Digital Entrepreneurship Research Articles

Digital entrepreneurship: towards a knowledge management perspective

PurposeThis study aims to present the critical role of knowledge management in digital entrepreneurship by reviewing the literature and proposing future research directions for digital entrepreneurship and knowledge management through an interdisciplinary framework.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the Derwent Data Analyzer to identify and visualise the extant studies on digital entrepreneurship. This study qualitatively analyses the hot topics and trends in digital entrepreneurship research to understand digital entrepreneurship from the knowledge management perspective.FindingsThe authors found two dominant trends in existing research: logical and development trend exploration at the theoretical background and empirical research at the practical dimension. To understand digital entrepreneurship from a knowledge management perspective, the authors summarised the theoretical logic and internal and external reasons why knowledge management is required in digital entrepreneurship. Moreover, the authors analysed the new features of digital entrepreneurship under five aspects: management concept, object, content, scope and focus. The authors concluded that existing research on integrating knowledge management and digital entrepreneurship is primarily conducted from three perspectives: technology, platform and ecosystem.Originality/valueThis study provides an in-depth analysis of digital entrepreneurship from a knowledge management perspective. The findings can further promote the theoretical research and practical development of digital entrepreneurship and knowledge management. This approach provides a new direction for interdisciplinary study and enriches entrepreneurship research. In addition, this study proposes a knowledge management framework for digital entrepreneurship research. The findings contribute to understanding the role and function of knowledge management in digital entrepreneurship.

Enablers and inhibitors of digital startup evolution: a multi-case study of Swedish business incubators

Global advances in digital technology are facilitating corresponding rises in digital entrepreneurship and its startup manifestation. There are many uncertainties on the road to digital startup evolution, some of which may be successfully navigated with the assistance of business incubators. While these organisations provide valuable guidance and support to the startup community, their efforts are at least partly constrained by the lack of a consistent, coherent roadmap to guide both them and their incubatees. T0 help efforts to develop such a map, this paper seeks to identify factors that influence digital startup evolution within an incubator setting through a multiple-case study focusing on digital startups under the umbrella of three business incubators in the Swedish city Umeå. Sets of enabling and inhibitory factors are identified through literature searches and the case studies. The latter may include inertia and possibly attitudes towards failure. In addition, present the Ideation Dynamics Model as a guide for both incubators and digital startups is proposed.

Hybrid study of digital entrepreneurship in the COVID-19 era

The objective of this work was to specify a model for the study of electronic consumption. An exploratory, cross-sectional and psychometric study was conducted with a selection of Internet users, considering their time of use. An associative perceptual structure was found between the usefulness of the technology and the effectiveness of the respondent, although the research design limited the results to the research sample, suggesting the extension of the work towards other cybernetic contexts.

The impact of digital services through ICT on business creation around the world

ABSTRACT We explore the effect of digital services on entrepreneurial activity in 153 countries during 2006–2019. Digital services are measured by the volume of the digital services that can be delivered over information and communication technologies (ICT) networks, including among others, sales and digital marketing. Entrepreneurship is measured by the number and density of new business registrations. Controlling for other economic, institutional, and technological factors, fixed effects regression was used to capture country heterogeneity. Our results show a significant positive association between the level of digital services and entrepreneurial activity across countries through ICT networks represented mainly by digital marketing, which is found to have a direct effect on new business opportunities. Our results remain robust after applying sensitivity tests and endogeneity analysis as well as using alternative control variables. These results have important implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers. Entrepreneurs are provided with insights about the importance of encouraging digital entrepreneurship by focusing on ICT infrastructure, mainly digital marketing. Second, governments need to pay more attention to promoting digitization policies to encourage entrepreneurship.

Digital entrepreneurship: The role of entrepreneurial orientation and digitalization for disruptive innovation

Innovation boosts economic growth, and one of the most critical factors when considering innovation-driven growth is the role of disruptive innovation, which is hailed as a lodestar by leaders of both small and large firms. However, little is known about the role of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and digitalization strategy in enhancing or hindering firms' disruptive innovation. Our study thus addresses the relationships between EO and firms' ability to develop disruptive innovation under consideration of the firm's digital strategy. Our empirical analysis is based on quantitative survey data from a sample of 242 firms across a variety of industries, geographic locations, and sizes. Our results demonstrate that EO has a significant positive effect on disruptive innovation and that deployment of a digitalization strategy is perceived as a metaphorical cage for disruptive innovation among highly entrepreneurially oriented firms. However, a digitalization strategy supports disruptive innovation when firms are less entrepreneurially oriented. The insight of this work is that firms should focus on EO to allow disruptive innovation and increase or decrease digitalization strategy deployment and planning depending on the level of EO.

