Mobile Entrepreneurs Research Articles

ICT Use and Entrepreneurial Mobilization of Chinese Grassroots Activists In and Beyond Cyberspace

While prevailing scholarship commonly asserts that information and communication technologies (ICTs) significantly facilitate mass mobilization, a growing body of literature questions the mobilization potential of technologies alone. This literature proposes that ICTs might redirect offline participation by promoting low-risk and low-cost online collective actions, especially in the absence of linkage between offline and online tactics. In the context of these debates, this article explores the nuanced synergies between the online and offline mobilization strategies of individual activists and their underlying motives. It does so through an in-depth ethnographic case study of popular protest mobilization in a Chinese locality. Through an integration of the traditional entrepreneurial mobilization model with the concept of mediatization, this study delves into the intricate mobilization strategies and underlying motives of activists. The findings reveal that through a strategic convergence of offline and online tactics, including extension, amalgamation, and substitution, activists adeptly choreographed and presented protest repertoires, thereby fostering the development of mass mobilization. The research posits that the efficacy of ICTs in mobilization is contingent upon activists’ adeptness in leveraging the norms and practices of ICTs to pursue collective objectives suited to social contexts, thus circumventing the pitfalls of “clicktivism.”

Welcome to ‘Dalifornia’: Chinese digital nomads as mobile entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT Digital nomadism has gained increasing popularity as a lifestyle choice, fuelled by advancements in internet technologies, the availability of co-working spaces, and the impact of global pandemics. Despite its growing prominence, digital nomads who engage in entrepreneurial activities have received relatively limited scholarly attention, particularly in non-Western contexts. This research aims to address this gap by investigating the underlying mechanisms of Chinese digital nomads as entrepreneurs. Utilising a netnography method, data was collected from online communities where digital nomads actively participate and interact in China. By doing so, this study contributes to the existing literature on tourism using the concept of geo-arbitrage specifically tailored to digital nomad entrepreneurs.

Sedentary settlers or nomadic opportunists? Diverging rationales in international entrepreneurial mobility

PurposeInternational Entrepreneurs (IEs) increasingly cross borders to internationalize their activities, yet the various motives driving them into foreign markets are insufficiently understood vis-à-vis the public agencies striving to attract them. Our study proposes a consideration of their interplay by contrasting the various mobility rationales of IEs with those of the investment agencies striving to capture their talent.Design/methodology/approachEmpirically, we concentrate on firms selected for funding in the French Tech Ticket, a competitive program designed to incentivize international start-ups to set up business in regional clusters across France. Using a longitudinal qualitative approach, we conducted two separate rounds of semi-structured interviews with IEs, public agency managers, and incubator staff members using thematic analysis of participant narratives on mobility.FindingsOur findings point to diverging narratives on mobility, with an overarching opportunity-centrism on the part of the entrepreneurs and a general location-centrism emanating from the regional agencies. These contrasting visions of mobility are not mutually exclusive but rather present along a mobility continuum that generates contrasting logics.Practical implicationsImplications for policy and practice are provided for the investment agencies crafting policies and committing resources to attract mobile international entrepreneurs. While past IE mobility may correlate with the likelihood of present and future movement, our dual settler-explorer continuum model demonstrates that a binary separation of explorers and settlers is too simplistic: explorers may be subject to settler impulses and settlers can still be drawn to exploration and nomadism. We also provide insights for IEs seeking support in their international development and mobility and the particular advantages a given host economy can offer by identifying an overarching proximity-to-distance rationale for explorers, including the common “host-as-stopover” intermediary rationale.Originality/valueWe theorize this incommensurability as an expression of the current complexity of international mobility and policymaking, revealing a “next-frontier” expansionism in cross-border movement that requires more deliberate consideration.

Co-mobility, Emergence, and New Firm Performance

This paper addresses the endogenous nature of employees sorting into a group of similar others. Many studies have focused heavily on successful ventures using ex post metrics of early-stage firms to then, in turn, explain the existence of differences in organizational growth. In this paper, we measure the new firm performance outcomes as a function of the heterogeneity and the dynamics of (co-)mobile employees. Our results show that the nature of employee co-mobility provides an important initial condition for understanding the emergence and success of new organizations. Moreover, we find that firms attracting others become an intermediate self-selection of the survival of new organizations. By looking at the ex ante factors that contribute to the performance of new organizations, we make a contribution to understanding entrepreneurial (co-)mobility and its strategic implications.

