Affiliation rhetoric and digital orientation in crowdfunding appeals

This research examines how crowdfunding campaigns' external affiliations and digital orientation contribute to crowdfunding success. We propose that reputable external affiliations and a digital orientation bring legitimacy to campaigns, which in turn significantly improves crowdfunding success. To test our hypotheses, we employ computer-aided text analysis on 4058 crowdfunding campaigns using validated dictionaries. Our results show that crowdfunding success is significantly impacted by prestigious affiliations, numerous common affiliations, and digital orientation. Moreover, we find that affiliations interact with prestige and digital orientation to boost crowdfunding success. This study contributes to the literature on reputation, legitimacy, and digital orientation in the context of entrepreneurship, particularly crowdfunding.