如何在农产品众筹中“以劣取信”--基于承诺可信视角的案例分析

How to Enhance Credibility by Displaying Disadvantages in Agricultural Product Crowdfunding?A Case Study from the Perspective of Credible Commitment

农产品众筹对于缓解农业经营者的资金约束和促进农产品市场供需对接有着十分重要的作用。但由于存在个人机会主义、过程管控失责和隐藏产地环境不利信息等风险,发起人所作出的农产品回报承诺面临着严重的承诺不可信问题。以往研究聚焦于识别增强承诺可信度的优势因素以及倡导“以优取信”,但较少探讨发起人是如何在农产品众筹中实现“以劣取信”的。本研究从承诺可信视角切入,采用案例研究的方式,构建农产品众筹“以劣取信”的“客观劣势→选择限制→必然状态→积极预期→承诺可信”理论模型。研究发现:劣势在产品承诺中具有自我选择限制功能,“以劣取信”的实质是主动呈现自我选择限制以增强履诺行动可信。个人劣势、项目劣势以及区位劣势对发起人、项目和产地分别产生生活限制、运营限制和发展限制,并迫使其分别处于产品嵌入、投入依赖和生态保存三种必然状态。关注者根据必然状态预期“发起人会主观努力”“运营过程是可靠的”“产地环境是优质的”,进而认为农产品回报承诺是可信的。本研究识别了产品嵌入、投入依赖和生态保存三种重要的效应以及多条具体路径,能为“以劣取信”提供富有启发性的分析框架以及丰富的策略参考。

Agricultural product crowdfunding(APC)plays an important role in easing farmers’financial constraints and smoothing the supply and demand of agricultural products.However,due to opportunism,negligence,and hidden information,commitments of APC are often incredible.Previous studies focus on enhancing the commitment credibility by displaying advantages in APC,but have not yet explored how to enhance credibility by displaying disadvantages.By a case study,this paper constructs a theoretical model of“objective disadvantages-option limitations-inevitable states-optimistic expectation–credible commitment”to enhance credibility by displaying disadvantages.Our study indicates that disadvantages generate self-limitations on options when making product commitments,and exhibiting the self-limitations on options can increase the credibility of fulfilling commitments.Individual disadvantage,project disadvantage,and location disadvantage impose living limitation on the initiator,operation limitation on the project,and development limitation on the place of origin,respectively.These limitations force the following three inevitable states to occur:the initiator having no choice but living on the agricultural products,the project having no choice but relying on hand-in-hand participation and natural materials,and the place of origin having no choice but being ecologically well preserved.The potential backers then expect the initiator to spare no effort in pursuing high-quality agricultural products,the operation process to be reliable,and the place of origin to be ecologically desirable for planting agricultural products.Therefore,the potential backers consider the agricultural product return commitment to be credible.This study identifies the product embeddedness effect,input dependence effect,and ecology conservation effect and multiple specific paths to enhance credibility,which provides an inspiring analyticalframework and variousstrategiesfor enhancing credibility by displaying disadvantages.