Configurational Path to Financing Performance of Crowdfunding Projects Using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Different from most of the existing studies, this paper analyzes the financing performance of crowdfunding projects in an asymmetric way. First of all, 14 antecedent conditions of the project performance are extracted through the review on the existing research. Secondly, a cross-tabulation analysis is carried out to explore the main and contrarian effects of the antecedent conditions based on the data obtained from the Chinese leading crowdfunding platform, JingDong Crowdfunding. In the following section, the qualitative comparative analysis process is conducted for the antecedent conditions, followed by the test on the predictive validity of the configurational models. Finally, the implications for both research and practice have been discussed. We find evidence that each antecedent condition exercises both main and contrarian effects on the financing performance. And the influence stemming from a single antecedent factor is confirmed to depend on the attribute combination it exists rather than remains stable. Furthermore, the number of progress updates and the number of history investments are the most important positive factors, while the financing goal and the minimum pledge amount are the most important negative ones. This study helps expand the crowdfunding performance research field by adopting the qualitative comparative analysis method on the one hand, while on the other hand, it provides a clearer understanding about the configurational impact on the financing performance from the asymmetrical perspective. The findings can help guide the development and operation of crowdfunding projects and platforms.