Ya-Long Wei

There is more and more digital entrepreneurship emerging in practice, but research on it is rare and scattered, meaning that a review of digital entrepreneurship is important and necessary. Based on a data set covering 19 years of research, from 2003 to 2021, this article reviews 469 available articles from the Web of Science Core Collection. Using a scientific knowledge map, it divides digital entrepreneurship research into two stages, namely the “emerging stage” (2003–2017) and the “booming stage” (2018–2021). Research developed slowly in the emerging stage, focusing on the definition of digital entrepreneurship, the influence of digital technology, and antecedents of digital entrepreneurship. In the booming stage, however, digital entrepreneurship research grew explosively. This article sorts out the topics from three aspects, that is, organizational behavior, digital entrepreneurial ecosystem, and business model innovation. Longitudinal research, multi-case studies, mixed methods, and quantitative studies become mainstream, replacing the earlier single-case studies and conceptual analyses. The frontiers of research on digital entrepreneurship focus on digital entrepreneurial ecosystems, business model innovation, digital academic entrepreneurship, digital transformation, and the antecedents of digital entrepreneurship. This article proposes four future directions, including the interaction of digital entrepreneurship elements, the process of digital entrepreneurship with a dynamic perspective, digital entrepreneurship research at the community level, and digital entrepreneurship research in different contexts.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to build a research model to examine the effects of business planning on the new venture emergence, as well as to examine the moderating effects of innovativeness of products.Design/methodology/approach: Four hypotheses are put forward and examined by hierarchical binary logistic regression. The data of this paper are based on the first two waves of data from Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics project.Findings: Results show that engaging in business planning has a positive effect on the new venture emergence, and the timing of business planning does not affect the new venture emergence significantly. This study also finds that the innovativeness of products has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the timing of business planning and the new venture emergence.Research limitations/implications: This study has some limitations. The innovativeness of products is measured by a single indicator, which may not completely reflect the meaning of the attribute. Moreover, this study explores new ventures only in the nascent stage.Practical implications: The study is useful for entrepreneurs to realize the importance of business planning. First, engaging in business planning in early start-up stage is a very valuable activity, because business planning can help new ventures reduce the loss caused by trial and error learning. Second, engaging in business planning is more likely to ensure high innovative products quickly be accepted by the market. Because in the process of new venture emergence, the legitimacy signal to stakeholders can be transmitted and new products can be promoted to get support and recognition from stakeholder through the business plan.Originality/value: This paper focuses on the early stage of new venture life cycle and the contextual factors to explore the influence of business planning on the new venture emergence under the logic of legitimacy. This paper could enrich business planning research from the perspective of legitimacy theory by inspiring scholars to focus on the differences between new ventures and mature enterprises and to offer proposals of legitimation strategies suitable for new ventures. Meanwhile, this study contributes to the understanding of the contextual factors of business planning. And it discusses the impact of the attribute in business planning on the new venture emergence, which helps scholars to get a deep thought about the value of business planning in entrepreneurial process.