Strengthening accountability and governance of crowdfunding: Enhancing funding of higher educational institutions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss3pp300-321Abstract
The growing reduction in government funding has compelled public universities to explore alternative funding sources, with crowdfunding emerging as a significant enhancement to their financial sustainability. This paper evaluates the mechanisms for strengthening accountability and governance in crowdfunding initiatives for public universities. By examining relevant literature and documented sources, the study provides an in-depth review of factors that underpin effective crowdfunding governance. The findings highlight the critical need for robust accountability and governance frameworks to bolster public trust in crowdfunding. Effective governance requires the establishment of stringent criteria to ensure transparency, reduce corruption risks, and prevent fraud. Key components of a strengthened crowdfunding mechanism include methodologies and standards for evaluating funding sources, safeguarding donor interests, assessing project eligibility for funding, and ensuring appropriate reinvestment of contributions, where applicable. This study makes a valuable contribution to the field by investigating strategies to enhance accountability and governance in crowdfunding. It offers insights into how Malaysia could adopt and sustain crowdfunding mechanisms as an alternative funding platform for its public universities. By addressing these aspects, the research underscores the potential of crowdfunding to play a pivotal role in ensuring the financial sustainability of public universities, while maintaining high standards of transparency and trustworthiness.
Keywords: Crowdfunding, governance, accountability, transference, higher education.
References
Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., & Goldfarb, A. (2014). Some simple economics of crowdfunding. Innovation Policy and The Economy, 14(1), 63-97.
Alma’amun, S., Kamarudin, M. K., Rozali, N. S., Nor, S. M., Sabarudin, N. A., & Rosli, F. A. (2021). From government funding to crowdfunding: Identifying approaches and models for universities. Revista Geintec-Gestao Inovacao E Tecnologias, 11(4), 4586-4609.
Amran, F. H., Abdul Rahman, I. K., Salleh, K., Syed Ahmad, S. N., & Haron, N. H. (2014). Funding trends of research universities in Malaysia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 164(1), 126-134.
Astebro, T. B., Fernández Sierra, M., Lovo, S., & Vulkan, N. (2019). Herding in equity crowdfunding. SSRN.
Azlan, A., & Joriah, M. (2016). Changes and challenges in financial autonomy. In M. T. Fauziah & N. L. Y. A. Melissa (Eds.), Governance reforms in public universities of Malaysia (pp. 59–77). Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2011). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40(5), 924–973.
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2014). Crowdfunding: Tapping the right crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 585-609.
Borst, I., Moser, C., & Ferguson, J. (2018). From friendfunding to crowdfunding: Relevance of relationships, social media, and platform activities to crowdfunding performance. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1396-1414.
Broucker, B., De Wit, K., & Verhoeven, J. C. (2018). Higher education for public value: Taking the debate beyond new public management. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(2), 227-240.
Carvajal, M., García-Avilés, J. A., & González, J. L. (2012). Crowdfunding and non-profit media: The emergence of new models for public interest journalism. Journalism Practice, 6(1), 638-647.
Cattaneo, L. B., Chan, W. Y., Shor, R., Gebhard, K. T., & Elshabassi, N. H. (2019). Elaborating the connection between social class and classism in college. American Journal of Community Psychology, 63(3–4), 476–486.
Cho, M., Lemon, L. L., Levenshus, A. B., & Childers, C. C. (2019). Current students as university donors? Determinants in college students’ intentions to donate and share information about university crowdfunding efforts. International Review on
Public and Nonprofit Marketing, 16(1), 23–41.
Chrisman, J. J., Chua, J., Breton-Miller, I. L., & Miller, D. (2018). Governance mechanisms and family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(2), 171-186.
Colasanti, N., Frondizi, R., & Meneguzzo, M. (2018). Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: Successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university. Public Money & Management, 38(4), 281-288.
Colistra, R., & Duvall, K. (2017). Show me the money: Importance of crowdfunding factors on backers’ decisions to financially support kickstarter campaigns. Social Media Society, 3(4), 1-12.
Colombo, M. G., Franzoni, C., & Rossi-Lamastra, C. (2015). Internal social capital and the attraction of early contributions in crowdfunding. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(1), 75–100.
Craven, J. (2013, May 24). Universities explore crowdfunding, social media to raise money. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/24/
Davis, A. (2011). Beyond the banks: Innovative ways to finance Britain’s small businesses. National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts, United Kingdom.
Da Wan, C., Sirat, M., & Razak, D. A. (2018). Education in Malaysia towards a developed nation. ISEAS. https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/pdf/ISEASEWP2018-4Wan.pdf
Dollani, A., Lerario, A., & Maiellaro, N. (2016). Sustaining cultural and natural heritage in Albania. Sustainability, 8(8), 1-19.
