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This paper aims to describe how the experience feedback (EF) from building projects contributes to product platform development in house-building companies. House-building companies seek improvements to decrease costs, improve flow and decrease variability. Industrialised concepts using predefinitions in product platforms have provided a way of storing and reusing knowledge in project-based house-building organisations. However, the innovation in platforms is mainly incremental and based on EF from implementations in projects.

Qualitative data were gathered via interviews, archival studies and observations, and analysed to identify the underlying structures used to manage the incorporation of EF during platform development. Four different EF channels were studied at one Scandinavian house-builder. The data are explained using an analytical framework based on diffusion of innovation, product platforms and EF.

EF is distributed over the value chain to improve the platform over time. By using multiple channels with differing contents, it is possible to balance client demands and variation with production efficiency. Platform development using feedback channels provides opportunities for double-loop learning. Operative work on projects and the strategic decisions made by developers continuously improve the platform through a combination of knowledge pull and push.

A combination of different EF channels and strategies for developing knowledge pull are shown to be essential for the incremental development of product platforms in project-based house-building organisations. The development of product platforms requires a shift away from the construction industry’s dominant project focus towards a more product-oriented view of house-building. Integrating the design phase with the supply chain enables variety but also creates a need for continuous platform development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate effects of platforms on new product development (NPD) projects. Emphasis has been put on the following effect categories: project performance, process changes, and the use of performance measurements.

The paper is based on data collected in a survey of Swedish manufacturing firms. The survey collected data on platform characteristics and NPD characteristics. This paper reports correlations and regression analyses of the different variables.

The application of a platform strategy leads to a significant increase of component commonality on the product program level. However, it was observed that firms still have problems with sticking to project budgets in terms of cost and lead‐time restrictions. Moreover, platform implementation often involves significant process adaptations. Finally, it showed that firms are hardly applying measurements to follow up on their platform‐related activities.

It appears that predictions made in current literature regarding platform effects are not generally valid for all firms. Therefore, this study indicates that there may be contingencies affecting the applicability of a platform strategy for specific firms.

Owing to potential contingencies affecting the applicability of platforms, firms have to carefully consider if a platform strategy is promising in their specific situation. Moreover, product platform implementation does not only demand an adaptation of product structures but also involves significant process adaptations.

By statistically testing effects of platforms on product development performance, the tendency of the current literature towards case‐based research is overcome. Hereby, the findings of current literature are challenged in terms of their generalizability.

Social interaction in comment sections has become a key factor for backers' decision making in crowdfunding platforms. However, current research on the two-way social interaction in crowdfunding is insufficient, and there exist inconsistent conclusions. This study focuses on the social interaction between creators and backers and explores its influence on the successful exit of crowdfunding projects.

The extended Cox model is used for the empirical analysis of 1,988 crowdfunding projects on the Modian (www.modian.com) platform, a crowdfunding platform for cultural and creative projects in China. The two-way social interaction is reflected in comment quantity and sentiment, as well as reply rate.

Results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between comment quantity/sentiment and the successful exit of crowdfunding projects. This relationship is strengthened by high reply rate.

This study focuses on comment quantity and sentiment. The inverted U-shaped results reconcile previous conclusions. Replies from creators are regarded as a separate factor, and their moderating role is explained. The study research proves the importance of social interaction in crowdfunding platforms and provides suggestions for backers, creators and platform managers.

Reward-based crowdfunding, an emerging financing channel for SMEs, has attracted significant attention from scholars and practitioners. Scholars have mostly explored investors’ herding behavior in platforms to better understand investors’ decision-making mechanisms and management of funding projects. However, current evidence is inconsistent regarding herding behavior during the funding process. This study proposes prior funding performances have a nonlinear effect on subsequent funding performance and that this nonlinear relationship is conditional on competition intensity and information disclosure.

Based on objective data collected from a dominant reward-based crowdfunding platform in China, this study follows a panel ordinary least squares (OLS) model to estimate the effects of prior funding performance on the subsequent funding performance and the moderating role of environmental factors (i.e. competition intensity and information disclosure) in a given platform.

The results show prior funding performance had an inverted U-shaped effect on subsequent performance; this inverted U-shaped relationship was attenuated when the number of interactive messages was larger and competition was more intense, and it was strengthened when information updates were more frequent.

