Support Me Once or Every Month - A Taxonomy of Traditional and Subscription-Based Crowdfunding

Subscription-based crowdfunding represents a novel crowdfunding approach, which can reduce the harmful ad- and algorithmic dependency that online creators are experiencing. By utilizing recurring payments and continuously running campaigns, subscription-based crowdfunding platforms enable creators to fund a stable income and democratize their content creation process. Subscription-based crowdfunding platforms are financially successful (e.g., Patreon, OnlyFans), offer tremendous potential for online value creation, and exhibit characteristics that significantly differ from traditional crowdfunding approaches. To better understand these platforms, we develop a theoretically and empirically grounded taxonomy of crowdfunding platforms, which specifically addresses the novel characteristics of subscription-based approaches. Thereby, we contribute to IS research by offering a standardized framework to organize previously disordered knowledge about crowdfunding platforms and enable the creation of hypotheses about the relationship between crowdfunding platforms’ characteristics. Additionally, we provide an overview of the current crowdfunding landscape and outline the beneficial characteristics of subscription-based crowdfunding for scholars and practitioners

German crowd-investing platforms: Literature review and survey

This article presents a comprehensive overview of the current German crowd-investing market drawing on a data-set of 31 crowd-investing platforms including the analysis of 265 completed projects. While crowd-investing market still only represents a niche in the German venture capital market, there is potential for an increase in both market volume and in average project investment. The market share is distributed among a few crowd-investing platforms with high entry barriers for new platforms although platforms that specialise in certain sectors have managed to successfully enter the market. German crowd-investing platforms are found to promote mainly internet-based enterprises (36%) followed by projects in real estate (24%) and green projects (19%), with the median money raised 100,000 euro

German crowd-investing platforms: Literature review and survey

This article presents a comprehensive overview of the current German crowd-investing market drawing on a data-set of 31 crowd-investing platforms including the analysis of 265 completed projects. While crowd-investing market still only represents a niche in the German venture capital market, there is potential for an increase in both market volume and in average project investment. The market share is distributed among a few crowd-investing platforms with high entry barriers for new platforms although platforms that specialise in certain sectors have managed to successfully enter the market. German crowd-investing platforms are found to promote mainly internet-based enterprises (36%) followed by projects in real estate (24%) and green projects (19%), with the median money raised 100,000 euro

FINTECHS AND THE NEW WAVE OF FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARIES

The financial services industry is undergoing a massive transformation similar to what was observed when other industries underwent digitization. The FinTech revolution has given rise to a vast number of technology-oriented market entrants who challenge many parts of the financial services industry. This research seeks to provide a better understanding of how FinTechs across various business functions fundamentally impact the value chain in this industry. To this end, we built on top of financial intermediation theory, and developed a taxonomy of FinTechs’ intermediating functions. The following hierarchical clustering analysis identified six archetypes of FinTech intermediaries as observed in the real world, i.e. the different ways in which FinTechs across business functions act as financial intermediaries by transforming assets, reducing transaction cost, and alleviating information asymmetries. Finally, we discuss how FinTechs impact financial intermediation in itself, and to what extent the notion of FinTechs disintermediating the financial value chain is accurate

Managing Initial Coin Offerings: Towards a Taxonomy of ICO Processes

Initial Coin Offerings are a new type of crowd-based fundraising mechanism that uses the blockchain to issue tokens to a crowd of people in exchange for funds that blockchain start-ups use to develop their business. Unfortunately, due to the recency of this new phenomenon, there is no systematic understanding of the ICO process and its underlying process characteristics. However, companies engaging in ICOs should be able to evaluate and choose the right process steps to best achieve their goal. Against this background, we develop a taxonomy for ICO processes. In contrast to previous work, this classification scheme focuses exclusively on the processual nature of ICOs and its underlying mechanisms

Initial Coin Offering: A Taxonomy Based Approach to Explore the Field

New ventures and private investors are showing increasing interest in innovative forms of fundraising. ICO is the abbreviation of Initial Coin Offering and it represents an innovation in entrepreneurial finance (Fish, 2019; Block, Colombo, Cumming, & Vismara, 2018). However, no study has ever developed a taxonomy of academic and non-academic discourse related to this type of innovative financial tool. This paper aims to fill this gap by developing a taxonomy to investigate and categorize papers that discuss Initial Coin Offering phenomenon. This study is developed using a mixed methodology. The first stage of the research protocol regards the dataset definition and description. In the second stage we adopted the taxonomy process developed by Nickerson et al. (2012). The purpose of the present work is to develop a taxonomy with a set of dimensions each consisting of a set of characteristics that describes the objects in a specific study. We identified a set of seven dimensions: research approach, research design, data collection, philosophical view, focus, research issue, ICO phase. In the taxonomy process we assigned a single value to every dimension. In the last section, we summarize some preliminary results, providing conclusions and discussions for future research

Building a Single Market for Sustainable Finance in the EU-Mixed Implications and the Missing Link of Digitalisation

