COVID-19 as an entrepreneurship, innovation, digitization and digitalization accelerator: Spanish Internet domains registration analysis

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to comprehend and determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business organizations and society, together with its relationship to entrepreneurship, innovation, digitization or digital transformation, by means of analysis of the Spanish Internet domains registration data set.Design/methodology/approachFollowing existing literature regarding time series analysis, the authors have designed a SARIMA methodology involving the forecasting of a non-COVID-19 data set from the available data and compared it to the existing COVID-19 data set in order to validate the formulated hypothesis.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic was found to be an unfortunate accelerator, regarding entrepreneurship and innovation as a digitization and digital transformation lever, with the results of the Internet domain registration analysis as a reliable indicator.Originality/valueThis research confirms the existence of new non-invasive approaches to complementary information, such as Internet domain registration analysis, that could serve as an early and quick indicator of innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives within business activities.