Drezner, N. D., & Huehls, F. (2014). Fundraising and institutional advancement: Theory, practice, and new paradigms. Routledge.
Gearhart, M. C., Berg, K. A., Jones, C., & Johnson, S. D. (2019). Fear of crime, racial bias, and gun ownership. Health & Social Work, 44(4), 241–248.
Hasbullah, N. A., & Rahman, A. (2021). Endowment and waqf funds in Malaysian Higher Education: A conceptual study. Jurnal Syariah, 29(1), 127-154.
Hollow, M. (2013). Crowdfunding and civic society in Europe: A profitable partnership? Open Citizenship, 4(1), 68-73.
Hood, C. (2007). What happens when transparency meets blame-avoidance? Public Management Review, 9(2), 191-210.
Horta, H., Meoli, M., & Vismara, S. (2021). Crowdfunding in higher education: Evidence from UK Universities. Higher Education, 83(1), 1-29.
Ingram, C., Vaast, E., & Teigland, R. (2016). Corporate crowdfunding: Does being part of a university affect a platform's operations?. In 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 4606-4613). IEEE.
Jung, Y., & Lee, J. (2019). Learning engagement and persistence in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). Computers & Education, 122(1), 9-22.
Kim, H. (2012). Issues of the crowd funding of the culture and arts sector – Legislation and policy alternatives. Korean Association Arts Management, 23(1), 41–64.
La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (2000). Investor protection and corporate governance. Journal of Financial Economics, 58(1), 3-27.
Lee, H. S. (2016). Effect of perceived risk, perceived benefit, and Korea wave to crowdfunding participation in China. The Journal of the Korea Contents Association, 16(1), 204-213.
Lew, J. L., Cheah, S. Q., Cheah, Y. Y., Chew, H. L., & Tang, S. M. (2019). An insight to Malaysian crowdfunding success. (Final year project). Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia.
Llorente, R., & Morant, M. (2015). Advances in crowdsourcing. Springer.
Michener, G., & Bersch, K. (2013). Identifying transparency. Information Polity, 18(3), 233-242.
Mokhtar, S. H., Nartea, G., & Gan, C. (2012). The Malaysian microfinance system and a comparison with the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh) and Bank Perkreditan Rakyat (BPR-Indonesia). Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1(3), 60-71.
Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 1-16.
Mustakallio, M., Autio, E., & Zahra, S. A. (2002). Relational and contractual governance in family firms: Effects on strategic decision making. Family Business Review, 15(1), 205–222.
Nwakpuda, E. I. (2020). Major donors and higher education: Are stem donors different from other donors? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 49(5), 969–988.
Oh, S. W., & Kim, H. G. (2017). Crowdfunding performance: The effect of social capital and the mediating role of electronic word-of-mouth. The Journal of Internet Electronic Commerce Resarch, 17(1), 155-169.
Ordanini, A., Miceli, L., Pizzetti, M., & Parasuraman, A. (2011). Crowd‐funding: Transforming customers into investors through innovative service platforms. Journal of Service Management, 22(4), 443-470.
Rashid, M. A., Deo, K., Prasad, D., Singh, K., Chand, S., & Assaf, M. (2020). TEduChain: A blockchain-based platform for crowdfunding tertiary education. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 35(1), 1-15.
Rusdin, M. F., Ghazali, M., & Abd Razak, S. (2017). Online crowdfunding as academic grants: A systematic literature review. Journal of Telecommunication, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 9(3-4), 187-193.
Saxton, G. D., & Wang, L. (2014). The social network effect: The determinants of giving through social media. Nonprofit And Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(5), 850-868.
Se-Shin, K., & JunYoung, C. (2018). Civic participation in urban revitalization through crowd funding. Urban Infrastructure Serve, 1(2018), 28–30.
Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1997). A survey of corporate governance. The Journal of Finance, 52(2), 737-783.
Siva, N. (2014). Crowdfunding for medical research picks up pace. Lancet, 384(9948), 1085–1086.
Solemon, B., Ariffin, I., Din, M. M., & Anwar, R. M. (2013). A review of the uses of crowdsourcing in higher education. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(9), 2066-2073.
Teixeira, P., & Landoni, P. (2017). The rise of private higher education. In P. Teixeira, S. Kim, P. Landoni, & Z. Gilani (Eds.), Rethinking the public-private mix in higher education (pp. 21-34). SensePublishers.
Thaker, M. A. M. T., Thaker, H. M. T., & Pitchay, A. A. (2018). Modeling crowdfunders’ behavioral intention to adopt the crowdfunding-waqf model (CWM) in Malaysia: The theory of the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Islamic
and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, 11(2), 231–249.
Uhlaner, L., Wright, M., & Huse, M. (2007). Private firms and corporate governance: An integrated economic and management perspective. Small Business Economics, 29(3), 225-241.
