The Role of Internal and External Social Capital in Crowdfunding: Evidence from China

How does a proponent's internal and external social capital impact crowdfunding performance? Based on the theory of social capital, we developed a research model and conducted an econometric analysis using the objective data collected from a Chinese comprehensive crowdfunding platform, ZhongchouNet. Results of an econometric analysis of a sample of 862 projects show that two types of the proponent's external social capital have significant effect on crowdfunding performance alone. Moreover, the effect of internal and external social capital on the success of a campaign is fully moderated by the type of the project. These results suggest that, to improve crowdfunding performance, the proponents, especially proponents of for-profit projects, should make good use of the mechanisms of social capital construction existed inside the crowdfunding platform.