Digital futures of small businesses and entrepreneurial opportunity
Section snippets
The multiple and ambiguous implications of digital technologies
Digital technologies and digital platforms are transforming existing industries and blurring their distinction. The implications of digital technologies for businesses and entrepreneurship include new business models, new products, new forms of innovation and the transformation of established businesses to adopt their business operation and strategy to the digital economy (Nambisan, Wright, & Feldman, 2019). Digital transformations are also changing the spatial and social boundaries of
Digital inequalities
Different literatures have identified inequalities in the access and use of digital technologies and infrastructures (e.g. the Internet and fast broadband) and the opportunities provided through these to workers, firms and the wider population. Geographically, the greatest digital division has been associated with the urban-rural divide (Townsend, Sathiaseelan, Fairhurst, & Wallace, 2013). This refers to what has been termed the ‘first-level digital divide’ – the unequal physical access to ICTs.
Researching and understanding digital futures
Current debates in the literature about digital futures of small business and entrepreneurship are frequently portrayed in ‘bipolar’ terms along categories of ‘necessity’ versus ‘opportunity’ and ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ work. However, as studies on the second-level digital divide make clear, the understanding of the digital futures of small businesses and of entrepreneurial opportunity need to be based on conceptualisations that “go beyond the binary distinction between use and non-use” (Büchi,
Objective of the special issue and contributions
The objective of this Special Issue is to consider alternative future possibilities beyond simple dichotomies and explore emerging forms of the digital economy. While previous studies and conceptualisations of digital entrepreneurship have tended to focus on high-growth entrepreneurship or knowledge-intensive firms, this Special Issue instead has the objective to provide new conceptual and empirical insights into a signficant and growing segment of the small business sector whose futures have
Conclusion
The collection of papers in this Special Issue provides a critical and nuanced discussion of entrepreneurial opportunities, alongside the risks and potentially inaccurate or incomplete visions of digital futures for small business. The papers contribute to literatures in multiple disciplines that have highlighted the importance of the second-level digital divide in the digital economy and society. While previous studies have drawn attention to the role of human capital for the use of digital
Acknowledgements
The special issue draws on the seminar series ‘Entrepreneurship in Homes and Neighbourhoods’ funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant ES/L001489/1. We thank Professor Ted Fuller for supporting this Special Issue and his inspiring comments.
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