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This study aims to examine the influence of reward personalization on financing outcomes in the Industry 5.0 era, where reward-based crowdfunding meets the personalized needs of individuals.

The study utilizes a corpus of 218,822 crowdfunding projects and 1,276,786 reward options on Kickstarter to investigate the effect of reward personalization on investors’ willingness to participate in crowdfunding. The research draws on expectancy theory and employs quantitative and qualitative approaches to measure reward personalization. Quantitatively, the number of reward options is calculated by frequency; whereas text-mining techniques are implemented qualitatively to extract novelty, which serves as a proxy for innovation.

Findings indicate that reward personalization has an inverted U-shaped effect on investors’ willingness to participate, with investors in life-related projects having a stronger need for reward personalization than those interested in art-related projects. The pledge goal and reward text readability have an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on reward personalization from the perspective of reward expectations and reward instrumentality.

This study refines the application of expectancy theory to online financing, providing theoretical insight and practical guidance for crowdfunding platforms and financiers seeking to promote sustainable development through personalized innovation.

The crowdfunding concept and activities have recently been the focus of attention of many researchers and practitioners over different business contexts. However, there is a dearth of literature considering the main aspects of e-equity crowdfunding activities and their impact on the innovation performance for entrepreneurial business. Therefore, this study aims to explore how entrepreneurs' engagement in e-crowdfunding activities could enhance both knowledge acquisition and innovation performance.

The conceptual model will be proposed based on three main theoretical perspectives: relationship marketing orientation (RMO); Kirzner's alertness theory; and the DeLone and McLean model of information systems. The data of the current study were collected using an online questionnaire from a sample of 500 entrepreneurs who have actively engaged in e-crowdfunding in Saudi Arabia.

The statistical results of structural equation modelling (SEM) approved the impacting role of RMO, entrepreneurial alertness, system quality and service quality on the entrepreneurs' engagement in e-equity crowdfunding, which in turn, predicts both knowledge acquisition and innovation performance.

There are several limitations which could be addressed in future studies, for example, this study has only considered one form of crowdfunding (equity based crowdfunding) and due to its nature these findings would not be easily generalized to other kinds of crowdfunding (i.e. donation-based crowdfunding; rewards-based crowdfunding; and debt-based crowdfunding). Future studies could consider these kinds of crowdfunding activities.

This study has contributed to the understanding of e-equity crowdfunding in several aspects. For example, this study presents results that assist both researchers and practitioners in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia to develop an in-depth knowledge of e-equity crowdfunding by considering new dimensions such as RMO and information system success factors.

In this study, the authors sought to investigate how the implicit social ties of both project owners and potential backers are associated with crowdfunding project success.

Drawing on social ties theory and factors that affect crowdfunding success, in this research, the authors developed a model to study how project owners' and potential backers' implicit social ties are associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The proposed model was empirically tested with crowdfunding data collected from Kickstarter and social media data collected from Twitter. The authors performed the test using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with fixed effects.

The authors found that project owners' implicit social ties (specifically, their social media activities, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) are significantly and positively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. Meanwhile, potential project backers' implicit social ties (their social media activities and degree centrality) are negatively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The authors also found that project size moderates the effects of project owners' social media activities on projects' degrees of success.

This work contributes to the literature on crowdfunding by investigating how the implicit social ties of both potential backers and project owners on social media are associated with crowdfunding project success. This study extends the previous research on social ties' roles in explaining crowdfunding project success by including implicit social ties, while the literature explored only explicit social ties.

The purpose of this study is to analyse potential models of Islamic crowdfunding as an alternative financing option for micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia. While crowdfunding has gained traction as an alternative funding source for businesses, it is unclear how far this concept can benefit a group of micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia.

This study uses a qualitative research approach by using data collected through semi-structured interviews with several experts and practitioners in crowdfunding, Shariah and entrepreneurship. Prior to discussing the facets of the findings, the data were analysed based on a thematic approach.

The findings reveal that while previous works of related literature suggest crowdfunding as a viable alternative financing option for entrepreneurs and their businesses, in reality, its practical implementation presents challenges. Numerous micro-entrepreneurs need more training in the areas of management and marketing. Such concerns raise questions about their ability to attract potential project backers. With the proper selection of Shariah contracts and several approaches to risk management, Islamic crowdfunding can potentially become an alternative funding source for microbusinesses.

Given the exploratory nature of this study regarding the applicability of Islamic crowdfunding as an alternative fund for micro-entrepreneurs, its findings may not fully encompass Malaysia’s context because of the limited number of participants involved.

The findings of this study offer guidelines on how to implement Islamic crowdfunding for micro-entrepreneurs. Consequently, Islamic crowdfunding has the potential to alleviate the government’s burden of providing funds for micro-enterprises and enhance their skills and mentality to be more independent, creative and able to promote their products.

While Islamic crowdfunding can be an alternative opportunity for business enterprises and community-based projects, it promotes the spirit of cooperation and collaboration within society.

Although Islamic crowdfunding is a topic that has been discussed previously, empirical investigations in this area remain scarce, mainly through qualitative approaches. Distinguishing from prior literature, this study analyses several potential models of Islamic crowdfunding from the perspectives of experts, practitioners and related agencies for micro-entrepreneurs. Moreover, this study bridges insights from related literature so that they offer practical applications to support micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia.

