許多新創企業在創業初期面臨資金募集困難的問題，以往的創業者大多向投資天使人、創投公司和銀行等組織取得創業基金，然而，隨著近幾年群眾集資的蓬勃發展與逐漸普及，許多創業家紛紛轉向群眾集資平台向廣大網路使用者尋求資金的協助。
本研究以美國知名群眾集資平台 Kickstarter 的專案資料作為分析對象，探討影響群眾集資成果的顯著因子，在排除遺漏值與極端值後，最終擷取32,177個在美國建立的專案資料作為本研究的分析樣本。本研究延伸過去的文獻結果並加入新的潛在影響因子，而研究結果顯示專案目標、募資時間長度和正向情緒文字的比率會負面的影響專案的成果；城市年薪、專案標題長度、專案發起者過去建立的專案數以及在同時間區間內且同種類發起的專案數會正面的影響專案成果；而專案被建立的城市薪資越高或專案發起者的經驗越豐富，越容易導致專案能夠超募很多的資金。此外，本研究也驗證了專案種類、專案發起城市以及種類和城市發展的交互作用對於專案成果的顯著影響。透過這些分析結果，我們希望能夠從另外一個層面去探討影響專案成果的因素，並且讓有需求的集資者們能夠了解如何才能促使他們在群眾集資中獲得更好的成果。

Crowdfunding is growing up as an alternative way of raising funds in recent years. It allows new entrepreneurs to solicit financial support from the crowd on the Internet. In this paper, we analyze data from Kickstarter, one of the famous crowdfunding platforms in the USA, seeking to figure out influential factors affecting fundraising outcomes including project success and funding level. We extend former research and take new factors into consideration. Analysis results based on 32,177 projects initiated in the USA and held between May 2009 and 2014 indicate that fundraising goal, duration, positively emotional words in description have negative effects on project outcomes. Urban income, title length, previous projects count launched by the same creator and competing projects count initiated in the same type are positively associated with the outcomes. Further, it is also shown that more urban income or previous project count launched by the same creator are more likely to be overfunded. Additionally, our findings also have evidences of the notable influences of type, region as well as the interaction effects between type and urban development. These results provide insights into the influences of factors on project consequences, and give fundraisers some advice on fundraising.

論文審定書 i
中文摘要 ii
Abstract iii
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
1.1 Research Background 1
1.2 Motivation 7
1.3 Research Purpose 9
Chapter 2 Literature Review 10
2.1 Crowdfunding 10
2.2 Types of Crowdfunding 12
2.3 Crowdfunding Models 15
2.4 Characteristics of Reward-based Crowdfunding 16
2.5 Factors affecting crowdfunding outcomes 19
2.6 Geographic Regions 20
2.7 Text Analysis 21
Chapter 3 Research Model and Methodology 23
3.1 Research Model 23
3.2 Data Collection and Research Target 29
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Discussion 38
4.1 Descriptive Statistics 38
4.2 Empirical Results 44
4.3 Discussions 59
Chapter 5 Conclusions 65
5.1 Summary and Implications 65
5.2 Limitation 67
5.3 Future Research 67
Reference 68

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