Creating complementarities: How entrepreneurs mobilize crowdfunding and local ecosystems

Entrepreneurs increasingly tap into both spatial and digital resource environments to mobilize critical resources in support of new ventures. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how entrepreneurs make joint use of these environments. Linking the recent debate on spatial and digital affordances to the resource mobilization literature, this study examines how entrepreneurs mobilize critical resources from local ecosystems and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in complementary ways. We discuss two strategies of resource mobilization. (1) The circular strategy, which is mainly applied by social ventures, leverages community narratives and support for crowdfunding campaigns to strengthen and expand the very community support the campaigns are based on. (2) The cumulative strategy, which is mainly applied by commercial high-tech ventures, mobilizes the symbolic value of local institutional ties to attract crowdfunding backers and uses crowdfunding success to attract new resource-holders in local ecosystems. Our findings contribute to research on entrepreneurial resource mobilization and our understanding of the interplay of spatial and digital affordances.

Mobility in the context of entrepreneurial potential of students under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic (Latvia, Georgia)

The aim of the study is to assess the role of the university environment of higher education institutions in Latvia in the formation and promotion of the entrepreneurial potential of students under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, paying special attention to the impact of the protracted epidemic crisis on entrepreneurial mobility. In the scientific literature, various systems of mobility are predominantly positively assessed in terms of increasing labour activity, given the increasing availability of distance employment. At the same time, distance employment also has some negative aspects, mainly reflected in the issues of social trust. In our case, the research problem was to elucidate the impact of the crisis in the life of universities, primarily the massive transition to distance learning, on the state of the entrepreneurial potential of students, especially in terms of their entrepreneurial mobility. For this purpose, exploratory research was carried out at the universities of Latvia (Daugavpils University) and Georgia (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and European University). The results of the sociological survey show that the massive transition to distance learning, the expansion the use of information and communication technology by students, is still only to a small extent continued in increasing the entrepreneurial potential, expanding entrepreneurial mobility. Moreover, the crisis situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic even more constrains students to implement their ideas in the field of personal business due to a one-sided attitude to risk as an unequivocally negative factor in the field of entrepreneurship. On the basis of the empirical data obtained, recommendations were made to the administration of universities and the leaders of public associations dealing with the promotion of entrepreneurial activity of students on the basis of more effective ways to increase their entrepreneurial mobility. The methods used by the authors include axiomatic analysis and synthesis, monographic, statistical of data from a

Looking for a change in scene: analyzing the mobility of crowdfunding entrepreneurs

As the platform economy expands, little is known about entrepreneurial mobility for those creating new ventures using online platforms. Few studies have focused on entrepreneurs’ decisions to relocate. Entrepreneurs using crowdfunding platforms, especially those in the arts and creative industries, present an interesting opportunity to investigate factors influencing relocation decisions. Our analysis sheds light on why crowdfunding creators relocate their projects, the factors that explain their destination choice, and how those factors differ by the type of crowdfunding venture. To understand entrepreneurs’ relocation decisions, we build a pseudo-panel dataset to track creator relocations on the largest reward-based crowdfunding platform (Kickstarter). The final dataset consists of over 25,000 instances where entrepreneurs within the USA made relocation decisions. Taken together, the Kickstarter data on thousands of creators over time, some of whom opted to move, reveals interesting patterns about who moved and where they went. We model their relocation decisions in two stages. First, we analyzed the decision to stay or relocate. Then, for those who relocate, we estimate a destination choice model that identifies the factors that influence which destination regions are selected. Even though these entrepreneurs utilize a platform-based tool for fundraising, they are strongly tied to their local geography. The results confirm that decisions to “change scenery” follow regional conditions relevant to local market size and their networks. The particular factors attracting these entrepreneurs depend on the sort of creative activity (e.g., music, film), as these creators exhibit tendencies to cluster in metros with well-developed crowdfunding communities.

