Contextual Determinants of E-Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The value of e-entrepreneurship lies in its effort to contextualize entrepreneurship in this digital economy age. As a result, this article develops a conceptual framework addressing context factors leading to discovering and exploiting e-entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as the opportunities and challenges these context factors would bring. With the information collected from a case study on a Chinese digital start-up, the authors develop a conceptual framework comprising six factors: information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, ICT innovativeness, inadequacy of institutions, institutional responding rate, e-entrepreneurial climate and social expectation congruence. This article explores the opportunities and challenges for each of the six factors and develops six propositions. Finally, it outlines a future research agenda to fill the gap in understanding e-entrepreneurship.