Research On The Participation Intention In Charitable Crowdfunding Based On Social Cognitive Theory And Social Capital Theory

The rise of the crowdfunding industry in China has driven the development of the traditional public welfare industry.Charitable crowdfunding,the mode of "Internet + public welfare",has been gradually understood,and social media has spread it widely.Charitable crowdfunding helps to optimize the current structure of public welfare project donations,expand the proportion of individual donations in public welfare donations,and help the development of China public welfare industry.The charitable crowdfunding scale is gradually expanding in China,however,according to 2018 China Charitable Donation report published in September 2019,the number of successful projects and the actual financing amount of public welfare crowdfunding are both increasing,while the total number of participants is decreasing,and the public’s enthusiasm for participation is decreasing.Therefore,this paper studies the key factors that affect the willingness of supporters to participate in charitable crowdfunding.It has important significance to promote the development of the industry.This paper constructs a theoretical model based on social cognitive theory and social capital theory for the study of supporters’ willingness to participate in charitable crowdfunding.It put forward the research hypotheses on the basis of relevant existing research and designed the questionnaire of the study with reference to the scales verified by predecessors.The empirical analysis and research are carried out by investigating the user data and using the structured equation model.The main conclusions are as follows by an empirical analysis: 1.Both Selfefficacy and outcome expectations(expected emotional experience and expected reputation)have a significant impact on the willingness of supporters to participate in charitable crowdfunding.And self-efficacy has the greatest impact.2.The cognitive capital in social capital has a significant impact on the formation of the trust to creators,while the trust to creators of the sponsor has a significant impact on the willingness to participate in charitable crowdfunding.3.The perception of platform structure assurance(perceived platform rules and perceived monitoring)has a significant impact on the formation of the trust to platforms,and the trust to platforms formed on the platform will significantly affect the participation intention.4.The trust to platforms will significantly affect the trust to creators.The main academic contributions of this paper are as follows:(1)the introduction of social cognition theory into the research of charitable crowdfunding,which not only deepens the understanding of supporters’ behavior of participating in charitable crowdfunding,reveals the mechanism of self-efficacy on the participation intention of charitable crowdfunding,but also expands the application of social cognition theory.In the existing researches,social cognition is rarely used in the field of public welfare to predict behavior.In this paper,social cognition theory is chosen to explore the influence of self-efficacy and outcome expectation on the willingness of participation intention in charitable crowdfunding.The experiment also confirmed the significant influence of self-awareness and outcome expectation on individuals’ willingness to participate,and it could be explained reasonably.It proves the rationality of using this theory in the field of charitable crowdfunding.(2)at present,there are relatively few studies on the donation intention of charitable crowdfunding.The exploration variables are mainly focused on the characteristics of micro public welfare and non-profit organizations,and the impact of social capital on the donation intention is less involved,which needs to be explored urgently.This paper explores the influence of the structural dimension and the cognitive dimension of social capital on the trust formation to creators,and the cognitive dimension has a significant influence on the trust formationt to creators.(3)the research results also explore the trust transfer theory,proving that under the background of charitable crowdfunding,trust in the platform can build trust in creators;4)this paper enriches the empirical research on the antecedent variables of charitable crowdfunding participation intention,and puts forward some practical suggestions for improving the participation rate of charitable crowdfunding.According to the results of the empirical study,the following Suggestions have been made:(1)The creators of crowdfunding should focus on increasing their personal trust by increasing interaction and value recognition,strengthening emotional mobilization of the project(using more emotional words and clear pictures),strengthening the propaganda and diffusion of the surrounding people to obtain trust transmission,and seeking the help of more prestigious people to obtain a broader relationship circle and more support;(2)The crowdfunding platform should strengthen the platform rules and relevant monitoring mechanisms,and increase individual awareness of platform structure assurance by highlighting some key node content.At the same time,with the help of a third-party organization,we can solve the problems that affect the trust of users,such as fund custody,data authenticity verification,etc.;(3)Relevant government should introduce relevant legal supervision platform and sponsors to make relevant legal subjects clear and operable,so as to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of supporters.And we can set up a special charitable crowdfunding supervision institution and a social supervision system.At the same time,we should also attach importance to the recognition of values,increase publicity and promotion,and build a good charity atmosphere.