Mobile Entrepreneurs: An Ethnographic Study of the Migration of the Highly Skilled

Mobile Entrepreneurs: An Ethnographic Study of the Migration of the Highly Skilled

Exploring technology design among mobile entrepreneurs in Kampala: An open space workshop

AbstractInformation and communication technologies (ICTs) are located at the center of international development and considered vital for the progress of the current sustainable development goals. ICTs are embedded in cultural structures and social norms, which provide both possibilities and challenges to the people working with technologies such as mobile phones. Drawing upon theories and methodologies of feminist and postcolonial technosciences, my research objective is an exploration of how young entrepreneurs in Uganda affect and are affected by technology design. This article is based on conversations from an Open space workshop that took place at a tech hub in Kampala in 2012. The theme of the workshop was “The mobile futures of Uganda: sharing visions and challenges for today and tomorrow.” The workshop discussions showcase how norms and values are embedded in technology design and how colonial relationships still linger and affect contemporary design and technology practices. Together with my empirical material, I perform technoscientific stories that discuss challenges in entrepreneurship, working in software development and user design practices. I argue that studying the social and political dimensions of technology design is crucial for forming more inclusive and heterogeneous ICT practices.

Keys to success in investment rounds by immigrant entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

This study presents an updated diagnosis of the SV ecosystem itself and offers an insight into the entrepreneurial mobility trends prospects and expectations of the growing number of start-ups launched by immigrant entrepreneurs arriving in SV. The purpose is to determine and rank the attributes most valued by investors when assessing projects and start-ups founded by immigrant entrepreneurs. The model of analysis composed by three hypotheses leads to a series of findings about the profile and expectations of the immigrant entrepreneurs, and reveals remarkable hints and key targets to be met by immigrant entrepreneurs in SV in order to successfully close investment rounds in a hypercompetitive environment. The study discloses the low impact of the founder’s profile as a driver of external investment. A key conclusion states that Venture Capitalists and Business Angels in the top-ranked entrepreneurial ecosystem are primarily led by factors linked to the competitive environment and the product development process, along with the traditional performance indicators: revenue and profitability.

“As We Grow, It Will Become a Priority”: American Mobile Start-Ups’ Privacy Practices

Privacy has become a crucial issue of the digital age, with significant social, political, and economic ramifications. A growing body of literature has dedicated to the patterns, causes, and consequences of individuals’ privacy concerns, skills, and practices. Advancing a producer’s perspective, this research draws on in-depth interviews with 45 tech entrepreneurs to examine privacy practices of mobile start-ups in the United States. Results reveal (a) factors that contribute to the problematic status of privacy issues and (b) whether and how entrepreneurs leverage privacy management as a competitive advantage. Results show that data are widely seen by entrepreneurs as a potentially profitable asset. Privacy practices are networked and thus pose challenges for privacy management as different parties may have different privacy practices. Fast-moving technologies often leave government regulations behind, making them look outdated or irrelevant to many entrepreneurs. For most start-ups not specialized in identity, privacy, or anonymity service, privacy is neither a core business strategy nor a top concern. Only a few mobile ventures have leveraged privacy management as a competitive advantage and designed their products from the ground up concerned about privacy. Most entrepreneurs adopt a building-the-plane-while-flying-it approach: as business grows, privacy policies and practices would evolve. Many entrepreneurs fail to recognize the significance of privacy policies and practices as they lack the awareness, bandwidth, and capacity. Growth and monetization pressures from investors are perceived as more urgent and important than privacy and security issues. Offering a richer account of the power structure that shapes mobile entrepreneurs’ privacy practices and their challenges of managing privacy in a data-driven digital economy, our work advances the existing literature dominated by stories of the individual consumers.

Social capital and entrepreneurial mobility in early-stage tourism development: A case from rural China

Early-stage tourism destinations often seek external capital to establish, invest and participate in tourism businesses at various levels. Entrepreneurial mobility at these destinations is thus an important phenomenon in need of further exploration both empirically and theoretically. This study uses an early-stage destination in rural China as a case to explore the experiences of inward entrepreneurial migrants in tourism development and associates their mobility, geographical and organisational, with dimensions of social capital, including institutional support, community openness and personal social networks. Primary interview data were collected from inward tourism entrepreneurs, key local community members and government officials related to tourism projects. The findings suggest that the inward entrepreneurs had unrealistic perceptions of the tourism industry before they entered. Entrepreneurial mobility in tourism development is influenced by all three social capital dimensions. The integration with the locality enhances the potential contribution of entrepreneurial mobility to tourism development.

Entrepreneurial mobility and talent in entrepreneurial ecosystem: China and international comparison

Pioneering studies have suggested that entrepreneurial mobility may significantly advance the entrepreneurship literature by unpacking the contextual factors and delineating boundary conditions of ...

