Description
T. Ravichandran
Irene & Robert Bozzone Distinguished Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Subtle Design Matters: Attention-Directing Cues in Online Medical Crowdfunding
Online medical crowdfunding (MCF) has emerged as a crucial digital practice for individuals seeking to alleviate healthcare-related financial burdens. Despite its prevalence and significance, MCF often falls short of achieving its goals, making it imperative to explore how campaign features can be designed to enhance outcomes. While the crowdfunding literature has extensively examined success factors in reward-based crowdfunding—where contributors expect financial returns—there is limited theorydriven research on effective campaign design in donation-based crowdfunding, which depends on contributors' prosocial behaviors. This study theorizes the effects of two attention-directing design features—direct eye gaze in visuals and narrativity in text—on campaign outcomes by synthesizing insights from prosocial behavior, neuro-cognitive science, social psychology, and marketing. Using a large dataset from the GoFundMe platform, we empirically test these effects and find that both direct gaze and narrativity are positively associated with MCF outcomes. Interestingly, the presence of direct gaze attenuates the benefits of narrativity, a substitution effect we attribute to divergent attention directing mechanisms given limited mental resources. These findings provide actionable guidelines for individual fundraisers, suggesting that images with direct gaze can be particularly effective when high-quality narrations are challenging to craft. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results for medical crowdfunding stakeholders and online user behavior in general.
Biography
T. Ravichandran is the Irene and Robert Bozzone’55 Distinguished Chair and Professor in the Lally School of Management, at RPI. He is an affiliated faculty in the Information Technology and Web Science program in the School of Science at RPI. Ravi’s research focuses on digital strategies of firms and the mechanisms through which digitization is transforming firms, markets, supply networks and industries. His research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Ministry of Education, Singapore.
Ravi has published in leading scholarly journals in Information Systems (Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly; Decision Sciences; European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems), Strategic Management (Organization Science), Operations & Technology Management (Production and Operations Management, IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management, Journal of High Technology Management Research) as well as in leading practitioner journals (Communications of the ACM). He has over 180 refereed publications including 42 journal papers.
His research is widely cited (>7400) and has won several awards including the 1 ) Best Paper Nominee, Completed Research Papers (Americas Conference in Information Systems, 2023), 2) Best Paper in the IT and Healthcare Track, (International Conference in Information Systems in 2020), 3) Best Information Systems Publication in 2010 (Association of Information System); 4) Best Published Paper Award, 2010 (Information Systems Research); 5) Best Paper Award, Software Technology Track (HICSS, 2010); 6) Best Paper Award Honorable Mention (IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 2007); 7) Best Academic Paper Award (Second Supply Chain Management Symposium, McMaster University, 2004); 8) Best Paper Award (OCIS Division, Academy of Management, 2001).
He has served in editorial roles in prestigious academic journals: Senior Editor of MIS Quarterly, Department Editor for IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Associate Editor of MIS Quarterly and Associate Editor of Information Systems Research. Ravi has extensive business experience. He works closely with several large firms and startups on digital strategy, supply chain management and innovation management. Prior to joining RPI, he served as a Consultant to the Reliance Group and as the Assistant Director of the National Productivity Council. In both these positions Ravi was responsible for conducting consulting assignments and corporate training programs. He started his business career as a Production Manager in Flakt AB (now Asea Brown Boweri). He has also been a successful entrepreneur; he started, built, and ran an IT services firm.
Subtle Design Matters: Attention-Directing Cues in Online Medical Crowdfunding
Location
Virtual
Online Location
Category:
Campus Events
