While previous studies have identif

While previous studies have identified several factors that influence funders ’ investment behavior in crowdfunding, few have explored the underlying mechanisms, particularly the potential boundary conditions in which the effect of funders ’ trust varies. An integrated trust-based model was proposed from an elaboration likelihood perspective and tested with an online experiment using 36 real crowdfunding projects. Our results indicate that all three categories of trust factors had significant effects on potential funders ’ trust. Fundraisers ’ ability had the largest effect size, while project information quality was the second highest. Our findings provide new insight into the role of trust and its antecedents in different contexts.