Abstract

This paper deals with crowdfunding as a new innovative form of financing projects that implement innovations focusing on a modern, up-to-date phenomenon in the field of innovation projects. Literary sources and approaches systematization for solving crowdfunding issues indicates that crowdfunding could be understood as a new, popular and innovative way of financing innovative projects around the world. It spread in developed countries in 2008 in response to the financial crisis. Besides, the rapid expansion of the Internet and mobile Internet access provoked its expansion in developing countries. The authors described crowdfunding as a current way of financing representing an individual form of innovative projects financing. Investigation of crowdfunding is based on cluster analysis of variables such as the funds’ amount collected by crowdfunding, the number of crowdfunding contributors and the average amount of contributions of individual contributors to crowdfunding. The research objects are EU-28 countries. The output of the process of object distances clustering was displayed in the form of a dendrogram. It demonstrated the graphical grouping of related objects into clusters. The interpretation of the whole analysis and its further application depends on choosing the right number level of resulting clusters. The cluster analysis findings identified four clusters of objects set on several relatively homogeneous subsets of clusters. Objects belonging to the same cluster were similar, while objects originating from different clusters – dissimilar. The authors noted that despite the innovativeness and trendiness of crowdfunding, the analysis results point to its diverse position in the EU countries. Besides, it was confirmed by the results of the applied analysis. Presented clusters point to the different number of contributors and the average value of funds spent on innovation through crowdfunding at various average contributions from one contributor. Therefore, the countries successfully applying this innovative way of innovative projects financing were the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and EU countries that realized this way of financing to a lesser extent.

Keywords: cluster analysis, crowdfunding, innovation, innovation project financing.

JEL Classification: C23, D22, O30, O47.

Cite as: Loucanova, E., & Olsiakova, M. (2021). Crowdfunding as a way of the monetary and financial ecologies. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 1, 21-29. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2021.1-02

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References

1. Bone, J., & Baeck, P. (2016). Crowdfunding good causes—Opportunities and challenges for charities, community groups and social entrepreneurs. NESTA. org. Retrieved March, 2, 2016.Retrieved from: [Link]
2. Buckingham, C. (2015). Crowdfunding Intelligence: The ultimate guide to raising investment funds on the Internet. LID Editorial.
3. Buyesere, K., Gajda, O., Kleverlaan, R. & Marom, D. (2012). A Framework for European Crowdfunding. [Google Scholar]
4. Crowdfunding. (2018). Retrieved from: [Link]
5. Dresner, S. (2014). Crowdfunding: a guide to raising capital on the Internet. John Wiley & Sons. [Google Scholar]
6. Dushnitsky, G., Guerini, M., Piva, E., & Rossi-Lamastra, C. (2016). Crowdfunding in Europe: Determinants of platform creation across countries. California management review, 58(2), 44-71.[CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
7. Kalamarova, M., Parobek, J., Loucanova, E., & Trebuňa, P. (2014, May). Competitiveness evaluation of the Slovak forest industry. In Proc. 7th Int. Scientific Conf. of Int. Assoc. for Economics and Management in Wood Processing and Furniture Manufacturing (WoodEMA), Zvolen (Slovakia) (pp. 58-62). [Google Scholar]
8. Kickstarter. (2018). Retrieved from: [Link]
9. Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2010). An Empirical Analysis of Crowdfunding. Mimeo. Louvain School of Management, Belgium. Retrieved from [Link]
10. Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding. Environment and Planning A, 49(5), 1019-1039. [Google Scholar][CrossRef]
11. Leyshon, A., Burton, D., Knights, D., Alferoff, C., & Signoretta, P. (2004). Towards an ecology of retail financial services: understanding the persistence of door-to-door credit and insurance providers. Environment and planning A, 36(4), 625-645. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
12. Leyshon, A., Signoretta, P., Knights, D., Alferoff, C., & Burton, D. (2006). Walking with moneylenders: the ecology of the UK home-collected credit industry. Urban studies, 43(1), 161-186.[CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
13. Liu, Z., Min, Q., Zhai, Q., & Smyth, R. (2016). Self-disclosure in Chinese micro-blogging: A social exchange theory perspective. Information & Management, 53(1), 53-63. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
14. Loucanova, E., & Lackova, P. (2018). Crowdfunding ako inovatívny spôsob financovania inovacných projektov na Slovensku a v Cechach. Ekonomické spektrum: recenzovaný vedecko-odborný on-line casopis o ekonómii a ekonomike,2. Retrieved from [Link]
15. Loucanova, E., & Nosaľova, M. (2020). Eco-innovation Performance in Slovakia: Assessment Based on ABC Analysis of Eco-innovation Indicators. BioResources, 15(3), 5355-5365.[Google Scholar]
16. MacMillan, K., Money, K., Money, A., & Downing, S. (2005). Relationship marketing in the not-for-profit sector: an extension and application of the commitment–trust theory. Journal of business research, 58(6), 806-818. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
17. Massolution, C. L. (2015). 2015CF: The Crowdfunding Industry Report. Massolution. Retrieved from [Link]
18. Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of marketing, 58(3), 20-38. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
19. NBS. (2017). Pozícia NBS ku crowdfundingu – požiciavaniu formou «lending». Retrieved from [Link]
20. Salajova, S. (2017). Crowdfunding. Bratislava: Creative Industry Forum. Retrieved from [Link]
21. Seyfi, M., Soydaş, A. U., & Güven, D. (2017). Evaluating crowdfunding from the perspective of Public Relations. Turkish Online Journal Of Design Art And Communication, 7(2), 150-162.[CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
22. Slavik, S., Bednar, R., Ljudvigova, I., Matuskova, R., Misún, J., Hudakova, I. M., … & Hvorecký, J. (2015). Podnikateľské modely a podnikateľské stratégie startupov I.: Recenzovaný zborník vedeckých prac. Vydavateľstvo EKONÓM.[Google Scholar]
23. Stanko, M. A., & Henard, D. H. (2017). Toward a better understanding of crowdfunding, openness and the consequences for innovation. Research Policy, 46(4), 784-798. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
24. Steinberg, S., & DeMaria, R. (2012). The Crowdfunding Bible: How to raise money for any start-up, video game or project. [google Scholar]
25. Van der Ploeg, J. D. (2009). The new peasantries: struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of empire and globalization. Routledge. [Google Scholar]
26. Young, T. E. (2012). The Everything Guide to Crowdfunding: Learn how to use social media for small-business funding. Simon and Schuster. [Google Scholar]
27. Zhao, Q., Chen, C. D., Wang, J. L., & Chen, P. C. (2017). Determinants of backers’ funding intention in crowdfunding: Social exchange theory and regulatory focus. Telematics and Informatics, 34(1), 370-384. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
28. Zheng, H., Li, D., Wu, J., & Xu, Y. (2014). The role of multidimensional social capital in crowdfunding: A comparative study in China and US. Information & Management, 51(4), 488-496. [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]