title: From organizational preparedness to funders’ decisions:
title: effects of synergetic trust formation and systematic processes in
      organization-led crowdfunding campaigns
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Cavalcanti, M Isabella
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2019

description: The purpose of this thesis is to explore the processes observed in
      organization-led, reward-based, crowdfunding campaigns towards successful
      funding outcomes. Prior research has overlooked the processes
      organizations encounter when planning and executing crowdfunding campaigns
      that subsequently shape funders’ decision-making processes. This
      qualitative research uses a process-based view and trust theories to
      understand the crowdfunding processes arising from interactions occurring
      during temporal organization-led crowdfunding initiatives in the creative
      industries. The study completed 35 in-depth and open-ended interviews and
      observations to understand these processes. Additional qualitative data
      forms enhance the study including digital data sources, screen-based
      documents and archival documents (675 pages). The study’s aim to
      differentiate between individual-led and organization-led crowdfunding
      processes becomes the first contribution to the crowdfunding literature.
      Next, the first two articles contribute individually to distinct and yet,
      interdependent synergies (i.e., organizational crowdfunding teams and
      funders). Each article presents its focused inquiry with the goal of
      understanding different aspects of organization-led crowdfunding
      campaigns. A third article provides a teaching case. The thesis comprises
      five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces an overview of the literature, the
      purpose of the study, the research methodology and the structure of the
      thesis. Chapter 2 presents the first article, ‘From Inception to
      Finalization: Curating campaign processes in organization-led
      crowdfunding.’ This article explores eight cases representing mainstream
      crowdfunding organizations. Specifically, the study examines the processes
      crowdfunding organizations teams employ to acquire and assemble the
      necessary knowledge and skills to stage successful crowdfunding campaigns.
      The article also addresses context-related challenges such as diverging
      ideologies and the expectations of multiple internal stakeholders. Key
      findings demonstrate interdependent trust dimensions rising as synergetic
      mechanisms leveraging the initialization, the steering and the
      finalization exchanges affecting the choreographed organizational
      processes in this context. Chapter 3 submits the second article,
      ‘Capitalizing Relational and Competence Trust: funders’ decision processes
      in organization-led crowdfunding.’ This article investigates funders’
      interactions and reliance on a trusted environment and associations to
      develop their decisions at distinctive stages of the crowdfunding
      contribution process. Using data responses from an assortment of funders
      (e.g., experienced and nascent funders), key findings demonstrate that
      funders exercise a certain level of sophisticated screening to arrive at
      their final financing decisions and circulation of campaign information
      based on their professional experience and social involvement in the
      creative industries. Chapter 4 offers a published article, ‘Crowdfunding
      and Museums: A Field Trip Exemplar in the UK.' This learning
      innovation exercise links theory and practical entrepreneurial
      experiences, including group interfaces and processes, in the preparation
      of a project-based crowdfunding campaign. The conclusion (Chapter 5)
      outlines the significant contributions the three articles make to the
      advancement of our knowledge of the unique processes experienced by
      crowdfunding organizations and their funders.