TY - JOUR

T1 - When the petting zoo spawns into monsters

T2 - open dialogue and a venture’s legitimacy quest in crowdfunding

AU - Gegenhuber, Thomas

AU - Naderer, Sascha

PY - 2019/1/2

Y1 - 2019/1/2

N2 - The cultural entrepreneurship literature has established that ventures can use stories to convince external stakeholders to issue a positive social evaluation, which is critical in overcoming the liability of newness. To advance the underlying imagery of an astute narrator and passive audience, we examined the interactive dialogic process between ventures and external stakeholders in shaping how a venture manifests itself in the social fabric. Using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter as the broader context of our study, we inquired as to how two gaming ventures and their respective communities engage in a dialogue about what constitutes proper and accepted norms for a venture’s conduct during and after a crowdfunding campaign. We identified three main norms were subjects to these interactions, namely, transparency (i.e., venture sharing timely, relevant, and reliable information with the community); fidelity (i.e., venture demonstrating devotion to the project); and communality (i.e., venture ensuring sustainable consumption and [re-]production of the product for the gamer community). Although a community may not necessarily speak with one voice, adhering or violating these norms was found to impact whether a venture (re-)gained, maintained, or lost legitimacy.

AB - The cultural entrepreneurship literature has established that ventures can use stories to convince external stakeholders to issue a positive social evaluation, which is critical in overcoming the liability of newness. To advance the underlying imagery of an astute narrator and passive audience, we examined the interactive dialogic process between ventures and external stakeholders in shaping how a venture manifests itself in the social fabric. Using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter as the broader context of our study, we inquired as to how two gaming ventures and their respective communities engage in a dialogue about what constitutes proper and accepted norms for a venture’s conduct during and after a crowdfunding campaign. We identified three main norms were subjects to these interactions, namely, transparency (i.e., venture sharing timely, relevant, and reliable information with the community); fidelity (i.e., venture demonstrating devotion to the project); and communality (i.e., venture ensuring sustainable consumption and [re-]production of the product for the gamer community). Although a community may not necessarily speak with one voice, adhering or violating these norms was found to impact whether a venture (re-)gained, maintained, or lost legitimacy.

KW - Management studies

KW - crowdfunding

KW - Cultural entrepreneurship

KW - legitimacy

KW - openness

KW - Cultural studies

KW - Entrepreneurship

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048363668&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14479338.2018.1481753

DO - 10.1080/14479338.2018.1481753

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85048363668

VL - 21

SP - 151

EP - 186

JO - Innovation: Organization & Management

JF - Innovation: Organization & Management

SN - 1447-9338

IS - 1

ER -