We develop theory about how and when digital technologies enable new venture creation processes. We identify two fundamental properties of digital technologies-specificity and relationality-and develop propositions that link these properties to six enabling mechanisms: compression, conservation, expansion, substitution, combination, and generation. We use the linked properties and mechanisms to determine how and when in the venture creation process-from prospecting to developing to exploiting-digital technologies have enabled start-ups in the IT hardware sector and develop stage-dependent propositions about their sector-level effects. We conclude our theorizing by discussing its implications beyond digital technologies and the IT hardware sector.
For decades, entrepreneurship and strategy research has been dominated by agent-centric and inward-looking theoretical perspectives. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the limits of this stance, as its influence on business has been both enormous and palpable. For the most part, the effects of the pandemic are no doubt negative. Business research—and presumably business practice—typically address such influence in terms of failure, resilience, and crisis management among existing businesses. Contrasting this prevalent discourse, we focus instead on positive influence of the pandemic for some emerging and new ventures. We analyze the many possible positive effects on entrepreneurship practice and highlight also positive effects on entrepreneurship research. We illustrate both positives by applying the External Enabler framework. JEL CLASSIFICATION: L26, M13, O3, R11
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