How backers' behavior affects financing performance in agri-food reward-based crowdfunding: The moderating mechanism of initiator characteristics and project attributes

Crowdfunding is a new type of financing favored by entrepreneurs in need of capital. Financing performance is a key concern for crowdfunding project initiators. Although a growing number of studies have investigated the factors that affect the financing performance of crowdfunding projects, there are still some issues that need to be further clarified. How does the investment behavior of backers, as the supply side of finance, affect the financing performance of project in reward-based crowdfunding? What are the moderating mechanisms of this influence by initiator characteristics and project attributes? Based on a panel data set from Zhongchou, a famous agri-food crowdfunding platform in China, this paper finds that the investment speed, the investment intensity, the number of early backers, the backers' comments, and the number of selfless backers all have significant effects on financing performance. The core trust factors of initiator characteristics and project attributes play a moderating role in the relationship between backer investment behavior and financing performance, but there are differences in the moderating mechanisms. Based on the research conclusions, practical enlightenment is proposed for initiators, crowdfunding platforms, and regulators.