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1. Introduction
Humankind has entered a new era of digital technology revolution, and almost all countries in the world have realized that this digital transformation has been the main source of new economic and social developments (Shrader et al., 2000; Pergelova et al., 2019; Sang et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2020; Anumba et al., 2021; Dong et al., 2022). Digital entrepreneurship (DE), the entrepreneurial action enabled by digital technologies, is naturally ubiquitous among global corporate giants as well as countless emerging start-ups (Hull et al., 2007; Zaheer et al., 2019). The booming development of DE has not only significantly shaped the trajectory of industries and markets but also has turned into a powerful driving force for social evolution (Lin et al., 2020; Nambisan et al., 2019; Tang and Meng, 2021). It has brought fundamental changes in economic growth patterns, industrial layouts, entrepreneurial models and lifestyles of human beings (Zaheer et al., 2019).
Because of its rapid growth, DE has brought enormous opportunities for academic research. Rosenbaum and Cronin (1993) discovered that visionary entrepreneurs began to use the information superhighway for entrepreneurial activities. Following this seminal study, research on DE has expanded to include various related topics in business and management fields, such as factors affecting DE (Hair et al., 2012; Scuotto and Morellato, 2013; Ziyae et al., 2014; Alderete, 2015; Hansen, 2019), DE models (Hull et al., 2007), entrepreneurial opportunity identification (Hafezieh et al., 2011), market orientation (Hair et al., 2012), network infrastructures (Alderete, 2015) and digital entrepreneurship ecosystems (DEE) (Li et al., 2017).
Although trends emerge and fade, there is still a lack of consensus on this topic. Scholars recognize that DE has the following three distinct characteristics (Klotz et al., 2013; Farani et al., 2017; Giones and Brem, 2017):
Entrepreneurs combine digital technology with marketing, operations, communication and other aspects of an enterprise.
The core business of startups needs to be closely related to digital technology.
The enterprise generates strategic directions and business models based on digital technology.
Without digital technologies such as the internet companies will not be able to survive.
Based on these characteristics, many early digital startups have developed into...