Conditions of successful crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and crowdtesting: an explorative study on inherent points of parity and differentiation in their application.

• In Event: Issues in Economic Growth and Development

Abstract

Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are very recent phenomena in alternate financing while crowdtesting relates to software testing and all three of them use the power of the internet to reach the target crowds that will donate money and time to help the initiators achieve their financial and product testing goals. While the size of these crowd based phenomena is growing rapidly (a recent 2015 study* based on active crowdfunding platforms worldwide reported that the industry was growing by 167% to $34 billion), there seems to a real gap in the academic understanding of how these phenomena work (Mollick 2014). In particular, there is hardly any research in exploring the conditions of success, and dynamics of how these three phenomena overlap with or separate from each other. Drawing from disparate pieces of scholarly literature and existing non-scholarly publications, this exploratory study will report and assist in a better understanding of these crowd-based phenomena.
*Retrieved on November 15, 2015 from http://www.crowdsourcing.org/editorial/global-crowdfunding-market-to-reach-344b-in-2015-predicts-massolutions-2015cf-industry-report/45376.
Mollick, E., (2014), The Dynamics of Crowdfunding: An Explorative Study, The Journal of Business Venturing, V29, pp.1-16.

Authors

• Meghan Sivakumar, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

• Theresia Wansi, Marymount University