The effects of prior funding performance on subsequent performance at different stages of the fundraising process and under different platform environments remains unclear. The authors revisit the varying viewpoints in existing research and propose that the enhancement and substitution effects of prior funding performance are dominant at different funding stages. Overall, the results of this study highlight that the crowdfunding platform environment may become a boundary condition for investors' herding behavior.

This paper explores the peculiarities of sustainable crowdfunding from the project perspective. The research question is: what are the distinctive features of sustainable crowdfunding, in terms of crowdfunding motivation, platform choice, crowdfunding costs and relationships with backers?

The current study follows a qualitative approach, through conducting in-depth interviews with representatives of sustainable projects, which have had successful crowdfunding campaigns. The selected projects represent various industries and crowdfunding models.

Sustainable entrepreneurs have both financial and non-financial motivations for crowdfunding. A distinctive feature is the importance of community engagement, since the community spirit of crowdfunding is well suited to sustainable projects. The choice of the crowdfunding platform is more complex for sustainable entrepreneurs, as they need to consider the platform's sustainability. Sustainable entrepreneurs also have to put more effort into their communication activities with potential backers, to compensate for the intangibility of sustainability claims. Moreover, they need to have a greater focus on building relationships with backers due to both the community spirit of their projects and legitimacy issues.

The current paper contributes to the limited literature on sustainable crowdfunding and the literature on funding of sustainable businesses and can act as a foundation for further research in this field. Current findings also have high practical value. Crowdfunding platforms may use the insights provided here to better meet the needs of sustainable entrepreneurs, while sustainable entrepreneurs can better understand what they need to pay attention to in their crowdfunding campaigns.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the crowdfunding platforms on reward-based crowdfunding projects. This study offers guidance for the creator on how to choose among platforms and how to make optimal product and pricing decisions.

Usually, crowdfunding platforms are able to help creators to lower unit costs and charge platform fees in return. In this paper, the reduction of the unit cost and the platform fee are selected for determining the competitive strength (CS) of a platform. Then, the CS affecting the creators and the backers of the projects is analyzed.

In the basic model, when the product quality level is exogenous, the optimal price increases in the product quality level and decreases in the difficulty level of the project, while the corresponding expected profit is a unimodal function of the product quality level and the difficulty level. In the endogenous case, the optimal price is exactly twice the unit cost. With the influence of platforms, platforms with higher CS tend to help the creator to lower the prices and to achieve higher profitability. Moreover, platforms with higher CS usually help the creator to offer higher quality products and to charge higher prices.

The opportunity cost is zero in this paper. In reality, backers arrive at the project in different order. Usually, earlier backers bare more opportunity cost and risk.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to offer suggestions for creators on how to choose among crowdfunding platforms. The study provides theoretical guidance on product and pricing decisions on an analytical side.

Tracking trends in new technology funding patterns is essential for venture scaling. The emerging advanced digital technologies (ADT) such as virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and Internet-of-things (IoT) promote business innovation adaptations, and in turn, reshape the industrial landscape. To attract nascent funding for such prospective projects among the public, well-articulated project pitches that are equipped with effective marketing communication convey the projects' importance and marketability. Specifically, when the entrepreneurs and the crowdfunding platform users interact via different types of crowdfunding platforms, pitch framing, including the signaling of ADT terms, project location and fundraising goal, becomes imperative to help facilitate crowdfunding success.

Drawing on data collected from six leading US-based equity and reward-based crowdfunding platforms in 2020, an empirical study was performed. Using the text analysis approach, the authors examined the positive effects of incorporating technology orientation on crowdfunding success. While the effect between the project description's signaling of geographic location, fundraising goal and articulation style on fundraising success, while controlling for project and platform characteristics.

The results suggested that the technology-orientated projects are more likely to achieve better fundraising outcomes. Taking crowdfunding platform types, project locations, minimum fundraising goals and articulation with analytical and authentic into consideration, the results still hold.

Building on the theoretical framework of signaling theory, the authors consider the crowdfunding-specific contextual factors to enhance the understanding of the positivity impact of technology orientation. By such addition, it facilitates more effective strategic composition of entrepreneurs' fundraising conversations.

