Résumé
Since the end of the 2000s, crowdfunding platforms have been developing in France with the promise of a direct and disintermediated relationship between project owners and funders, facilitating access to funds for project owners and allowing French Internet users to fund projects of their choice. This PhD dissertation studies this phenomenon by combining ethnographic observation and interviews with various actors who have participated in the development of this activity. The research shows that the institutionalization of crowdfunding in France stems from a collective action involving industry professionals, representatives of public authorities, platform partners, and the media. While platforms defend a model of self-organization and autonomy, it appears that their development would not have been possible without the intervention of public authorities, who have created a favorable legal framework to crowdfunding, in order to change the relationship of the French population with its savings and to encourage the contribution to the economic health of new firms in a context of crisis. The study also shows that, despite the extreme heterogeneity of the three majority crowdfunding models studied (reward-based, lending-based, and equity-based), there is a collective effort to highlight common characteristics and to blur the heterogeneity of the sectors (on the one hand the world of cultural creation, on the other the world of finance). Platforms, as socio-technical devices, seek to present themselves as neutral instruments that favor a natural match between fund seekers and funders. This research shows that actually the growth of this financing model is the result of a market labor carried out by professionals in the sector to bring two types of users on their platform: the fund-seekers on one side and the funders on the other. The research also shows that the platforms strategic decisions try to balance out quantity and quality of projects. To reduce risks, platforms put in place qualification and project selection processes, often imported from traditional finance – contradicting the idea of democratization of access to funding. In their development efforts, they also seek to build relationships with traditional players from the world of finance. In doing so, they reintroduce new intermediaries that complicate the relationship between fund-seekers and funders.
Source: http://www.theses.fr/2017ENST0052
.
