Serendipity has played a significant role in the history of invention. Yet, little is known about whether serendipitous inventions are perceived as more or less innovative and thus achieve greater success in seeking funding than those resulting from deliberate processes. The current study explores this issue using a matched-pair sample of 168 serendipitous and non-serendipitous inventions used by entrepreneurs to raise capital through crowdfunding. The results demonstrate that serendipitous inventions are more positively related to crowdfunding success than non-serendipitous ones via perceptions of product innovativeness. Thus, serendipitous inventions appear to be socially rewarded rather than penalized in the context of crowdfunding.

中文翻译：

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啊哈时刻！机缘巧合和创新对众筹绩效的影响


机缘巧合在发明史上发挥了重要作用。然而，人们对偶然的发明是否被认为更具创新性，从而在寻求资金方面比深思熟虑的发明取得更大的成功，知之甚少。目前的研究使用 168 项偶然和非偶然发明的配对样本来探讨这个问题，这些发明被企业家用来通过众筹筹集资金。结果表明，通过对产品创新性的看法，偶然的发明与众筹成功的关系比非偶然的发明更显着。因此，在众筹的背景下，偶然的发明似乎会得到社会奖励，而不是受到惩罚。