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This paper investigates the effects of social media on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Combining the internal and external approaches of opportunity recognition, the study analyzes how social media influences the entrepreneurs in discovering new entrepreneurial opportunities. Structural equation modeling was used in this study, using the variance-based partial least squares (PLS)–structural equation modeling (SEM), on a sample of 354 entrepreneurs. We concluded that social media directly and positively influences entrepreneurial opportunity recognition while entrepreneurial alertness (internal approach) and social networks (external approach) partially mediates its indirect effects on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. The study contributes to the existing literature by bringing new insights into the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition process by focusing on a poorly represented factor in the literature, social media.

Digitalization advances in many fields due to its clear advantages and facilities especially in pandemic times when crowds are to be avoided. E-voting is gaining importance as voting using laptops, mobile phones or tablets is more practical. Hence, human counting which leads to unintentional errors or fraud could be eliminated. Furthermore, software applications can reduce the costs of the classic election process and physical infrastructure. In this paper, we propose to identify the most critical specifications of an e-voting application, find a solution for elections in universities and compare our solution with others. The goal is to propose a conceptual architecture using encrypted functions and two stages: voting and validation, separating layers and roles, that is based on blockchain tables and innovative interactions between actors (voters and voting committee) and the two software components (web application and database). For replicability, the conceptual architecture is depicted and formalized using several Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams. Furthermore, in order to provide proof of concept, the initial steps in implementing the proposed solution are showcased.

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Internet research on search engine quality and validity of results demand much concern. Thus, the focus in our study has been to measure the impact of quotation marks usage on the internet search outputs in terms of google search outcomes' distributions, through Benford Law. The current paper is focused on applying a Benford Law analysis on two related types of internet searches distinguished by the usage or absence of quotation marks. Both search results values are assumed as variables. We found that the first digit of outcomes does not follow the Benford Law first digit of numbers in the case of searching text without quotation marks. Unexpectedly, the Benford Law is obeyed when quotation marks are used, even if the variability of search outcomes is considerably reduced. By studying outputs demonstrating influences of (apparently at first) "details", in using a search engine, the authors are able to further warn the users concerning the validity of such outputs.