Universität zu Köln

Weinmann, Markus ORCID: 0000-0002-8342-2756, Mishra, Abhay Nath, Kaiser, Lena Franziska and vom Brocke, Jan . The Attraction Effect in Crowdfunding. Inf. Syst. Res.. CATONSVILLE: INFORMS. ISSN 1526-5536

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Abstract

At the core of reward-based crowdfunding (RBC) is the reward menu. Carefully constructed reward menus can impact fundraising success significantly. For example, an oft-discussed approach to influencing purchasing decisions is introducing an irrelevant option into a consumer's choice set-a decoy option-making another, often more valuable, option more attractive. This phenomenon is also known as the attraction effect. Prior research, however, has found mixed evidence for its occurrence in applied settings because it has largely employed simplified attribute presentation-with only numeric attributes such as ratings-and hypothetical choices, which had no economic consequences. Hence, researchers questioned the practical significance of the attraction effect. In this paper, we examine whether the attraction effect will manifest in an applied setting such as the crowd funding context, where product attributes are both numerical (e.g., price) and nonnumerical (e.g., content of a product), choices have economic consequences, and organizations offer several menu options to consumers. We draw upon the salience theory and propose four hypotheses, suggesting that introducing an irrelevant decoy option in choice sets, created digitally in reward menus, may lead backers to choose higher-priced options. We conducted seven online experiments and a field study on Kickstarter (in total, n = 3,998 participants), with increasing levels of similarity with RBC. We found that the attraction effect significantly shifted backers' preferences from a low-priced to a high-priced reward by 18.8% to 28.2% in different settings, highlighting the substantial potential of properly designed digital reward menus to influence funders' choices. Given that researchers have expressed skepticism about the attraction effect in applied settings, our results are particularly significant, suggesting that information systems design can influence choice behavior. This research makes targeted contributions to the literature on crowdfunding, the attraction effect, and digital design.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Weinmann, Markus UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-8342-2756 UNSPECIFIED Mishra, Abhay Nath UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Kaiser, Lena Franziska UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED vom Brocke, Jan UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-680466
DOI:	10.1287/isre.2022.1152
Journal or Publication Title:	Inf. Syst. Res.
Publisher:	INFORMS
Place of Publication:	CATONSVILLE
ISSN:	1526-5536
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language EMPIRICAL-EXAMINATION; CHOICE; IMPACT; MODEL; RECOMMENDATIONS; CONSEQUENCES; ANTECEDENTS; ATTRIBUTES; ECONOMICS; GEOGRAPHY Multiple languages Information Science & Library Science; Management Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/68046