Crowdfunding offers a popular means to raise donations online from many contributors. Open calls for contributions involve another actor too, namely, the internet platform that maintains the two-sided market. This paper aims to examine the effect of this intermediary on contributors’ willingness to participate in crowdfunding projects.

An online survey measures the relative effect of contributors’ attitudes towards the crowdfunding platform on two key behaviours: willingness to share word-of-mouth and willingness to participate in a project.

Using the theoretical framework of a two-sided market, the empirical study reveals that attitudes towards a crowdfunding platform moderate contributors’ willingness to participate due to several risk factors that affect the platform’s perceived usefulness and ease of use. These factors have negative influences on attitude towards the platform, which reduces support for the project. The effects are stronger for willingness to participate than for word-of-mouth intentions.

Declarative measures and a focus on the utilitarian dimensions of contributor participation limit the external validity of the findings.

With the results of this study, internet platforms can find ways to improve the attitudes of potential contributors. Project creators can use the findings to adapt their communication campaigns and reduce inhibitions that keep contributors from using platforms.

This study advances marketing and crowdfunding literature by highlighting the potential dark side of a platform that functions as an intermediary in a two-sided market.

The purpose of this study is to propose a set of design recommendations for crowdsourcing platforms with a focus on user engagement. A sample of New Zealand (NZ) cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) crowdsourcing platforms were assessed, with the aim of offering insights into how they have been designed to encourage dialogue and engagement and to sustain participation.

The design recommendations were derived from a review of related works. Following this, 12 crowdsourcing projects overseen by libraries, museums and an archive in NZ were assessed against the recommendations through content analysis.

The recommendations were classified into four main categories. These were promote ease of use, attract and sustain user interest, foster a community of users and show users that their work is contributing to the institution and society. The findings indicated that the sample of crowdsourcing projects assessed were generally successful at displaying the credibility and significance of their projects, and promoting their crowdsourced collections. Many of the projects could nevertheless benefit from providing further support to promoting dialogues and engagement with their users and contributors and sustaining offline community interaction.

The content analysis conducted was focused on the functionality of design elements of the crowdsourcing platforms. The design recommendations derived from the analysis were intended as a starting point for discussion and they would need to be validated in further studies. Other relevant project information such as funding and staffing, promotion and outreach efforts were not solicited in this study. Such information could provide important contextualisation. Future research could take the form of in-depth case studies, including surveying those involved in the projects and stakeholders to investigate such contextual aspects of crowdsourcing projects.

Previous research on crowdsourcing in NZ CHIs consisted of single case studies. This study provides a wider snapshot and insights into digital crowdsourcing platforms from public NZ CHIs. The study findings have practical implications for project managers and Web designers involved in crowdsourcing projects, particularly those in the cultural heritage sector.

Crowdfunding (CF) is a digital-financial innovation that, bypassing credit crisis, bank system rigidities and constraints of the capital market, is allowing new ventures and established companies to get the needed funds to support innovations. After one decade of research, mainly focused on relations between variables and outcomes of the CF campaign, the literature shows methodological lacks about the study of its overall behavior. These reflect into a weak theoretical understanding and inconsistent managerial guidance, leading to a 27% success ratio of campaigns. To bridge this gap, this paper embraces a “complex system” perspective of the CF campaign, able to explore the system's behavior of a campaign over time, in light of its causal loop structure.

By adopting and following the document model building (DMB) methodology, a set of 26 variables and mutual causal relations modeled the system “Crowdfunding campaign” and a data set based on them and crafted to model the “Crowdfunding campaign” with a causal loop diagram. Finally, system archetypes have been used to link the causal loop structure with qualitative trends of CF's behavior (i.e. the raised capital over time).

The research brought to 26 variables making the system a “Crowdfunding campaign.” The variables influence each other, thus showing a set of feedback loops, whose structure determines the behavior of the CF campaign. The causal loop structure is traced back to three system archetypes, presiding the behavior in three stages of the campaign.

The value of this paper is both methodological and theoretical. First, the DMB methodology has been expanded and reinforced concerning previous applications; second, we carried out a causation analysis, unlike the common correlation analysis; further, we created a theoretical model of a “Crowdfunding Campaign” unlike the common empirical models built on CF platform's data.