Making a digital innovator: antecedents of innovativeness with digital technologies

Digital innovation in entrepreneurial firms: a systematic literature review

Entrepreneurial firms are central actors in the process of the generation and diffusion of digital innovation which, on the other hand, provides a wide range of opportunities for entrepreneurs. Although existing research has produced several contributions on both topics, the knowledge generated in the field appears fragmented and the findings are sometimes ambiguous. The reason for this fragmentation can be traced back to the lack of reference frameworks that clarify the most used concepts, thus providing a shared language. This study aims to consolidate the state-of-art of scholarly research published over the past 20 years at the intersection of the innovation and entrepreneurship fields of study. To this aim, we carried out a systematic literature review by analyzing a set of 185 papers in order to find what are the relevant topics in the investigated research domain. This activity was performed using MySLR software. Besides a descriptive picture of the scientific activity, a map of the literature published to date that simultaneously addresses the two themes, is provided. In particular, we characterized the six relevant topics in the investigated research domain: start-ups’ collaboration networks, business-model innovation, digital platforms, digital ventures, the digital entrepreneur’s profile, and digital-innovation ecosystems. Based on these results the article proposes three main research directions for future research: multi-level analysis of Digital Innovation in Entrepreneurial Ventures; interdisciplinary approaches; development of specific theories for igital Innovation. Overall, the value of research is to provide a framework for analyzing the phenomenon of innovation in and with entrepreneurial firms that can be used as a reference model for both entrepreneurship and innovation management researchers.

Cyber-entrepreneurial intention among students in Public Universities: evidence from an Emerging Country

This paper aims to investigate the factors affecting cyber-entrepreneurial intentions among final-year students of public universities in Malaysia utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Theory of Self-Efficacy (TSE). The quantitative survey-based research method was adopted to conduct the study using both final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students from business and management schools to test the proposed research framework. A total of 364 useful responses were received to be analyzed for this study. Results showed that attitude toward entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial creativity, entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and opportunity recognition were positively correlated with cyber-entrepreneurial intentions except for personal innovativeness in technology and subjective norm, which was insignificant. This study provides insights into the way individual's intention towards cyber-entrepreneurship could be ameliorated as a career choice, particularly for final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students of business and management schools in Malaysian public universities. It helps determine appropriate approaches to direct the government, educators, and policymakers. The findings from this study invaluably contribute to the existing literature by establishing correlation between TPB and TSE and inquiring into their ultimate influences on cyber-entrepreneurial intentions.

Digital twins’ impact on organizational control: perspectives on formal vs social control

Purpose

This study examines the connection between different digital-twin characteristics and organizational control. Specifically, the study aims to examine whether the digital-twin characteristics exploration, guidance and gamification will affect formal and social control.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on an analysis of survey results from 139 respondents comprising applied university students who use digital twins.

Findings

The results offer an interesting contribution to the literature. The authors consider the digital-twin characteristics exploration, guidance and gamification and investigate their contribution to two types of organizational controls: formal and social. The results show that two characteristics, exploration and gamification, affect the extent to which digital twins can be utilized for social control. Exploration and guidance’s role is significant concerning the extent to which digital twins can be utilized for formal control.

Originality/value

This study contributes to literature by considering multiple digital-twin characteristics and their contribution to two different control outcomes. First, it diverges from previous technical-oriented research by investigating digital twins in a human context. Second, the study is the first to examine digital twins’ effects from an organizational control perspective systematically.

