The Influence of Crowdfunding Project Attributions on Customer Responses via S-O-R Theory: Epistemic Curiosity as Moderator

Abstract

With the development of the Internet crowdfunding has become a new way for entrepreneurs to seek financing Since there is lack of research discussing pre-order type crowdfunding products and customer behavior this study focuses on this type of crowdfunding applying S-O-R theory and using crowdfunding attributes (i e informativeness perceived credibility meaningfulness novelty and adventure) as crowdfunding environmental stimul to understand the impacts on utilitarian value and hedonic value and examine customer’ reactions to crowdfunding products In addition epistemic curiosity will be manipulated as a moderating variable to further discuss its moderating effects on the relationships between crowdfunding attributes and customer perceived value This study focuses on two markets Taiwanese and Chinese so from which 348 and 325 valid questionnaires were collected respectively The SEM results show that except for informativeness the other pre-order type crowdfunding attributes have positive influences on perceived value; meaningfulness and perceived credibility via utilitarian value positively affect purchase intention; novelty and adventure via hedonic value positively affect purchase intention; and hedonic value is a stronger predictor of purchase intention than utilitarian value in both Taiwan and China In Taiwan D-EC and I-EC do not moderate the relationships between crowdfunding attributes and perceived value; while in China only I-EC moderates the relationships between crowdfunding attributes and perceived value In conclusion this study found that pre-order type crowdfunding consumers do indeed care about meaningfulness and adventure suggesting that when pre-order type crowdfunding creators are launching a project they should emphasize that the product is able to solve customers’ problems and satisfy their needs At the same time they should provide hedonic stories pictures and videos so that consumers have empathetic feeling with regard to the pre-order type crowdfunding project In addition if pre-order type crowdfunding creators continue to increase the utilitarian value and hedonic value of customers them the purchase intention of customers can also be enhanced

Date of Award	2016 Aug 9
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hsin-Hsin Chang (Supervisor)