Female digital entrepreneurship: a structured literature review

PurposeThis study offers a structured literature review (SLR) on female digital entrepreneurship (DE). This is done by providing insights into the recent developments of the topic, reviewing and critiquing previous studies in the literature, and pinpointing areas for future potential studies.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive SLR was conducted on 18 papers published between 2017 and 2022 by discipline, time, methodologies, context, topic, and theoretical emphasis. The authors employed the three phases of critical research – insight, critique, and transformative redefinition – to conduct the literature review.FindingsThe literature on female DE is inadequate, fragmented, and divergent in terms of less practice-based insights. Furthermore, most female DE research is published in nonspecialized journals. The examination of the impact of gender and cross-country comparative studies is scarce. Existing literature lacks epistemological and methodological diversity. The lack of theoretical connections across the various research areas on female entrepreneurship may be the reason why this area of study has proven difficult for scholars. Few authors exhibit high specialization in the topic, whereas most authors contribute to either DE or female entrepreneurship.Research limitations/implicationsThis SLR research aims to provide an overview of the female DE field by identifying the current trend of research and recognizing future research directions and to improve readers’ knowledge of this research branch.Practical implicationsThis review has classified the field's main topics and found that the influence of context (institutional and social) is the most investigated issue. Further, it presents a potential for practitioners' contribution to the field as coauthors and outlines needed studies.Originality/valueThis study provides a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary, updated review and research agenda that supplements rather than substitutes the existing literature reviews on female entrepreneurship. Moreover, this study makes a significant contribution by presenting the stages of development in female DE research within the context of the overall literature on female entrepreneurship.

Fortune favors the experienced: entrepreneurs’ Internet-Era Imprint, digital entrepreneurship and venture capital

This study focuses on entrepreneurs’ Internet-era imprint and its effect on the level of digital entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial firms’ venture capital. From the perspective of imprinting theory and signaling theory, we find that entrepreneurs with Internet-era imprint are more willing to use digital technologies in their entrepreneurial process, which raises the level of digital entrepreneurship within a firm. Imprint-driven digital entrepreneurship acts as a quality signal to increase the success rate of access to venture capital from financial institutions. In addition, venture capital providers do not value the entrepreneurs’ personal socioeconomic status for easier access to external resources, but rather their Internet-era imprint, which is more relevant to the success of digital entrepreneurship. Our hypotheses are supported using data from the Chinese private entrepreneurial firms in 2016. Overall, our efforts to extend imprinting theory to digital entrepreneurship literature suggest that the Internet-era imprint persists in the digital entrepreneurial process. Moreover, this study enriches the signaling mechanisms in entrepreneurial venture capital research by conceptualizing digital entrepreneurship as a signal.

Navigating the volatile world of digital entrepreneurship

Having secured venture capital for their startups, digital entrepreneurs face a critical transition to the postinvestment phase. They must evolve new organizational models and demonstrate their capacity to operate in the present while maintaining attention to the future. This transition unfolds in a hyperturbulent context in which rapid growth is crucial owing to competitive advantages from scale and scope. While the present-future tension has received extensive attention in other domains, we know little about how it manifests and affects digital startups transitioning into the postinvestment phase. In this article, we examine entrepreneurs’ challenges during this transition through an action research study of the interactions between a venture capital firm and a set of digital startups. We identify eight salient challenges conceptualized as transition traps, then define and validate tactics for increasing digital startups’ readiness to navigate them. We identify the main transition traps and provide actionable advice for increasing digital startups’ readiness to navigate them.

EC-education, gender disparity, and digital entrepreneurship intention: The moderating role of attitude components; a competitive advantage of the Ha'il region

This research made the case that e-commerce education levels influenced attitudes related components of people's views about e-entrepreneurship intention, all of which influenced their intention to start an e-commerce firm. The study also showed that people's desire to launch an internet company was substantially connected with its behavioral, cognitive, and emotional components. The major method used to verify the validity of the suggested model was the application of the theory of planned behavior together with the analysis of data collected from 338 young Saudi students at the college of business administration at the University of Ha'il. The results of the SMARTPLS partial least square program show that e-commerce education and attitude components are predictors of e-entrepreneurship intention, although disparities between men and women are not connected to this intention.

