Explaining the craze for crowdfunding research as an academic research topic

Abstract

Crowdfunding research has grown exponentially since the first academic papers on the topic in 2013 and received relatively more attention by academics than its importance in the economy would warrant. As no research exists that may guide our research question on how academics chose their research topic, this paper qualitatively explores through thirty interviews with crowdfunding scholars how the craze for crowdfunding research can be explained. Three categories of reasons emerged: scientific reasons, career reasons and socio-psychological reasons. Within each overarching category, we identify two or three second order themes, which are further split up in first order concepts. We hereby contribute not only to increase our understanding of how academics chose their research topics, but also to the adjacent theories of management fashions and schooling."