The Hard Skills Bases in Digital Academic Entrepreneurship in Relation to Digital Transformation

Digital transformation (DT) has changed the means and mechanisms for acquiring knowledge, meaning that higher education institutions (HEI) have changed the form of student-lecturer and teaching-learning interaction. Digital transformation must have a relevant role in building the hard skills (HS) necessary for academic entrepreneurship, where HS are easily taught and measured. This study analyses the basis of HS for digital academic entrepreneurship, answering the following research hypothesis: What are the hard skills—entrepreneurial education—for digital academic entrepreneurship and how are they formed? An extensive, inclusive literature review revealed that, due to the possibility of editing, reprogramming and generating digital technology, the basis of DT can support the development of HS in higher education students. The results show that HS can be developed considering three major pillars: (i) Management Tools, (ii) Digital Process, and (iii) Digital Products. Since HS are easily taught, this study shows how the use of digital technology can transform this scalable teaching process in order to reach the maximum number of students. It is therefore suggested that those in charge of HEIs use the pillars presented here in the framework proposed to guide their institutions’ strategic planning. With these pillars in mind, the aim is to stimulate the development of innovative business proposals developed in the academic environment and promote digital academic entrepreneurship.

Digital transformation shaping structural pillars for academic entrepreneurship: A framework proposal and research agenda

Digital technology always accelerates change, altering organisations culturally, socially and technically. These modifications are known as "digital transformation" (DT). On a much greater scale than DT, the world was changed in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, which re-organised society in the way of thinking, acting, producing, consuming and creating new business. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were no different, since these institutions had to make changes to the student-lecturer interaction; teaching-learning, where DT had a relevant role, above all in academic entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study aims to propose a framework showing the structural pillars of the link between digital transformation (DT) and academic entrepreneurship (AC) (DT-AC Framework). This framework identifies the new patterns, methods, skills and other discoveries in aspects such as management, information systems and culture sciences. The intention is not to analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic imposed global structural changes, but because of it, lecturers and students found their DT accelerated and intensified, and so it is necessary to investigate the pillars supporting academic entrepreneurship. The results show that DT was already emerging as a basic element of academic entrepreneurship before the pandemic, but the process has speeded up. This bibliometric study indicates the structural pillars that support entrepreneurship following the Covid19 pandemic, as created from DT in universities, providing an extensive systematic review that indicates the cause and effect of the academic entrepreneurship process.

An Empirical Investigation of the Continued Usage Intention of Digital Wallets: The Moderating Role of Perceived Technological Innovativeness

The paper examines the constructs that instigate the users to adopt digital wallets and continued usage behavior in a developing country perspective, Bangladesh. The researcher used a cross-sectional design to collect the primary data using a self-administered questionnaire. The population consisted of the youth, precisely 18–35, who are tech-savvy and knowledgeable about new technology. The study followed the nonprobability purposive sampling technique, and 330 responses were collected through a structured questionnaire survey. In direct path analysis, the findings revealed that perceived usefulness, ease of use, compatibility, insecurity, and behavioral intention to adopt digital wallets found significant relationships among the constructs that supported the proposed hypotheses. Moreover, indirect path analysis of perceived compatibility, perceived personal innovativeness and perceived social influence found no significant relationships that did not justify the proposed hypotheses. Users' behavioral intention partially mediates among perceived usefulness, ease of use, personal innovativeness, and perceived social influence, except perceived compatibility. The findings suggested that perceived technological innovativeness did not support the proposed hypothesis. The incorporated constructs of this study have hardly been found in the existing literature, and the researchers shed light on the unexplored research area. The study results, implications, and limitations have been discussed.

Digital platforms: customer satisfaction, eWOM and the moderating role of perceived technological innovativeness

Purpose

The paper aims to investigate how customer satisfaction can be achieved in the context of digital platform services, its influence on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and how such relationships can be moderated by perceived technological innovativeness (PTI).

Design/methodology/approach

The research framework was developed and empirically tested using an online survey and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Data were gathered from 501 Uber customers in London, UK.

Findings

The study recognises and confirms that trust and cost saving enhanced customer satisfaction in Uber mobility services, which has a positive impact on eWOM. There are other findings regarding users who share rides vs those who do not share. Furthermore, it has been found that PTI moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and eWOM.

Originality/value

The research draws on collaborative consumption literature and contributes to the antecedents of customer satisfaction in digital economy literature: trust, environmental impact, cost saving and utility. The study offers an empirical validation of the role of PTI in enhancing eWOM. The paper breaks new ground for a better understanding of how PTI can moderate the influence of customer satisfaction and eWOM in digital platforms.