by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Method: This paper employs the three stages in conducting the SLR. It starts with identifying the review strategy where a search string is developed. A total of 323 papers from 2012 up to 2019 from two main academic databases, i.e. IEEE Xplore and ScienceDirect were retrieved. After applying the quality assessment criteria, 33 papers were qualified for the analysis. Thematic analysis was then applied to thematically categories the identified factors. Results: A large set of factors was identified in the literature. Identified factors were classified under nine main themes. These themes are Team Characteristics, Project Characteristics, Social Influence, User Generated Content, Risk, Distrust, Upfront Marketing, Environment Readiness, and Backers Motivation. Conclusions: This paper contributes theoretically by comprehensively identify factors impacting backers’ behavior toward using RBCF. The findings also contribute empirically, particularly to the fund-seekers, to help them understand what factors might impact the backer’s behavior and enhance their chances of designing a successful campaign.