The Role of Intellectual Capital in the Success of Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns

Over the years, the concept of IC has been enlarged and - starting from management studies - it has been referred to entrepreneurship studies as well. In this vein, many scholars suggest the key role that IC plays in reference to start-up expectations (Matricano, 2016) or start-ups’ success (Peña, 2002; Hormiga et al., 2011; Musteen and Ahsan, 2013). A further step along this path drives to consider the relevance that IC might have in reference to entrepreneurial finance. Up to now, in fact, the influence that IC might exert on investment decisions is relatively under-investigated. Leveraging on this premise, the objective of this study is to focus on equity crowdfunding (ECF), an emerging fundraising system that involves crowd participation and helps entrepreneurial startups to obtain funds from large audiences of small and unsophisticated investors (Belleflamme et al., 2014). The latter are better known as crowdfunders. Through ECF portals, entrepreneurs can propose projects and require the necessary funds without having to seek traditional sources of funding. Investors, instead, will hold an ownership stake in the venture (and in some cases could also receive products or make a pre-order) and so they become shareholders and can benefit from future profits (Ahlers et al., 2014). Getting funds through ECF is not an easy task for startups, and many ECF campaigns do not reach the target in terms of equity raised. Based on these premises, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that IC can play in the success of ECF campaigns. In order to test this relationship, we first embrace the idea - largely shared by scholars worldwide - that IC comprehends human, structural and relational capital (Sullivan, 1999; Petty and Guthrie, 2000; Peña, 2002; Ordóñez de Pablos, 2002, 2003; Kaufmann and Schneider, 2004; Hormiga et al., 2011; Musteen and Ahsan, 2013). Second, we provide three research propositions that could be used in future developments of this research in order to test the influence that IC can exert in affecting ECF success.