Specific innovativeness, digital entrepreneurship, and female entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT How does digital entrepreneurship help innovative, women entrepreneurs in emerging economies? Using strategic choice theory, we predict that specific innovativeness improves new venture performance, and that digital entrepreneurship enables innovativeness and increases its effect on performance. We also predict that innovative female entrepreneurs benefit more than male ones from a high degree of digital entrepreneurship. We confirm our hypotheses using primary data of entrepreneurs from Ghana (N = 199) and Vietnam (N = 223). We also conducted a series of robustness tests to validate our findings. We conclude that strategic choices among new ventures yield best results if bounded by prior strategic choice and specific innovativeness, enabled by a high degree of digital entrepreneurship, and enacted by women.

The English Proficiency and the Inevitable Resort to Digitalization: A Direction to Follow and Adopt to Guarantee the Success of Women Entrepreneurs in the World of Business and Enterprises

In this paper, an attempt has been made to highlight the importance of the English language and ICT in the entrepreneurial endeavors of Moroccan women. The development of ICT and the rise of English as the major lingua franca of worldwide business have been followed by a considerable increase in academic interest in a variety of topics connected to language choice and usage in the business and professional sectors. In business, it's important for Moroccan women entrepreneurs to be good at ICT and speak English well. The integration of digital technologies into female entrepreneurship has developed a new approach called "digital entrepreneurship." This method offers numerous benefits for Moroccan female entrepreneurs, namely economic development, women's empowerment, and access to worldwide markets. The power of English and new digital paradigms has changed how Moroccan businesswomen work and communicate with each other. This has changed business practices and given Moroccan businesswomen new opportunities.

Startup category membership and boundary expansion in the field of artificial intelligence

PurposeAn important but neglected area of investigation in digital entrepreneurship is the combined role of both core and peripheral members of an emerging technological field in shaping the symbolic and social boundaries of the field. This is a serious gap as both categories of members play a distinct role in expanding the pool of resources of the field. I address this gap by exploring how membership category is related to funding decisions in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI).Design/methodology/approachThe first quantitative study involved a sample of 1,315 AI-based startups which were founded in the period of 2011–2018 in the United States. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 32 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define the boundaries of their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.FindingsThe author finds that core members in the newly founded field of AI were more successful at attracting funding from investors than peripheral members and that size of the founding team, number of lead investors, number of patents and CEO approval were positively related to funding. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 30 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is one of the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to bring empirical evidence that investors adapt their funding strategy to membership categories (core and peripheral members) of a new technological field in their resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, I find that core and peripheral members claim distinct roles in their participation and contribution to the field in terms of technological developments, and that although core members attract more resources than peripheral members, both actors play a significant role in expanding the field’s social boundaries.Practical implicationsCore AI entrepreneurs who wish to attract funding may consider operating in fewer categories in order to be perceived as core members of the field, and thus focus their activities and limited resources to build internal AI capabilities. Entrepreneurs may invest early in filing a patent to signal their in-house AI capabilities to investors.Social implicationsThe social boundaries of an emerging technological field are shaped by a multitude of actors and not only the core members of the field. The author should pay attention to the role of each category of actors and build on their contributions to expand a promising field.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to study the resource acquisition strategies of entrepreneurs in a newly establishing technological field.

DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY IN ONLINE BUSINESS COMPANIES IN WEST JAVA

The goal of this study is to ascertain how digital entrepreneurship strategies are applied by online business organizations in West Java from an Islamic perspective. This is a field research with a qualitative approach and descriptive qualitative approaches. Data were gathered through interviews, observations, documentation, and literature searches. Data analysis approaches make use of inventory or data collection, identification, analysis, and interpretation. The study's conclusions show that the four tenets of client orientation, transparency, fair competition, and fairness serve as the foundation for the digital entrepreneurship strategy employed by online business firms in West Java. The customer-oriented philosophy is first put into practice by providing polite, soft, and friendly service and by always being prepared to offer solutions. Second, the concept of openness is put into practice, and product specifications are truly communicated. Third, the idea of fair competition is put into practice through prompt delivery, no-cost advice, special offers, and higher-quality products. Fourth, the concept of fairness is put into practice by treating customers fairly and providing them with benefits.
 

Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Infrastructure - Business Environment Institutions: The Case in Poland

Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Infrastructure - Business Environment Institutions: The Case in Poland

Technology as a Catalyst for Tourism Entrepreneurship: A Critical Insight

The purpose of the present article is to highlight the importance of technological advancement and the role of travel technology providers in the tourism industry. The present study also highlighted the current technological changes and trends in the tourism and hospitality industry. A systematic study of the existing and emerging technologies in the tourism sector and how travel technology providers help entrepreneurs to organize and automate the travel business is presented in the form of a viewpoint. Travel technology providers help tourism enterprises by providing services like API integration, customer relationship management (CRM), portal and website designing, and more. Covid-19 has scaled up the technological changes and boosted digital entrepreneurship worldwide, bringing various technological trends to the tourism and hospitality industry. To meet the needs of modern-day travelers, travel agents and tour operators are considering taking their travel business online and opting for innovative travel technologies. The present study contributes to the existing literature and helps tourism practitioners to remain competitive and cater to the ever-changing demands of today’s travelers.

The Implementation of the Pancasila Economy to Empower MSMEs Post Pandemic Covid 19

Many industries have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, especially the economy. This economic impact is not only felt locally but even internationally. The marketing plan for MSMEs engaged in the creative economy sector, namely human activities in which individuals independently manage economic resources while being under the authority they control. MSMEs are currently changing their marketing tactics to advertise their products through online marketplaces in the era of globalization. To find out how a Pancasila-based economy that is transitioning to the digital era will be used and how local government priorities for MSMEs during a pandemic are the goals of this research. A literature study approach is used in this article to describe various books, journals, and internet publications. The study of the findings of this article shows that the growth of digital MSMEs and digital entrepreneurship in Indonesia amid the Covid pandemic has turned into a rescue solution. One of the solutions to ensure that MSMEs remain accessible during the Covid 19 pandemic is the establishment of digital MSMEs. Various MSME digitalization development projects in the Indonesian Pancasila digital economic ecosystem can accelerate the digital transformation process. During the Covid 19 outbreak, the creative economy sector adhered to a Pancasila-based economic system, and supporting elements for entrepreneurship included promotions, excellent service, customer appreciation, affiliation or partnerships, and social capital. keywords: digitalization; economy; globalization; pandemic; MSME

Business model scaling and growth hacking in digital entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT Creating an innovative product and validating an innovative business model may not be enough for digital startups to be competitive. To grow fast and expand globally, digital startups need to innovate their business model during the scaling phase. A pragmatic approach has recently been proposed to support digital entrepreneurs engaging in business-model innovation during the scaling phase (i.e., business-model scaling), a strategy known as growth hacking. However, we know little about its theoretical grounding and how effective growth hacking is, as businesses lack methodologies to assess its effectiveness before committing resources and investments. To fill this gap, we developed a method for supporting business- model scaling through simulation modeling and provided an illustrative application to the PayPal case. By doing so, we contribute to the ongoing debate on scalability in digital entrepreneurship.

Digital Entrepreneurship: Literature Review and Research Avenues Proposal (Case of Morocco)

Digital Entrepreneurship: Literature Review and Research Avenues Proposal (Case of Morocco)

Coopetition, organizational agility, and innovation performance in digital new ventures

By integrating the theories of coopetition and dynamic capabilities, this study investigated whether and how coopetition contributes to innovation performance in digital new ventures by introducing organizational agility as the key path between them. The hypotheses were empirically explored by surveying 357 senior executives in Chinese digital new ventures. The results indicate that coopetition positively affects innovation performance in digital new ventures, and entrepreneurial agility and adaptive agility play mediating roles in this relationship. We also found that environmental turbulence positively moderates the effect of entrepreneurial agility on innovation performance but does not significantly moderate the effect of adaptive agility. Research on the link between coopetition and innovation performance in digital entrepreneurship is aided by this study, which helps to further the coopetition theory. Our findings also have important implications for the managers of digital new ventures who want to improve their innovation performance.

Traversing the uncommon boulevard: entrepreneurial trajectory of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs)

ABSTRACT Blockchain technology has revolutionised the ownership structures and business models of young companies, leading to the emergence of new digital entrepreneurship in innovative digital companies known as decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). This study examines the influence of blockchain use on the entrepreneurial structure and business models of DAOs. Following an inductive approach guided by the underlying theoretical framework of a nonfungible token (NFT) enabled entrepreneurship and the token economy business model, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of /the whitepapers of 22 selected DAOs obtained from the DeepDAO platform. The results reveal that blockchain assists the growth of digital companies by decentralising their ownership structure and improving their value propositions through NFT and a smart contract-enabled consensus mechanism. However, market uncertainties and the non-liquidity of tokens were identified as significant barriers to implementing DAOs. Three propositions emerged from this study with meaningful contributions to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship.