Abstract: Based on the background of the two crowd- funding projects, this paper empirically studies how multiple social identities influence investors′ decision-making process through the group-based emotion, self and group efficiency. The research finds that the identification related with crowd-funding project content affects investors′ behavior by emotion path or efficiency path, and the identification related with project sponsors affects investors′ behavior by only efficiency path, furthermore, the above effects are both moderated by social identities; different investors, non- employment and employment investors have different decision-making processes, the group-based emotion has a significant impact on non- employment investors, and the efficiency has a significant impact on both non- employment and employment investors, confirming the heterogeneity of “reason and sensibility” in different types of investors. The research reveals the influence mechanism of the social identity in the decision-making process, and provides a new perspective to highlight social identities in terms of different investors so as to improve the success rate of the crowd-funding.

Key words: reward-based crowd funding, investors′ decision-making process, social identity, group-based emotion, efficiency