Sharing project information is critical for the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns. However, few users share medical crowdfunding projects on their social networks, and the sharing behavior of medical crowdfunding projects on social networking sites has not been well studied. Therefore, this study explored the factors and potential mechanisms influencing users’ sharing behaviors on networking sites.

A research model was developed based on the attribution-affect model of helping and social capital theory. Data were collected using a longitudinal survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data. We conducted post hoc analyses to validate the results of the quantitative analysis.

The analysis results verified the effects of perceived external attribution, perceived uncontrollable attributions, and perceived unstable attributions on sympathy and identified the effect of sympathy and social characteristics of medical crowdfunding users on sharing behavior.

This research provides a comprehensive theoretical understanding of users’ sharing behavior characteristics and provides implications for enhancing the efficiency of medical crowdfunding activities.

This paper aims to contribute to the scientific debate concerning the impact of equity crowdfunding on the performance of crowdfunded firms after campaigning. To this aim, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of the campaign and the subsequent firm innovativeness.

This study adopts a quantitative research approach to evaluate if the entrepreneurial choices affecting the characteristics of the equity crowdfunding campaigns have an impact on the post-campaign firm innovativeness.

The results of the models show that the campaign characteristics have a direct impact on the firm innovativeness, both in terms of offering and communication and the campaign performance.

This paper presents one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between the choice of campaign characteristics and the post-campaign firm innovativeness. As such, the study contributes to both the literature concerning start-up innovation and the literature about the impact of equity crowdfunding.

Building a cycling route is an interesting example of sustainable, environmentally friendly leisure and tourism project and this also fosters innovation in eco-friendly transport options. Financial resources must be found to achieve these ambitious goals and crowdfunding could be the answer. The study analyses the factors that influence potential backers' decisions to contribute to the fundraising campaign.

A Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA) was applied to elaborate a map of factors that could influence the process of the crowd's contribution to a crowdfunding round for supporting the enhancement of a cycling route. The factors taken into account were the motivations to contribute, the crowdfunder's features and the dynamics of the fundraising campaign.

The results demonstrate the strategic role played by rewards in the design of a crowdfunding round for a sustainable tourism and leisure project. The results also add more insights by considering backers' attitudes to rewards.

Understanding the factors that can influence the decision to pledge in the tourism and leisure context has extremely valuable implications for tourism businesses developing the business idea and associated capital raising strategies. The study also has practical implications for all institutions trying to foster innovation in eco-friendly transport, particularly in promoting more cycling and improving the image of cycling in the culture.

The study is a step forward in understanding the factors that lead backers to support a sustainable project in the tourism and leisure context and the related dynamics of the crowdfunding round.

This paper aims to provide a review of literature directions regarding the potential impact of fintech operators on the financial services market globally. This paper reviews the literature to identify possible benefits or challenges that fintech firms can have for the traditional banking system.

This paper is based on a review of published research papers related to fintech and digital finance. The Scopus database, SSRN database and google scholar were used to find relevant research papers. The final sample included impactful papers about the effect of fintech activities on the banking and financial services industry.

The current paper indicated that while fintech firms would take some market share away from banks, it is not expected that fintech firms would substitute banks. However, banks are required to accelerate their adoption of innovations and advanced technology to compete with fintech firms. It is also proposed that strategic partnerships and cooperation could happen between banks and fintech companies in a way that benefits both sides.

The present paper adds to the understanding of the effect of the fintech firms’ growth on the banking industry in light of the emerging opportunities and threats for the financial sector. The paper also provides guidance for fruitful research on the impact of fintech activities on social and economic welfare in the future.

Adopting a brand prominence perspective, this study aims to examine how textual and visual brand elements influence the success of crowdfunding campaigns for aftermarket offerings.

A Python-based Web scraper was used to collect data from 620 crowdfunding campaigns for aftermarket offerings hosted on Kickstarter. The linguistic inquiry and word count application programing interface was then used to analyze the linguistic aspects of these campaigns. A fixed effects regression model was used to evaluate the hypotheses.

Textual and visual brand prominence are positively associated with campaign success. Further, with some variations, both types of brand prominence augment the positive effects of narrative and graphic design elements on campaign success.

This study makes novel theoretical contributions to the literature on branding, crowdfunding and aftermarket products. The results also provide practical insights to aftermarket enterprises on creating compelling crowdfunding campaigns.

By analyzing the direct and synergistic effects of branding, narrative and graphic design elements on crowdfunding success, this study extends various literature streams and identifies several future research opportunities.

Crowdfunding (CF) has become an increasingly popular means of financing for entrepreneurs and has attracted significant attention from both researchers and practitioners in recent years. The purpose of this study is to investigate the core content and knowledge diffusion paths in the CF field. Specifically, we aim to identify the main topics and themes that have emerged in this field and to trace the evolution of CF knowledge over time.

This study employs co-word clustering and main path analysis (MPA) to examine the historical development of CF research based on 1,528 journal articles retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database.

The results of the analysis reveal that CF research focuses on seven themes: sustainability, entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurship, fintech, social entrepreneurship, social capital, and microcredits. The analysis of the four main paths reveals that equity CF has been the dominant topic in the past years. Recently, CF research has tended to focus on topics such as fintech, the COVID-19 pandemic, competition, Brexit, and policy response.

To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first attempt to explore knowledge diffusion dynamics in the CF field. Overall, the study offers a structure for analyzing the paths through which knowledge is diffused, enabling scholars to effectively manage a large volume of research papers and gain a deeper understanding of the historical, current, and future trends in the development of CF.