V ARIABLE CONSTRUCTION

3.4.1. Dependent variable construction

The researchers have identified the dependent variable as the success of a social crowdfunding campaign. Previous research has used various approaches to quantify success because of various platforms’ different business models. If a platform has a “keep what you get” (flexible) policy, the rate of success is often measured as a percentage of the total amount asked for (Cumming et al. 2014). As the chosen crowdfunding platform StartSomeGood has adopted an all-or-nothing (fixed) approach for the campaigns posted on the website, the success of a campaign is measured by the realization or surpassing of the stated tipping point goal. Hence, the dependent variable is dichotomous, meaning that it only translates into two values where 1 is equivalent to the success of the campaign and 0 is equivalent to the failure of the campaign (Bryman & Bell 2011). By defining the success of a campaign as a dichotomous variable, the extent to which the campaign was successful is not accounted for in terms of how much funds were received relatively to the tipping point goal. Instead, it defines all projects reaching or exceeding 100 % of the requested tipping point goal as successful.

Thus, the dependent variable was coded 1 for success and 0 for failure, in line with previous research in the field of crowdfunding where a logistic regression model was used to identify the success factors in crowdfunding campaigns (e.g. Mollick 2014; Zvilichovsky et al. 2015).

Table 3 in the following section provides an overview of all variables included in this study, their construction, type, coding, and expected impact on success.

3.4.2. Independent variable construction

The independent variables in the analysis are corresponding to the propositions developed in Chapter 2.5., and visually presented in Table 3, to give the reader an overview. The independent variables have been selected to assess whether they have an impact on the success of the campaign or not, to be able to reject or not reject the propositions. All variables used in the analysis are either interval/ratio, dichotomous, or nominal (Bryman & Bell 2011),

as seen in Table 3. In addition, when the researchers collected data from the platform, it was of essence to have clearly stated definitions of what characterized the different variables and how to code the data in order to make sure that all the data was uniformly assembled.

Therefore, all variables are visually presented in Appendix 8.2., and explained in Table 3, to provide the reader with a better understanding.

Aside from the independent variables, there are variables representing additional factors that can be related to the crowdfunding campaign such as the number of backers, the category inherency, the percentage of funding received and pledged amount. The factors backers, percentage of funding, and pledged amount are beyond the control of the fund-seeker and therefore just included to provide descriptive patterns on what characterized successful and unsuccessful campaign. The category inherency-variable was collected to control for what category the campaign belonged to, but since one campaign could belong to multiple categories, the researchers were unable to assign a specific category to a campaign without bias, and this variable was thus just included to provide indications of category inherency in the descriptive patterns. Also, the control variables are presented where the location of the campaign was collected as a nominal variable and then recoded in order to be included in the logistic regression analysis in SPSS, and the tipping point goal was collected in accordance with the stated goal on the campaign page. The construction of the control variables will be further explained in the next section.

3.4.3. Control variables

In previous studies, the funding goal and duration of a crowdfunding campaign has been suggested to show legitimacy if the goal is modest and the duration is over a shorter period (Frydrych et al. 2014). It is also said to be less likely for a crowdfunding campaign to succeed with a high funding goal (Marelli & Ordanini 2016; Mollick 2014). To check for similar trends in this research, the variables measuring the tipping point goal of the campaign will be controlled for in the analysis. The researchers had the aim to control for the duration of the campaign as well, but since the data regarding this could not be extracted from the platform, and the survey response rate was low, the data on the duration of the campaign was insufficient in terms of amount of observations, and this variable was analyzed in the descriptive statistics instead.

In addition, the researchers control for the location of the campaign as it seemed to be a factor influencing the success of the campaign when running the descriptive statistics. The researchers had seen that previous studies argued that crowdfunding was not as affected by geography as traditional investments, and found it interesting to see whether it did have an impact on the success of the campaigns collected in this study (e.g. Mollick 2014). However, as the aim of this study is to provide success factors that can be controlled by the fund-seeker, this variable was not considered of particular interest for the purpose of this study, but yet

Variable Variable construction Variable coding Expected outcome Dependent Variable

Success The funding goal is met or exceeded 1 = Success 0 = Failure

Independent Variables Platform variables

Calls for urgency Requesting for the backers to fund the project, creating a sense of urgency 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Campaign category Belonging to two or more campaign categories 1 = Two or more 0 = One Positive Contact information Contact details available for direct contact with the fund-seeker 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Front page picture Having a front page picture in the exploratory view 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Fund-seeker information Information about the fund-seeker's background and vision 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Links to external channels Having available links to external channels 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive

Pictures Including pictures in the campaign 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive

Reward categories Amount of different rewards n/a Positive

Slogans and catchphrases Having slogans and catchphrases in the campaign 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Third-party endorsements Third-party endorsements and acknowledgements 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive

Control Variables

Location The location from where the campaign originates n/a Not significant

Tipping point goal The stated funding goal of the campaign (USD) n/a Negative

Additional variables

Backers The amount of backers that funded the campaign n/a Positive

Category inherency The category (ies) the campaign belongs to n/a Not significant

Percentage of funding The percentage of funding received n/a Positive

Pledged amount The amount of money the campaign received in total n/a Positive

Survey variables

Age The age of the fund-seeker n/a Negative

Backed other campaigns Did the fund-seeker back other campaigns 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive

Duration The length of the campaign in amount of days n/a Negative

Education The fund-seeker's educational background n/a Not significant

Gender The gender of the fund-seeker 1 = Female 0 = Male Positive

Marketing services Hiring of a professional marketing firm 1 = Yes 0 = No Positive Number of fund-seekers The amount of fund-seekers starting the campaign n/a Positive Professional background The professional background of the fund-seeker n/a Not significant

Type of backers The kinds of backers that funded the campaign n/a Positive

Updates The number of updates made in the campaign’s lifetime n/a Positive