Vismara, S. (2016). Equity retention and social network theory in equity crowdfunding. Small Business Economics, 46(4), 579-590.
Vrontis, D., Makrides, A., Christofi, M., & Thrassou, A. (2021). Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, integrative framework and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 1(45), 617-644.
Wheat, R. E., Wang, Y., Byrnes, J. E., & Ranganathan, J. (2013). Raising money for scientific research through crowdfunding. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 28(2), 71-72.
Zheng, H., Li, D., Wu, J., & Xu, Y. (2014). The role of multidimensional social capital in crowdfunding: A comparative study in China and US. Information & management, 51(4), 488-496.
Alma’amun, S., Kamarudin, M. K., Rozali, N. S., Nor, S. M., Sabarudin, N. A., & Rosli, F. A. (2021). From government funding to crowdfunding: Identifying approaches and models for universities. Revista Geintec-Gestao Inovacao E Tecnologias, 11(4), 4586-4609.
Amran, F. H., Abdul Rahman, I. K., Salleh, K., Syed Ahmad, S. N., & Haron, N. H. (2014). Funding trends of research universities in Malaysia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 164(1), 126-134.
Astebro, T. B., Fernández Sierra, M., Lovo, S., & Vulkan, N. (2019). Herding in equity crowdfunding. SSRN.
Azlan, A., & Joriah, M. (2016). Changes and challenges in financial autonomy. In M. T. Fauziah & N. L. Y. A. Melissa (Eds.), Governance reforms in public universities of Malaysia (pp. 59–77). Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2011). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40(5), 924–973.
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2014). Crowdfunding: Tapping the right crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 585-609.
Borst, I., Moser, C., & Ferguson, J. (2018). From friendfunding to crowdfunding: Relevance of relationships, social media, and platform activities to crowdfunding performance. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1396-1414.
Broucker, B., De Wit, K., & Verhoeven, J. C. (2018). Higher education for public value: Taking the debate beyond new public management. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(2), 227-240.
Carvajal, M., García-Avilés, J. A., & González, J. L. (2012). Crowdfunding and non-profit media: The emergence of new models for public interest journalism. Journalism Practice, 6(1), 638-647.
Cattaneo, L. B., Chan, W. Y., Shor, R., Gebhard, K. T., & Elshabassi, N. H. (2019). Elaborating the connection between social class and classism in college. American Journal of Community Psychology, 63(3–4), 476–486.
Cho, M., Lemon, L. L., Levenshus, A. B., & Childers, C. C. (2019). Current students as university donors? Determinants in college students’ intentions to donate and share information about university crowdfunding efforts. International Review on
Public and Nonprofit Marketing, 16(1), 23–41.
Chrisman, J. J., Chua, J., Breton-Miller, I. L., & Miller, D. (2018). Governance mechanisms and family firms. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(2), 171-186.
Colasanti, N., Frondizi, R., & Meneguzzo, M. (2018). Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: Successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university. Public Money & Management, 38(4), 281-288.
Colistra, R., & Duvall, K. (2017). Show me the money: Importance of crowdfunding factors on backers’ decisions to financially support kickstarter campaigns. Social Media Society, 3(4), 1-12.
Colombo, M. G., Franzoni, C., & Rossi-Lamastra, C. (2015). Internal social capital and the attraction of early contributions in crowdfunding. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(1), 75–100.
Craven, J. (2013, May 24). Universities explore crowdfunding, social media to raise money. USA Today. www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/24/
Davis, A. (2011). Beyond the banks: Innovative ways to finance Britain’s small businesses. National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts, United Kingdom.
Da Wan, C., Sirat, M., & Razak, D. A. (2018). Education in Malaysia towards a developed nation. ISEAS. https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/pdf/ISEASEWP2018-4Wan.pdf
Dollani, A., Lerario, A., & Maiellaro, N. (2016). Sustaining cultural and natural heritage in Albania. Sustainability, 8(8), 1-19.
Drezner, N. D., & Huehls, F. (2014). Fundraising and institutional advancement: Theory, practice, and new paradigms. Routledge.
Gearhart, M. C., Berg, K. A., Jones, C., & Johnson, S. D. (2019). Fear of crime, racial bias, and gun ownership. Health & Social Work, 44(4), 241–248.
Hasbullah, N. A., & Rahman, A. (2021). Endowment and waqf funds in Malaysian Higher Education: A conceptual study. Jurnal Syariah, 29(1), 127-154.
Hollow, M. (2013). Crowdfunding and civic society in Europe: A profitable partnership? Open Citizenship, 4(1), 68-73.
Hood, C. (2007). What happens when transparency meets blame-avoidance? Public Management Review, 9(2), 191-210.
Horta, H., Meoli, M., & Vismara, S. (2021). Crowdfunding in higher education: Evidence from UK Universities. Higher Education, 83(1), 1-29.
