New product crowdfunding has become an emerging method for start-ups to finance their innovative ideas. Since driving participants’ engagement is crucial to successful fundraising, it is important to study the factors that affect participants’ motivation to back the crowdfunding projects. In this paper, we first examine the impact of goal proximity on backing motivation and then we focus on investigating how group size affects perceived personal impact and resulting motivation to back a project. To test our hypotheses, we collected backing records and creativity ratings of smart wearables projects from a crowdfunding platform in China−Demohour.com. We used daily backers added as our dependent variable to capture potential backers’ motivation to back a project and modeled it using a negative binomial model with project and time fixed effects. Our empirical analyses suggest the following. First, consistent with existing research on the goal gradient effect, the funding ratio of a project is positively related to daily backers added while the positive effect becomes insignificant after reaching 100% funding ratio. Second, group size of backers has a negative effect on potential backers’ motivation. We explain that this is because individuals exert less effort due to decreased perceived personal impact when group size grows (social loafing effect) (Karau & Williams, 1993). Finally, creativity negatively moderates the effect of group size on backing motivation that the negative effect of group size especially calls for attention when the creativity level of the project is high.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of pen and group size on behavioral characteristics of Hanwoo steers. Forty-eight beef steers, all 15 months of age, were used in this study, and were assigned to 3 groups: control (4/35.28 ㎡), treatment 1 (8/70.56 ㎡), and treatment 2 (12/105.84 ㎡). In addition, behavioral characteristics were analyzed every 2 days in each month using CCTV cameras. Each behavior of the treatment group was observed significantly more frequently (p<0.05) than the corresponding behavior of the control group in summer, especially feeding behavior. In addition, no significant difference was observed between the treatment groups. Locomotion was observed for a significantly longer duration in the control group than in the treatment groups (p<0.05), and resting was observed for slightly longer in the treatment groups than in the control group. Fighting behavior, related to social status, was observed significantly more frequently in the control group than in the treatment groups (p<0.05). In winter, feeding behavior was observed for a significantly longer duration in the control group than in the treatment groups (p<0.05) On comparing the behavior of Hanwoo steers during different seasons, we found that the steers showed more resting behavior during summer and more feeding behavior and movement during winter. The above results suggest that the behavioral characteristics of Hanwoo steers depend on the pen and group size, based on the higher frequency of fighting, rubbing, and scratching observed in the treatment groups than in the control group. The results also suggest that the behavioral characteristics of Hanwoo steers depend on the environmental conditions, as shown by the seasonal differences in behavior. Under conditions of high temperature stress, Hanwoo steers showed increased lying down, drinking and grooming behavior to counter this stress. The findings of this study can be applied to management practices for animal welfare and producticon of cattle in both growing and fattening periods.

Stability of labor market in rural areas was analyzed in this paper with categories of industrial group, employment scale, surviving period, and founder group. The stability of each classified labor market was compared with each other to figure out the stable business class and the unstable class in rural areas. The results of rural areas were compared with those of urban areas. The stability was analyzed with average and coefficient of variation (C.V.) of annual total employees’ change rates. It was revealed that labor market of ‘primary industry’, including agriculture, is unstable. Especially, labor market of ‘mid-size’ and ‘primary industry’ businesses founded as ‘incorporated company’ in rural areas is vulnerable. While labor market of ‘large-size’ is proved to be unstable, it is confirmed that ‘small-size’ or ‘mid-size’, and ‘over-ten-year survived’ businesses have positive contribution to the stable labor market in rural and urban areas. The results show that the stability of labor market is different in each category of business and in each region of rural or urban area. It is expected that the results can be utilized for the regional development policies, of labor and industry part.