Crises and Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Digital Social Innovation in Response to Physical Distancing

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

As physical distancing is a core measure of containing the spread of COVID-19, this pandemic is a crisis that has uprooted social interaction. While current research mainly focuses on crises as a challenge for entrepreneurial ventures and potential regulatory response mechanisms, we complement this research by addressing the question of how crises in general—and COVID-19’s physical distancing measures in particular—shape entrepreneurial opportunities for social innovation. Based on two rounds of data collection—desktop research mapping out 95 entrepreneurial activities in Germany and four focus groups—we find first that entrepreneurs are proactive agents in alleviating the negative consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. They do so by creating two types of digital social innovation: digital brokering and digitized services. Second, we note that negative societal consequences of crises can be buffered by shifts in entrepreneurs’ strategic orientation through improvised venturing, rapid pivoting and pro-social product extension. Third, we note variance in the persistence of changes with consequences for entrepreneurial opportunities and social innovation: Whereas some social innovation are rather ephemeral, others might endure and promise long-term impacts. We offer key insights for the literature on crisis, social innovation and hybrid organizing as well as on the implications for entrepreneurship practice and policy.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere00222
JournalJournal of Business Venturing Insights
Volume15
Number of pages9
ISSN2352-6734
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.06.2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are indebted to our editor Pablo Muñoz and the reviewer for their constructive guidance during this research. Moreover, we are deeply appreciative for the input of our focus group participants who not only bring about digital social innovation but also supported this research in times of crisis. We gratefully acknowledge support by Nastasja Krohe and the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society .

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020

    Research areas

  • Management studies - covid-19, crisis, digitalization, entrepreneurial opportinity, social innovation

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Organisations

  1. Präsident

Publications

  1. Am Jenseits
  2. Der Minotaurus haust im Text
  3. Two-pass friction stir welding of cladded API X65
  4. Ecologies of Change
  5. Bat pest control contributes to food security in Thailand
  6. In search of the Holy Grail of Rodent control
  7. Kooperativ forschen und Rechtschreibunterricht entwickeln
  8. Reconciling Analytics with Holistic Thinking in Business Sustainability Decision-Making
  9. Development of pre-service teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards inclusive education through first teaching experiences
  10. Participation of Adolescents in the Development of a Smartphone App-based Intervention to Promote the Health Literacy
  11. Wer oder was bestimmt "Wirklichkeiten" in Organisationen?
  12. Implementing Sustainable and Responsible Business
  13. Culture and a cascading model of emotional intelligence
  14. Evidence for the age and timing of environmental change associated with a Lower Palaeolithic site within the Middle Pleistocene Reinsdorf sequence of the Schöningen coal mine, Germany
  15. Do investors value the inclusion in sustainability indices? - Evidence from an event study based on the FTSE4Good Europe Index
  16. A cultural theory of regimes
  17. Towards the design of active pharmaceutical ingredients mineralizing readily in the environment
  18. „Nachhaltige“ Vorstandsvergütung bei börsennotierten Aktiengesellschaften
  19. Manifest and latent functions of museums in the post-industrial city
  20. Developed materials for thermal energy storage
  21. MARKET OPPORTUNITIES and REGULATORY FRAMEWORK CONDITIONS for STATIONARY BATTERY STORAGE SYSTEMS in GERMANY
  22. Business and Emissions Trading from a Public Choice Perspective
  23. Process Development for Wire-based Laser Metal Deposition of 5087 Aluminium alloy by using Fibre Laser
  24. Tierschutz in der Verfassung und was nun?
  25. The Meaning of Natality – Doğumluluğun Anlami
  26. Wege ins Studium für nicht-traditionelle Studierende
  27. Fishing in the Amazonian Forest
  28. Entscheidung zur Elternschaft revisited
  29. Aktionsforschung