Ingram, C., Vaast, E., & Teigland, R. (2016). Corporate crowdfunding: Does being part of a university affect a platform's operations?. In 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 4606-4613). IEEE.
Jung, Y., & Lee, J. (2019). Learning engagement and persistence in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). Computers & Education, 122(1), 9-22.
Kim, H. (2012). Issues of the crowd funding of the culture and arts sector – Legislation and policy alternatives. Korean Association Arts Management, 23(1), 41–64.
La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (2000). Investor protection and corporate governance. Journal of Financial Economics, 58(1), 3-27.
Lee, H. S. (2016). Effect of perceived risk, perceived benefit, and Korea wave to crowdfunding participation in China. The Journal of the Korea Contents Association, 16(1), 204-213.
Lew, J. L., Cheah, S. Q., Cheah, Y. Y., Chew, H. L., & Tang, S. M. (2019). An insight to Malaysian crowdfunding success. (Final year project). Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia.
Llorente, R., & Morant, M. (2015). Advances in crowdsourcing. Springer.
Michener, G., & Bersch, K. (2013). Identifying transparency. Information Polity, 18(3), 233-242.
Mokhtar, S. H., Nartea, G., & Gan, C. (2012). The Malaysian microfinance system and a comparison with the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh) and Bank Perkreditan Rakyat (BPR-Indonesia). Journal of Arts and Humanities, 1(3), 60-71.
Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 1-16.
Mustakallio, M., Autio, E., & Zahra, S. A. (2002). Relational and contractual governance in family firms: Effects on strategic decision making. Family Business Review, 15(1), 205–222.
Nwakpuda, E. I. (2020). Major donors and higher education: Are stem donors different from other donors? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 49(5), 969–988.
Oh, S. W., & Kim, H. G. (2017). Crowdfunding performance: The effect of social capital and the mediating role of electronic word-of-mouth. The Journal of Internet Electronic Commerce Resarch, 17(1), 155-169.
Ordanini, A., Miceli, L., Pizzetti, M., & Parasuraman, A. (2011). Crowd‐funding: Transforming customers into investors through innovative service platforms. Journal of Service Management, 22(4), 443-470.
Rashid, M. A., Deo, K., Prasad, D., Singh, K., Chand, S., & Assaf, M. (2020). TEduChain: A blockchain-based platform for crowdfunding tertiary education. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 35(1), 1-15.
Rusdin, M. F., Ghazali, M., & Abd Razak, S. (2017). Online crowdfunding as academic grants: A systematic literature review. Journal of Telecommunication, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 9(3-4), 187-193.
Saxton, G. D., & Wang, L. (2014). The social network effect: The determinants of giving through social media. Nonprofit And Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(5), 850-868.
Se-Shin, K., & JunYoung, C. (2018). Civic participation in urban revitalization through crowd funding. Urban Infrastructure Serve, 1(2018), 28–30.
Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1997). A survey of corporate governance. The Journal of Finance, 52(2), 737-783.
Siva, N. (2014). Crowdfunding for medical research picks up pace. Lancet, 384(9948), 1085–1086.
Solemon, B., Ariffin, I., Din, M. M., & Anwar, R. M. (2013). A review of the uses of crowdsourcing in higher education. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(9), 2066-2073.
Teixeira, P., & Landoni, P. (2017). The rise of private higher education. In P. Teixeira, S. Kim, P. Landoni, & Z. Gilani (Eds.), Rethinking the public-private mix in higher education (pp. 21-34). SensePublishers.
Thaker, M. A. M. T., Thaker, H. M. T., & Pitchay, A. A. (2018). Modeling crowdfunders’ behavioral intention to adopt the crowdfunding-waqf model (CWM) in Malaysia: The theory of the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Islamic
and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, 11(2), 231–249.
Uhlaner, L., Wright, M., & Huse, M. (2007). Private firms and corporate governance: An integrated economic and management perspective. Small Business Economics, 29(3), 225-241.
Vismara, S. (2016). Equity retention and social network theory in equity crowdfunding. Small Business Economics, 46(4), 579-590.
Vrontis, D., Makrides, A., Christofi, M., & Thrassou, A. (2021). Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, integrative framework and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 1(45), 617-644.
Wheat, R. E., Wang, Y., Byrnes, J. E., & Ranganathan, J. (2013). Raising money for scientific research through crowdfunding. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 28(2), 71-72.
Zheng, H., Li, D., Wu, J., & Xu, Y. (2014). The role of multidimensional social capital in crowdfunding: A comparative study in China and US. Information & management, 51(4), 488-496.
Downloads
Published
2023-09-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Strengthening accountability and governance of crowdfunding: Enhancing funding of higher educational institutions. (2023). Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS), 8(3), 300-321. https://doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8iss3pp300-321