Entrepreneurial Mobility in Industrial Estates of Bangladesh : A Study on Selected Industrial Estates of Sylhet Division , Bangladesh

The mobility of entrepreneurs, which is an integral part of human life, can occur in all aspects of occupation and location. Finding out the general trends of mobility in entrepreneurship can be used in the effective motivational activities. As Sylhet is a remittance and raw materials rich but industrially backward area, the mobility of entrepreneurship in both aspects in this area is to be analyzed. The researchers tired to find out the trends from inter generation and intra generation mobility along with location mobility from the entrepreneurs of two industrial estates of Sylhet district. The selective sampling technique is used to select 20 entrepreneurs from different industries to represents all the industrial groups. The findings of the study indicated that entrepreneurial mobility followed a simple trend of occupational independence from narrower to wider and wider. This happened in both inter generation and intra generation mobility. The location mobility followed the convenience in operation like proximity to market, nearness to home and other family needs, utilities, infrastructure, socio-political environment, etc. So the entrepreneurial development program in this region should highlights those points and motivate the entrepreneurs to build a perfect entrepreneurial base in this area.

Rubber Stamping: The Contingent Effect of Firm Prestige on Entrepreneurial Mobility

The antecedents of entrepreneurial mobility is an important line of inquiry in the study of entrepreneurship. Specifically, extant literature has focused on the role of the firm prominence, or stat...

Entrepreneurial Mobility in Industrial Estates of Bangladesh : A Study on Selected Industrial Estates of Sylhet Division , Bangladesh

Entrepreneurial Mobility in Industrial Estates of Bangladesh : A Study on Selected Industrial Estates of Sylhet Division , Bangladesh

Mobile entrepreneurs in post-Soviet Central Asia

In this paper I present an analysis of a mobile entrepreneur and his transnational economic activities in post-Soviet space. I argue that the space of informal economic activities of mobile entrepreneurs are structured by trust-networks in the sense Tilly (2005) uses it. In this context the concept of tirikchilik (an Uzbek term for ‘muddling through’ or survival) which defines the space of informal economic activities is important to decipher. Tirikchilik unifies various economic activities which vary from trade, service delivery, middleman services, administration and any kind of activity that generates some cash.

Localization of knowledge and entrepreneurs’ mobility: the case of Germany’s biotechnology industry

In this paper we analyse the location choice of mobile entrepreneurs for the example of Germany’s biotechnology industry. In fact, 37.5 per cent of all founders of biotech firms within a planning region immigrated from another planning regions. The results of our econometric analysis indicate that only the number of immigrated scientific entrepreneurs increases with the difference in the number of researchers as well as the amount of third-party funds acquired by public research units between the receiving and sending entity. We conclude that the size and the excellence of localized knowledge base imply a positive selection of attracted entrepreneurs.

Mobile Technology: Opportunity for Entrepreneurship

The recent extraordinary growth of smart phones and tablets gives rise to the mobile application market. It opens up opportunity for new type of entrepreneurs to tap into the fast-growing mobile application market, bypassing the incumbent operators and requiring minimal capitals. Therefore, focus should be given to promoting these mobile entrepreneurs in order to change Thailand from a `consumer' to a `producer' of ICT technologies. This paper reviews recent trends on mobile technology in the mobile ecosystem and mobile application market. It then identifies emerging opportunity for business entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the measures being implemented by Mobile Technology for Thailand ( $$\text{ MT}^{2})$$ , an alliance from government, business and education sectors for promotion of mobile application industry, are explained. Specifically, it consists of human resource development, entrepreneur incubation and marketing support. It is expected that by focusing on inspiring a new generation of mobile application developers into entrepreneurship, incubating them into successful business and promoting their mobile app to the world market, Thailand could become a regional hub for mobile application industry in the near future.

Post-Soviet Uncertainties: Micro-orders of Central Asian Migrants in Russia

In this paper I show how people ‘muddle through’ the present post- Soviet uncertainties and chaos in Central Asia, creating orders amidst disorder. This muddling- through, locally known as tirikchilik, creates what I call micro- orders structured through trust networks. Present disorder is contrasted to what was known as poryadok i zakon [order and law] in Soviet times. I show these processes in the example of mobile entrepreneurs who make their earnings through their mobile lives between Russia and Central Asia. Power, various dependencies, obligations and duties, shared belief and morals, status and authority play important parts in living and muddling- through within the domain of tirikchilik and also in regulating micro-orders by mobile entrepreneurs.