Abstract

This research is aimed to discover how crowdfunding has evolved in the two different national contexts, in the UK and the US, over the past few years. It is also to assess and compare the impacts of the new crowdfunding regulations on the practical development of this industry in the two countries. In order to effectively address the research questions, the researcher selected to apply the philosophical stance of pragmatism, the inductive approach, the mixed methods and the archival and documentary research strategy. The comparative research design enables not only a detailed and extensive study of the two cases of the UK and the US but also a comparison between the two specific national contexts. The findings of the research reveal that in spite of different contexts, crowdfunding has witnessed an impressive increase in both the UK and the US over the past few years. Moreover, although the UK and the US are both in the vanguard of setting out specific regulations on crowdfunding, the scope of implementation differs considerably in each country. As a result, the impacts of the new regulations on the development of crowdfunding in the two countries are slightly different. Despite of general positive impacts, the swift implementation of the new regulation places the UK in the global leading role in this field while the long delayed implementation has negative influences on the development of crowdfunding in the US to some extents.