De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Entrepreneurship

Far-reaching technological developments are making a deep impact on societies and economic environments worldwide. With the emergence of new digital infrastructures such as artificial intelligence, fintech, data analytics, robotics and nanotech, new creative industries, still in a state of flux, have arisen, while others have disappeared, at least in their traditional form. The intermixing of traditional and new technologies has led to a redrawing of boundaries and an extension of the limits of entrepreneurship out towards industries with hitherto high barriers to entry due to regulatory, technological or structural factors.

These “external enablers” have led to a democratization of entrepreneurship and a lessening of the obstacles to starting up a company by reducing (or eliminating) the difficulties inherent in the entrepreneurial phenomenon in its “classical” configuration, such as high resource intensity, uncertainty, limited time or information asymmetry. The De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Entrepreneurship examines the impact of these technological disruptions not only using the existing paradigms, but also by re-examining our very conception of the entrepreneurial phenomenon in terms of its evolving nature and shifting contours. The contributions to this handbook promote the emergence of new theories and conceptions of the entrepreneurial opportunity and process that more fully reflect the realities of the new environment we are living in. They will benefit both academics aiming to familiarize themselves with the state of research and theory within topics and subtopics in digital entrepreneurship, as well as practicing entrepreneurs and managers aiming to acquaint themselves with leading edge practices and insights in digital entrepreneurship.

Author Biography

Wadid Lamine is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Canada. In 2011, he received the French National Foundation of Education in Management (FNEGE) and the French Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association (AEI) best dissertation award for his research. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Tunis Carthage (Tunisia) and the Sulaiman Alrajhi School of Business (KSA). He was previously a visiting scholar at State University of New York at Oswego (USA), Lancaster University (UK) and Umea University (Sweden). His research interests include entrepreneurial university, technology entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial networks and incubation support mechanisms.
Professor Lamine has co-authored three scholarly books titled Entrepreneurial Process and Social Network: A Dynamic Perspective (Edward Elgar), Technology Entrepreneurship and Business Incubation (Imperial College Press) and Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration: A Global Perspective (Edward Elgar). He has published several book chapters and research articles in a wide range of leading academic journals such as Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Small Business Economics and Technological Forecasting & Social Change.

Sarah Jack is the Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg Professor of Innovative and Sustainable Business at Stockholm School of Economics where she leads the Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg Centre for Innovative and Sustainable Business Development. Sarah’s primary interests relate to social aspects of entrepreneurship, where she draws on social capital and social network theory to extend understanding about the relationship between the entrepreneur and the social context in which they are embedded, using qualitative techniques. Her work is of a theoretical, conceptual and policy nature. Current interests also include social innovation, sustainable business development and entrepreneurship within a historical context. Sarah’s research outputs have been published in highly rated international journals such as the Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Journal of Management Inquiry, Technovation and Regional Studies. She serves as an Editor for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Associate Editor for Entrepreneurship and Regional Development and is an editorial board member for the Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. She also holds a leadership role with the ENT Division of the Academy of Management (AoM). Alain Fayolle is Professor of Entrepreneurship at CREA – Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activities, University of Cagliari, Italy. He was previously Distinguished Professor and Entrepreneurship Research Director at EM Lyon Business School, France for 16 years and has also served as Past President of the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division. He is an acclaimed European expert on entrepreneurship and strategic management for entrepreneurial organizations with broad experience in the academic and private world. He is the (co-)author of 15 books and more than 80 articles published in French and international scientific journals. Previously he served as the French expert in the services of the European Commission, appointed by the Ministry of Economy, Finances and Industry, to participate in a project evaluating educational practices and entrepreneurial education. In 2009, he was an expert on entrepreneurship education in Germany for OECD. David B. Audretsch is Distinguished Professor and the Ameritech Chair of Economic Development at Indiana University, where he also serves as Director of the Institute for Development Strategies. He is an Honorary Professor of Industrial Economics and Entrepreneurship at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London. David’s research has focused on the links between entrepreneurship, government policy, innovation, economic development, and global competitiveness. He is co-author of The Seven Secrets of Germany, published by Oxford University Press. He is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal. He was awarded the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research by the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum (Entreprenörskapsforum). He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the University of Augsburg in Germany and Jonköping University in Sweden. He was also awarded the Schumpeter Prize from the University of Wuppertal in Germany. David has served as an advisory board member to a number of international research and policy institutes, including Chair of the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Berlin (German Institute for Economic Analysis Berlin); Chair of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Foundation for the Promotion of German Science) in Berlin, Germany; the Center for European Economic Research (Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung) in Mannheim, Germany; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; New York Academy of Sciences; the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum in Stockholm, Sweden; and the Jackstädt Centre for Entrepreneurship in Wuppertal, Germany.