Press release

Special Issue on "Digital Entrepreneurship" published in Business & Information Systems Engineering

In the February issue of the journal "Business & Information Systems Engineering" Dennis M. Steininger, M. Kathryn Brohman and Jörn H. Block published a special issue with the title "Digital Entrepreneurship: What is New if Anything".

  • Steininger, D. M., Kathryn Brohman, M., and Block, J. H. 2022. “Digital Entrepreneurship: What Is New If Anything?,” Business & Information Systems Engineering (64:1), pp. 1–14. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00741-9)

The motivation in producing this Special Issue was to study whether established assumptions underpinning entrepreneurship theories still hold in the digital age, i.e., during the emergence and impacts of digital technology and related opportunities (Berger et al. 2021; Block et al. 2020; Steininger 2019; von Briel et al. 2021).

Inspired by the focus of Business & Information Systems Engineering to examine problems related to the development, implementation and management of information systems, the authors propose to contextualize principles of digitalization to the entrepreneurship field. The guest editors (Dennis Steininger, Kathryn Brohman, and Jörn Block) bring different perspectives and attempt to clarify the study of digital entrepreneurship by identifying what has changed and what remains the same.

Besides selected articles that map the status quo of digital entrepreneurship, primarily from a research perspective, an interview with serial founder and serial investor Frank Petry, who is considered a primary rock of the German startup scene, additionally enriches the special issue with findings and insights from the practice.

  • Steininger, D. M. 2022. “Interview with Frank Petry on ‘Digital Entrepreneurship: Opportunities, Challenges, and Impacts,’” Business & Information Systems Engineering (64:1), pp. 111–114. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00738-4)

All articles that were included in the Special Issue span a wide range of the digital entrepreneurship phenomenon including changes to agency relationships, evolving digital capabilities, public policy, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). In the first paper Kollmann et al. conducts a scoping literature review combined with the technique of problematization to understand the roots and historical development of digital entrepreneurship research.

  • Kollmann, T., Kleine-Stegemann, L., de Cruppe, K., and Then-Bergh, C. 2022. “Eras of Digital Entrepreneurship,” Business & Information Systems Engineering (64:1), pp. 15–31. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00728-6)

In the second paper Keller et al. drawing four pathways for developing digital capabilities on insights from a single case study which are helpful in examining how new business models eradicate existing business model.

  • Keller, R., Ollig, P., and Rövekamp, P. 2022. “Pathways to Developing Digital Capabilities within Entrepreneurial Initiatives in Pre-Digital Organizations,” Business & Information Systems Engineering (64:1), pp. 33–46. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00739-3)

In the third paper Kreuzer et al. draws on insights from a comprehensive literature review validated by real-world case studies to explain how and why digital technologies alter the way organizations identify new opportunities.

  • Kreuzer, T., Lindenthal, A.-K., Oberländer, A. M., and Röglinger, M. 2022. “The Effects of Digital Technology on Opportunity Recognition,” Business & Information Systems Engineering (64:1), pp. 47–67. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-021-00733-9)

In the fourth paper Recker and Lehmann uses an inductive multi-case study to understand how digital technologies change entrepreneurial processes and outcomes.

In the fifth paper Weber et al. provide a classification of AI start-ups by using a taxonomy development method.

By providing exemplary research questions on the identified new aspects in the categories of new entrepreneurship actors, changes to development and innovation processes, new technologies and business models, and policy and regulation, the special issue also offers a research agenda for future research in the field of digital entrepreneurship.