Examining the relationships between Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, and e-Commerce. Evidence from Iberian and Scandinavian Countries

Abstract

Digitisation is a phenomenon that inevitably affects companies and economies. Consequently, the virtual market seems an excellent alternative for aspiring entrepreneurs. Recent statistics precisely point to accelerated growth of e-commerce. Indeed, this and entrepreneurship are business tools that allow a new dynamic in the market. However, recent research has barely explored the relationship between entrepreneurship and e-commerce, so this study contributes to the literature by filling the gap. In light of the above, this study has used several indicators from two groups of countries, namely Scandinavia, in broad terms (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland), and Iberia (Portugal and Spain) from the years 2012 to 2020. The Panel Corrected Standard Errors models have been used for the econometric treatment of the data. The findings confirm the bidirectional causality between entrepreneurship and e-commerce. In addition, from a widerperspective of entrepreneurship, the paper also reveals that intrapreneurship based on Research and Development (R&D) is an e-commerce driver. Therefore, this study opens up a new discussion and provides relevant support for the theoretical framework and a valuable contribution to the scarce literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and e-commerce.