Potential of digital technologies in academic entrepreneurship – a study

Abstract

Purpose Digital technologies have become indispensable in businesses and are gaining attention in academic institutions context too. Digital technological ecosystems provide a platform to communicate and share their products and services to existing and potential customers. Entrepreneurial startups and companies face internal and external challenges utilizing social media technologies to commercialize their business ideas. The purpose of this paper is to identify opportunities and challenges faced by academic entrepreneurs' startups. Design/methodology/approach This research has adopted a qualitative approach comprising of semi-structured in-depth interviews with academic entrepreneurs’ startups to find the main challenge they face using social media platforms. The purpose was associated with an exploratory type of study and also included a prominent unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and technological opportunism (TO) model. The research respondents were 23 academic entrepreneurs startups who were chosen applying purposive sampling. Respondents were given a set of a questionnaire consisting of close-ended questions that are five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire included various parameters to measure the social media challenges the academic entrepreneurs’ startups undergo in the initial phase of their businesses. Findings The study identified that business-to-customer relations, brand, reputation, competition and cultural and language influence digital technologies entrepreneurship. While, the findings discovered the extended research model has a positive influence on academic entrepreneurs' intentions to use digital technologies media platforms. The outcome of this paper has thrown more light on which issues are there in digital technologies entrepreneurship, the determinants and actual usage advantages from UTAUT model and TO model that could be properly employed to solve issues of digital technologies media platforms and the potential concerning the adoption and use of digital technologies. Originality/value The study of academic entrepreneurs' startups can be considered original in nature. There is dearth of standard literature in the upcoming area of academic entrepreneurship. Governments are taking initiatives to promote academic entrepreneurs' startups, and the findings will be able to give them a right direction.

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