Crowdfunding provides a novel and potential way for innovative but risky new ventures to fund their new product development (NPD) projects. To help potential investors evaluate the projects and enhance the credibility of disclosure, founders are struggling with how to phrase the project description. The rapidly growing cleantech crowdfunding projects provide an ideal context to study this issue. We collected information on cleantech crowdfunding projects and matched non-cleantech crowdfunding projects from Kickstarter. The sample period extends from January 2013 to October 2018. Using signaling research as a theoretical lens and a dictionary-based, computerized text mining method, we found that founders of high-quality cleantech crowdfunding projects could create a reliable signal of quality by providing a project description with a less ambiguous tone and thus boost the success of crowdfunding. Moreover, the signaling effectiveness of a less ambiguous tone is more pronounced in cleantech crowdfunding than in matched non-cleantech crowdfunding, suggesting that the marginal benefit of using a less ambiguous tone is larger when the industry information environment is noisier. Further evidence shows that the signaling effectiveness of a less ambiguous tone in cleantech crowdfunding could be strengthened by backers’ endorsements. Our findings imply that tone ambiguity in project descriptions is related to founders’ information-concealing behavior. Potential investors could search ambiguous words in project descriptions and just allocate their limited attention into projects with a low percentage of ambiguous words to avoid information overload. Founders of high-quality projects could boost crowdfunding success by using a less ambiguous tone to describe their projects. The marginal effect is larger when there is greater uncertainty about project prospects.

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为创新但有风险的新企业进行众筹：不那么含糊的语气的重要性

众筹为创新但有风险的新企业提供了一种新颖且有潜力的方式来为其新产品开发 (NPD) 项目提供资金。为了帮助潜在投资者评估项目并提高披露的可信度，创始人正在努力解决如何措辞项目描述的问题。快速增长的清洁技术众筹项目为研究这个问题提供了理想的背景。我们收集了有关清洁技术众筹项目的信息，并从 Kickstarter 上匹配了非清洁技术众筹项目。样本期从 2013 年 1 月到 2018 年 10 月。使用信号研究作为理论镜头和基于词典的计算机化文本挖掘方法，我们发现高质量清洁技术众筹项目的创始人可以通过提供可靠的质量信号来创建可靠的质量信号。项目描述的语气不那么含糊，从而促进众筹的成功。此外，在清洁技术众筹中，与非清洁技术众筹相比，不那么模糊的语气的信号有效性更加明显，这表明当行业信息环境更加嘈杂时，使用不那么模糊的语气的边际效益更大。进一步的证据表明，清洁技术众筹中不那么含糊的基调所发出的信号的有效性可以通过支持者的认可得到加强。我们的研究结果表明，项目描述中的语气模糊与创始人隐瞒信息的行为有关。潜在投资者可以在项目描述中搜索歧义词，并将有限的注意力分配到歧义词比例较低的项目上，以避免信息过载。高质量项目的创始人可以通过使用不太含糊的语气来描述他们的项目，从而促进众筹的成功。当项目前景的不确定性越大时，边际效应就越大。