This article critically analyses the EU’s sustainable finance reforms and argues that the interaction between its regulative and enabling aspects creates mixed messages for governance and market-building. The Regulations adopt an incentive-based approach towards market-building for quality sustainable finance, but lower-level products are not shut out. However, if the market responds to quality signals facilitated by regulatory reforms, the article predicts that market-building may be concentrated in passively-managed indexed products which appeal to retail investors. This market may be dominated by large investment intermediaries who may gain an advantage precisely because of more stringent governance imposed on them. The article further argues that retail investors can be helped by policy bridging between sustainable and digital finance, such as adjustments to the legal duty of suitability to cater for investment advice incorporating sustainability preferences, including robo-advisory channels. The connection between digital and sustainable finance can be highly synergistic in attracting both institutional and retail demand

Exploring the Co-operative Form’s Potential in Crowdfunding : A Non-monetary Perspective

Technology-driven change has generated new, even revolutionary business models, characterized by high levels of user participation. In the finance field, business models based on crowdfunding have seen significant growth and entered use as an alternative means of extending access and gaining financing for various types of projects. Nonetheless, current crowdfunding practices have been subject to criticism for issues such as information asymmetry, lack of trust and transaction costs, spurring discussion of how to develop and improve these practices. One way of speaking to the criticism has been a suggestion that platforms could be owned by the ones who use them. While the associated way of thinking, referred to as platform co-operativism, has seen some inroads in practice, its novel and practical nature means that a clear knowledge gap remains with regard to its potential for dealing with challenges of platform economy. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine the relevance and potential of the co-operative company form for crowdfunding arrangements. Our conceptual study utilizes existing research on co-operatives and considers features of crowdfunding from three different perspectives: asymmetry of information and of trust, interaction frequency and homogeneity of interests. As a result, we provide three taxonomies for outlining future research on co-operative platforms.Technology-driven change has generated new, even revolutionary business models, characterized by high levels of user participation. In the finance field, business models based on crowdfunding have seen significant growth and entered use as an alternative means of extending access and gaining financing for various types of projects. Nonetheless, current crowdfunding practices have been subject to criticism for issues such as information asymmetry, lack of trust and transaction costs, spurring discussion of how to develop and improve these practices. One way of speaking to the criticism has been a suggestion that platforms could be owned by the ones who use them. While the associated way of thinking, referred to as platform co-operativism, has seen some inroads in practice, its novel and practical nature means that a clear knowledge gap remains with regard to its potential for dealing with challenges of platform economy. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine the relevance and potential of the co-operative company form for crowdfunding arrangements. Our conceptual study utilizes existing research on co-operatives and considers features of crowdfunding from three different perspectives: asymmetry of information and of trust, interaction frequency and homogeneity of interests. As a result, we provide three taxonomies for outlining future research on co-operative platforms.Peer reviewe

An integrative literature review of social entrepreneurship research: mapping the literature and future research directions

This article maps existing research from 5,874 scholarly publications on social entrepreneurship (SE) utilizing scientometrics. The mapping indicates a taxonomy of five clusters: (a) the nature of SE, (b) policy implications and employment in relation to SE, (c) SE in communities and health, (d) SE personality traits, and (e) SE education. We complement the scientometric analysis with a systematic literature review of publications on SE in the Financial Times 50 list (FT50) and Business & Society and propose a multistage, multilevel framework that highlights the clusters of existing research on SE based on their stage and level of analysis. This review study also helps outline a set of future research directions, including studies examining (a) the process stage at the micro-level and macro-level, (b) linkages across levels and stages, (c) linkages across stages over time or longitudinal studies, (d) SE in resource-constrained environments, (e) technological advancement and its impact on SE, (f) the types of social enterprises and their outcomes, and (g) various emerging topics in SE

DON’T SLIP ON THE ICO – A TAXONOMY FOR A BLOCKCHAIN-ENABLED FORM OF CROWDFUNDING

Blockchain is rapidly evolving and there is an increasing interest in the technology in both practice and academia. Recently, a blockchain use case called Initial Coin Offering (ICO) draws a lot of attention. ICO is a novel form of crowdfunding that utilizes blockchain tokens to allow for truly peer-to-peer investments. Although, more than 4.5 billion USD have been invested via ICOs, the phenomenon is poorly understood. Scientific research lacks a structured classification of ICOs to provide further insights into their characteristics. We bridge this gap by developing a taxonomy based on real-world ICO cases, related literature, and expert interviews. Further, we derive and discuss prevailing ICO archetypes. Our findings contribute to theory development in the field of ICOs by enriching the descriptive knowledge, identifying design options, deriving ICO archetypes, and laying the foundation for further research. Additionally, our research provides several benefits for practitioners. Our proposed taxonomy illustrates that there is no one-size-fits-all model of ICOs and might support the decision-making process of start-ups, investors and regulators. The proposed ICO archetypes indicate how common ICOs are designed and thus might serves as best practices. Finally, our analysis indicates that ICOs represent a valid alter-native to traditional crowdfunding approaches