Electronic Word-of-Mouth and the Crowdfunding Environment: A Store Environment Approach to Crowdfunding Success

Crowdfunding has transformed the new venture financing process by expanding the possibilities for not only who can receive funding but also who can become a funder in new venture projects. Rewards-based crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo.com offer individuals a “reward” in return for their contribution. The rewards-based crowdfunding environment is imbued with aspects of both new venture funding and internet-based consumer purchasing. A funder may hope to obtain a valued commodity in return for their contribution to a crowdfunding project. Yet, the uncertainty associated with the outcomes requires the funder to infer quality by considering the viability of the project plan and the abilities of the project team. Building upon the complementary perspectives of a rewards-based crowdfunding contribution as both an investment and a purchase, I use the store environment model from the consumer behavior literature as a lens for identifying the informational cues project teams use to convey the worth of their project to funders. Since crowdfunding relies on the interaction of the community, I draw from research on electronic word-of-mouth (eWoM) and social media to understand how social media “buzz” can act as a social cue within the crowdfunding environment, transforming the nature of the message conveyed by the project team. My findings indicate that crowdfunding environment does impact the total amount received for a project, alone and in tandem. More importantly, the type of cue matters; design cues (vividness and structuredness) work best when combined with other design cues and social cues (project team cues and social media “buzz”) work best with other social cues. First, vividness matters –particularly when combined with a well-structured text. Next, neither project team attributes not community discourse matter in isolation, but in combination they do. Finally, too much social media “buzz” has a negative effect on funding, particularly later in the campaign. My research presents the store environment model as a valuable lens for understanding crowdfunding outcomes. By illuminating the complementarities between the new venture financing and internet-based consumer purchasing perspectives of crowdfunding, I utilize a more comprehensive application of the store environment model than has been employed in online contexts previously and present social media eWoM (i.e. social media “buzz”) as a social cue having a significant impact in online store environments and the rewards-based crowdfunding environment in particular. I also highlight the importance of eWoM, in the form of social media “buzz,” as an indirect force on organizational outcomes, acting in tandem with other environment cues and differentially over time

Corporate Enactments of Social Control across Social Media Affordances

Social media contributes to blurring organizational boundaries, increasing the prevalence of “boundaryless organizations.” Unable to rely entirely on managerial fiat or market prices that typically facilitate economic action, such “boundaryless organizations” pose a problem for coordinating collective action. In this study, we therefore employ a grounded theory approach to addressing the following questions: (1) What does control mean in the “boundaryless organization” enabled by social media? (2) How do social media technologies afford opportunities for enacting such controls? In addressing these questions, we build on and contribute to extant literature on social control and social media affordances and provide an analysis of texts describing thirty-four corporate initiatives involving social media

Jamming with Social Media: How Cognitive Structuring of Organizing Vision Facets Affects IT Innovation Diffusion

Organizing vision theory is an institutional alternative to the economic-rationality view of IT innovation diffusion. Institutional theorists have called for more attention to cognitive processes and structures in order to understand institutional mechanisms. Our objective was to unpack the cognitive structure of an organizing vision to understand its role in the diffusion of IT innovations. We focus on the know-why component of organizing visions and on social media as an IT innovation. In a two-stage study, Stage I leveraged schema theory, the orders of worth framework’s six justificatory principles, and relational class analysis to discover the hierarchical structure of the social media organizing vision. This resulted in a view of the organizing vision as comprised of four schemas, which we conceptualized as visions-in-use, and ten nested business use cases, each comprised of different combinations of the six principles. Based on this understanding, Stage II explored how community appropriations of visions-in-use and business use cases from the repertoire provided by an organizing vision shape four facets of an organizing vision—coherence, continuity, clarity, and diversity—and how these facets influence diffusion of the IT innovation. We found that the two vision facets we surfaced— clarity and diversity—are essential to understanding diffusion and how and why coherence and continuity matter to diffusion. Much as the vision of a musical jam session emerges from players’ multivocal performances, an organizing vision emerges from community members’ multivocal discourse about an IT innovation. Just as a jam session depends on a structure of rules and individual player creativity, diffusion of an IT innovation depends on an organizing vision that offers prospective adopters a well-defined repertoire of moves to choose from, yet affords them the freedom to improvise

A Field Experiment in Blended Learning: Performance Effects of Supplementing the Traditional Classroom Experience with a Web-based Virtual Learning Environment

This study examines the efficacy of blended learning—an approach that seeks to combine traditional and online methods in a way that leverages the strengths of both—using a field experiment spanning nearly four months. An information-processing model of learning suggests that information accessibility plays a key role in learners’ interaction with the available information source and can thereby affect learning outcomes. Results of our study suggest that information accessibility does, indeed, impact the efficacy of blended learning by providing high value content in low cost settings, thereby enhancing performance. The largest gains in performance were seen by those who used the blended learning system the most, with the lowest gains by those who did not use the system at all (i.e., the control group)