Investigating the Influence of Cultural Attributes on Entrepreneurs’ Risk Disclosures in Reward-Based Crowdfunding

Details

Supervisors

Shrestha, Prabal

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThe intention behind this dissertation is to explore the relationship between national cultural attributes and risk communication strategies employed by entrepreneurs in the reward-based crowdfunding process. This research aims to add to the crowdfunding information disclosure literature, namely voluntary information disclosure (Wang et al., 2018), by shifting the focus to fundraisers’ risk perception as a precedent to the content of risk disclosures. Risk perception research is the starting point to understand antecedents of risk communication. Previous studies show that anxiety and uneasiness towards uncertain events is one aspect that characterizes one’s risk perception (Slovic et al., 1985), and that risk perception is shaped by culture, among other factors. Among the established cultural dimensions of anxiety in the face of uncertainty is Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance (Hofstede, 2011). The quantitative nature of the Uncertainty Avoidance scale will be used to explore if variances in risk information content are predicted by culture, and ultimately risk information content mediates the relationship between the related cultural attribute and campaign success.