Is crowdfunding Doomed in Sweden? When Institutional Logics and affordances collide, (Re-)Design Matters

Crowdfunding has been embraced by entrepreneurs across the globe as an alternative, and well-publicized, source of start-up financing. In Sweden, despite the apparent benefits of crowdfunding, high levels of internet connectivity and a reputation for producing global ICT entrepreneurs, crowdfunding has not (yet) been embraced among ICT entrepreneurs. This paper explores this empirical puzzle in light of technology affordances and institutional entrepreneurship literatures, as well as their complementarity. After presenting the methodology and preliminary findings of this qualitative case study of the crowdfunding phenomenon in Sweden, it concludes with a few salient findings of this ongoing project. These findings suggest that both the design of the platform and existing institutional logics among entrepreneurs shape perceptions of affordances and thus the adoption of this new form of start-up financing.

[1]  Marie-Claude Boudreau,et al.  Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective , 2005, Organ. Sci..

[2]  Paul DiMaggio.  Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory , 1988 .

[3]  J. Battilana,et al.  Acting Globally but Thinking Locally ? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations , 2007 .

[4]  Josh Lerner,et al.  Venture Capitalists and the Oversight of Private Firms , 1995 .

[5]  Paul M. Leonardi,et al.  When Flexible Routines Meet Flexible Technologies: Affordance, Constraint, and the Imbrication of Human and Material Agencies , 2011, MIS Q..

[6]  Yannis Pierrakis,et al.  The venture crowd: crowdfunding equity investments into business , 2012 .

[7]  W. Ocasio.  TOWARDS AN ATTENTION-BASED VIEW OF THE FIRM , 1997 .

[8]  Gavin Cassar.  The Financing of Business Start-Ups , 2004 .

[9]  Michael Lounsbury,et al.  Institutional Sources of Practice Variation: Staffing College and University Recycling Programs , 2001 .

[10]  M. Lounsbury.  A Tale of Two Cities: Competing Logics and Practice Variation In the Professionalizing of Mutual Funds , 2007 .

[11]  Paul Colomy,et al.  Neofunctionalism and Neoinstitutionalism: Human Agency and Interest in Institutional Change , 1998 .

[12]  Christopher Marquis,et al.  Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Enduring Influence of Local Communities on Organizations , 2009 .

[13]  Andy Cosh,et al.  Outside Enterpreneurial Capital , 2009 .

[14]  W. Orlikowski.  The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research , 2010 .

[15]  Matthew Zook.  Grounded capital: venture financing and the geography of the Internet industry, 1994–2000 , 2002 .

[16]  Eva Boxenbaum,et al.  Bottom-of-the-Pyramid: Organizational Barriers to Implementation , 2009 .

[17]  Terri L. Griffith,et al.  Information Technology and the Changing Fabric of Organization , 2007, Organ. Sci..

[18]  Omar El Sawy,et al.  Building an Information System Design Theory for Vigilant EIS , 1992, Inf. Syst. Res..

[19]  Susan V. Scott,et al.  10 Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization , 2008 .

[20]  Jason Dana,et al.  The Academy of Management , 2014 .

[21]  G. DeSanctis,et al.  Structuration Theory in Information Systems Research: Methods and Controversies , 2004 .

[22]  Gary Rhoades,et al.  Toward a Micro Corrective of Structural Differentiation Theory , 1994 .

[23]  S. Faraj,et al.  The Materiality of Technology: An Affordance Perspective , 2013 .

[24]  Jeffrey Sohl,et al.  The early-stage equity market in the USA , 1999 .

[25]  Patricia H. Thornton.  The Rise of the Corporation in a Craft Industry: Conflict and Conformity in Institutional Logics , 2002 .

[26]  Patricia H. Thornton.  Markets from Culture: Institutional Logics and Organizational Decisions in Higher Education Publishing , 2004 .

[27]  P. Leonardi,et al.  Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World , 2013 .

[28]  Paul M. Leonardi,et al.  Materiality and Change: Challenges to Building Better Theory about Technology and Organizing , 2008, Inf. Organ..

[29]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Rhetorical Strategies of Legitimacy , 2005 .

[30]  Kenneth W. Koput,et al.  The Spatial Clustering of Science and Capital: Accounting for Biotech Firm-Venture Capital Relationships , 2002 .

[31]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing , 2002, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[32]  Ann Majchrzak,et al.  Technology Affordances and Constraints in Management Information Systems (MIS) , 2012 .

[33]  Sofia Avdeitchikova,et al.  On the structure of the informal venture capital market in Sweden: developing investment roles , 2008 .

[34]  B. Leca,et al.  How actors change institutions: Towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship , 2009 .

[35]  J. Battilana,et al.  BUILDING SUSTAINABLE HYBRID ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF COMMERCIAL MICROFINANCE ORGANIZATIONS , 2010 .

[36]  A. Kumaraswamy,et al.  INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE SPONSORSHIP OF COMMON TECHNOLOGICAL STANDARDS: THE CASE OF SUN MICROSYSTEMS AND JAVA * , 2002 .

[37]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  A Foundation for the Study of IT Effects: A New Look at DeSanctis and Poole's Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[38]  Olav Sorenson,et al.  Syndication Networks and the Spatial Distribution of Venture Capital Investments1 , 2001, American Journal of Sociology.

[39]  R. Florida,et al.  Venture Capital Formation, Investment, and Regional Industrialization , 1993 .

[40]  Allen N. Berger,et al.  Universal Banking and the Future of Small Business Lending , 1995 .

[41]  Martin Kenney,et al.  Venture Capital, High Technology and Regional Development , 1988 .

[42]  J. Child,et al.  Institutional Entrepreneurship in Building an Environmental Protection System for the People's Republic of China , 2007 .

[43]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Theorizing Change: The Role of Professional Associations in the Transformation of Institutionalized Fields , 2002 .

[44]  N. Fligstein,et al.  Social Skill and Institutional Theory , 1997 .

[45]  Geoff Walsham,et al.  Representations and actions: the transformation of work practices with IT use , 2005, Inf. Organ..

[46]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Understanding Radical Organizational Change: Bringing Together the Old and the New Institutionalism , 1996 .

[47]  C. Hardy,et al.  Institutional Entrepreneurship in Emerging Fields: HIV/AIDS Treatment Advocacy in Canada , 2004 .

[48]  Michael Lounsbury,et al.  New Practice Creation: An Institutional Perspective on Innovation , 2007 .

[49]  Howard E. Aldrich,et al.  Fools Rush in? The Institutional Context of Industry Creation , 1994 .

[50]  Toby E. Stuart,et al.  Syndication Networks and the Spatial Distribution of Venture Capital Investments1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[51]  K. Eisenhardt.  Building theories from case study research , 1989, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.