Yi Wu

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a primary agent of change in the contemporary e-commerce landscape

Purpose: Equity crowdfunding is an increasingly vital source of financing for startup companies. To attract early investors and take advantage of an observed herding effect in online crowdfunding, platforms have introduced the promotional strategy of “early bird” terms (EBT). Based on signaling theory, we investigate the influence EBT has on crowdfunding performance and post-investment engagement, and the moderating role of valuation. Design/methodology/approach: We empirically tested a set of hypotheses by analyzing archival data from a leading equity crowdfunding platform that had implemented EBT. Findings: We find EBT has significant negative impacts on fundraising performance and investors' post-investment engagement, which is detrimental to sustaining long-term investor interest in the campaign. In addition, enterprise valuation amplifies the negative relationship between EBT and fundraising performance, but does not significantly affect post-investment engagement. Practical implications: To enhance equity crowdfunding outcomes, platforms should regulate EBT use, improve campaign vetting, and monitor incentive impacts. Entrepreneurs must balance EBT's appeal with valuation consistency. Investors, especially novices, should evaluate EBT critically, focusing on campaign fundamentals and long-term value to avoid being misled by short-term, superficial cues. Originality/value: This study enriches existing literature on online crowdfunding and signaling theory by providing new insights into signaling effectiveness. It highlights the overlooked impact of negative signals, reveals how incentive and financial signals interact, and introduces post-investment engagement as a novel measure of investor behavior, offering a dynamic view of crowdfunding performance.

Purpose: Live streaming e-commerce (LSE) is proliferating and has attracted great interest from practitioners and researchers. However, it is still unclear that how the persuasive language affects consumers’ judgment that shapes purchase decisions. Based on the theories of attribution and signal, this study aims to explore the influences of message sidedness on purchase intention and the moderation roles of live streamer types. Design/methodology/approach: A 2 × 2 factorial randomized experiment was conducted to empirically test the proposed research hypothesis. 164 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to four conditions. MANOVA and PLS analysis were used. Findings: The results showed that the live streamer type moderates the impact of message sidedness on purchase intention through the underlying mechanisms of perceived credibility and perceived uncertainty. Specifically, the message sidedness of a key opinion leader-hosted LSE (KLSE), has a stronger impact than that of the store self-built LSE (SLSE). Originality/value: This study enriches the live streaming e-commerce literature in two aspects. On the one hand, it is among the first ones to elucidate the importance of language features of streamers for purchase decision and uncover the underlying mechanisms of perceived credibility and perceived uncertainty. On the other hand, this study also demonstrates the moderation role of live streamer types and enriches the contextual understanding on language features for purchase decision.

This study explores the decision-making process in online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, a rapidly growing source of fixed income for investors. We examine how lenders’ bidding amounts are influenced by interest rates and psychological distance, which is determined by the borrower’s demographic attributes. Our findings, based on data from a popular Chinese P2P lending platform, reveal that geographic distance decreases bidding amounts, indicating a home bias effect. Conversely, social distance increases bidding amounts, suggesting a social distance effect. Interestingly, both types of psychological distance amplify the positive impact of interest rates on bidding amounts. Four controlled experiments further validate these relationships. This research not only contributes to the theoretical understanding of P2P lending but also offers practical insights for policymaking in the high-risk financial context.

The utilisation of information and communication technology (ICT) has a profound impact on e‐governance across countries, albeit, with limited attention to rural areas. The existing literature on this topic either examines the positive effects of ICT use on e‐governance at the individual level or from the urban–rural dichotomy perspective. Meanwhile, the majority of studies are conducted within an urban context, but they scarcely focus on identifying the challenges in developing rural e‐governance. As such, we contend that an ecology perspective is necessary to identify the specific distinctions of ICT use on e‐governance in various rural ecosystems. To this end, we employ various empirical specifications, namely a fixed‐effects model and an instrumental variable approach, to provide evidence of distinct influences of ICT use on e‐governance. As follows, we adopt a qualitative research approach to gather evidence on the differentiations of ICT use on rural e‐governance within diverse ecosystems. Subsequently, we have identified five crucial obstacles encountered by rural ecosystems in Western China while attempting to develop e‐governance. Furthermore, we delineate an all‐encompassing internal‐external strategy to overcome these challenges.

Equity crowdfunding has become an increasingly popular financial source for startups. However, most equity crowdfunding investors are nonprofessionals and thus inexperienced. To help inexperienced investors fund startups, which are high risk, equity crowdfunding platforms have designed various effective information disclosure mechanisms to protect investors and improve market efficiency. One such mechanism is the investor panel, which is a novel form of interactive information disclosure for investors. We exploit a natural experiment on a leading equity crowdfunding platform to understand the effectiveness of its investor panel feature in the fundraising performance of startups and analyze the effect of its lead investor feature. Results indicate that investor panels can harm fundraising performance. The hindering effect of investor panels is more salient in campaigns without a lead investor than in campaigns with a lead investor. To further uncover the underlying mechanisms, we perform text mining analysis on comments from investors. The results of the analysis reveal that potential investors posted few and negative comments after the launch of the investor panel feature. Our study contributes to the information disclosure research stream of the crowdfunding literature by determining the nuanced effect of interactive information disclosure. Moreover, our study provides practical implications to crowdfunding entrepreneurs and platforms for campaign information management.

Purpose: Beneficiary photos on charity appeals are believed to engender prosocial behavior. This study explores photo framing of healthy and unhealthy beneficiary photos in the context of photo-rich online medical crowdfunding. Based on framing theory, emphasis framing effect (i.e. unhealthy photos only vs both healthy and unhealthy photos) and equivalency framing effect (i.e. healthy photos prior to unhealthy photos vs unhealthy photos prior to healthy photos) are identified.Design/methodology/approach: A scenario-based experiment with 135 participants was used to empirically test the proposed research hypotheses. The subjects were randomly assigned to three treatment groups, with 45 subjects in each group. ANOVA, linear regression, and multiple mediation analysis were used to analysis data.Findings: The results reveal that disclosing both healthy and unhealthy photos can elicit stronger sympathy and perceived need than merely disclosing unhealthy photos. Moreover, the order of unhealthy photos prior to healthy photos leads to a higher level of sympathy than the order of healthy photos prior to unhealthy photos. Furthermore, sympathy and perceived need are positively related to donation intention.Originality/value: First, this study extends the photo-related research limited to certain characteristics of a single photo to the sequence effect of multiple photos. Second, this study contributes to framing theory by introducing photo framing, particularly the equivalence and emphasis framing effect of beneficiary photos. Finally, this study reveals the emotional and cognitive routes through which beneficiary photos stimulate prosocial behavior. It also offers practical guidance in the aspects of the framing effect of beneficiary photos for crowdfunding management.

Online medical crowdfunding provides financial support for patients in need. As a major aspect of the disclosure of fundraisers to potential donors, project updates play an essential role in determining the success of crowdfunding projects. In this article, we aim to reveal the dynamic impacts of project updates on fundraising performance by analyzing 2334 projects on a leading medical crowdfunding platform in China from January 2020 to July 2021. Drawing on Aristotle's persuasion theory, we identify three aspects of project updates that influence fundraising outcomes: credibility appeals, rational appeals, and emotional appeals. The empirical results reveal that credibility appeals, rational appeals, and emotional appeals increase the fundraising amount of projects. Moreover, as time passes, the positive impact of project updates with credibility appeals in promoting fundraising amount decreases, while the positive effects of updates with rational and emotional appeals increase. This study contributes to the information disclosure stream of crowdfunding literature and project management research. Implications for fundraising practice are discussed as well.