Levelling the playing field? Towards a critical-social perspective on digital entrepreneurship

Abstract

This conceptual paper critically analyses whether digital technologies have the potential to level the entrepreneurial playing field, and presents a more comprehensive and nuanced view of an increasingly significant yet underexplored phenomenon. Drawing upon three broad theoretical lenses: neoclassical economic entrepreneurship theory, cyberfeminist theories of technology and social embeddedness approaches to entrepreneurship, it critiques popular assumptions about digital entrepreneurship as an equalising force. It develops a novel critical-social perspective on digital entrepreneurship and an innovative typology of the landscape. Such an approach highlights a range of digital entrepreneurial activity and actors excluded from mainstream view, theorises the impact of technological requirements and socially distributed resources, and concludes that optimistic promises of success have been, and are likely to continue to be, realized primarily by those already in the top rungs of the social ladder.

Bios, mythoi and women entrepreneurs: A Wynterian analysis of the intersectional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed women and women-owned businesses

“…This means examining the impact of not only the embodiment of the entrepreneurs themselves but also the dimensions of embodiment, in contrast to the dimensions of digitisation or virtuality, inherent in the goods and services they provide. Those with businesses that have higher degrees of digitisation (McAdam et al, 2019;Martinez Dy, 2019;Von Briel et al, 2018), or are otherwise more able to be run remotely, will be at a clear advantage. While high-tech founders tend to have class privileges and also overwhelmingly tend to be men, lower barriers to entry via digital technologies and social media have opened new avenues for women's entrepreneurial activity, particularly in the creative industries -nonetheless, such work has been found to reproduce traditional offline inequalities (Duffy and Pruchniewska, 2017;Gill, 2014).…”

“Doing one's work” in entrepreneurship studies: interpellation, distraction, disruption and transformation

“…In particular, my intersectional and anti-racist feminist politics enables an approach which addresses race and problematises white privilege in the gender and entrepreneurship literature (Martinez Dy et al , 2017; Martinez Dy and Agwunobi, 2019), and speaks to the obvious lacunae regarding race, intersectionality and trans issues in the limited but growing work on gender within the domain of critical realist philosophy (Martinez Dy, 2020a; Martinez Dy et al , 2014). At the same time, my interest in digital entrepreneurship and technoculture, combined with a retained focus on intersectional inequality and marginality, make for a set of “hot topics” (Martinez Dy, 2019, 2020b), the relevance of which continues to unfold not only within academia – entrepreneurship studies in particular, and management and organisation studies more generally – but also at the forefront of discussions within the technology industry and start-up sector itself (Harrison, 2019; Hyder, 2020).…”

An E-Entrepreneurship Model Proposal for Turkish Ready-Made Garment Enterprises and Turkish Fashion Designers

“…Dijital teknolojinin gelişmesi kurulu geleneksel sistemlerden uzaklaşılarak pazarlara, kullanıcılara ve paydaşlara ulaşmak için yeni kanallar ve bağlantıların önünü açmıştır (Rippa ve Secundo, 2019). Modern sosyal ve teknolojik gelişmeler, kaynakları kolay bir şekilde bir araya getirme, pazara ulaşma ve yenilik yoluyla değer oluşturmak için fırsatları geliştirdiği için dijital girişimciliğe olan ilgiyi artmıştır (Dy, 2019). Bu nedenle internet gibi dijital ortamlar, işletmelerin diğer işletmelerle ve müşterilerle olan işlemlerini gerçekleştirmek ve ilişkilerini geliştirmek için popüler araçlar olarak görülmektedir.…”

“…Bu durumun girişimcilik faaliyetlerini artıracağı beklenmektedir. Bu bağlamda girişimcilikte yenilik olgusu, ekonomik büyüme ve ekonomik refahın ana faktörlerinden biri olarak bilinmektedir(Fossen ve Sorgner, 2019; Yin vd., 2019;Dy, 2019). Bu bağlamda girişimcilik yenilikle başlamaktadır.…”