Dynamics of Investor Communication in Equity Crowdfunding

In crowdfunding, start-ups can voluntarily communicate with their investors by posting updates. We investigate whether start-ups strategically use updates, which were previously shown to increase investments. To this end, we use hand-collected data of 751 updates and 39,036 investment decisions from the two major German equity crowdfunding portals Seedmatch and Companisto. We find evidence for strategic communication behavior of startups during an equity crowdfunding campaign. During the funding period, start-ups post updates with linguistic devices that enhance the group identity and the group cohesion. Furthermore, the probability of an update during the funding period increases with a strong competition of other contemporary crowdfunding campaigns

Sharing Economy Digital Platforms and Social Inclusion/Exclusion: A Research Study of Uber and Careem in Pakistan

Part 2: Digital Platforms for DevelopmentInternational audienceThe sharing economy business models enabled by digital platforms are shifting the landscape of economic growth and nature of employment globally. This study focuses on digital travel industry of Pakistan and aims to explore the social and economic implications of sharing economy platforms. Drawing on the concepts of social inclusion/exclusion from ICT and IS literature, we examine the potential participation of digital platforms in social inclusion/exclusion of the society. We adopted an interpretive and qualitative research design. The data was collected through informal talks, observations and semi-structured interviews. For our research study, we selected two online ride-hailing companies operational in Pakistan, Uber and Careem. The study shows social impacts of sharing economy digital-platforms to enhance culture of trust, family confidence and women empowerment. It highlights the inclusion of unemployed groups through self-entrepreneurship that improve economic activities in the society. The study also identifies few contradictions and potential challenges that support social exclusion due to technology, such as biased gendered contribution in economic activities, generation/age constraints in usability and accessibility issues based on geographic locations