Call for Chapters:
Handbook of Digital Entrepreneurship

Publisher: Edward Elgar
Abstract Submission Deadline: November 1, 2020
Full Chapter Submission Deadline: March 1, 2021

Editors
Mohammad Keyhani, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada
Alina Sorgner, Department of Business Administration, John Cabot University, Italy
Tobias Kollmann, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Clyde Hull, Saunders College of Business, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Andishe Ashjari, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada

MOTIVATION AND SCOPE
Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship scholars alike are trying to make sense of the rapidly changing technological landscape. Digital transformation is taking entire industries by storm (Matt, Hess, & Benlian, 2015; Rogers, 2016), and entrepreneurs playing by the pre-digital playbook may find themselves unable to succeed in the new digital era. Similarly, entrepreneurship scholars attempting to analyze new entrepreneurship-related phenomena may require new lenses and frameworks that incorporate the affordances and constraints of digital technology (Leonardi, 2011; Nambisan, 2017).

Digital entrepreneurship as a topic of research can be defined broadly as the study of how digital technology impacts entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial processes and entrepreneurship-related phenomena. Within this broad scope, scholars have already started a flourishing line of research (Berger, von Briel, Davidsson, & Kuckertz, 2019) but a mountain of research questions still require further attention: How do new digital technologies change the nature of entrepreneurship and its outcomes? What new challenges and opportunities do digital technologies bring for entrepreneurs, investors, and entrepreneurship policy makers? How does digital technology change the nature of who can become an entrepreneur and who we think of as entrepreneurs? What is the impact of the new technological landscape in terms of which factors and which stakeholders become more or less relevant for entrepreneurship? Which gates open and who become the new gatekeepers of critical resources and opportunities? These are the types of questions we must tackle to better understand the new digital era of entrepreneurship.

Nambisan (2017) has suggested that digital technologies remove certain boundaries on entrepreneurial processes, outcomes, and agency. To tackle this changing nature of entrepreneurship, he suggests that new intellectual frameworks and theories not traditionally in entrepreneurship research may become relevant to entrepreneurship scholars. These include the theory of technology generativity (Zittrain, 2006), the theory of digital artifacts (Kallinikos, Aaltonen, & Marton, 2013), sociomateriality theory (Orlikowski, 2009), theories of digital platforms (Thomas, Autio, & Gann, 2014), and the theory of technology affordances and constraints (Leonardi, 2011) among others.

The idea of technological constraints specifically reminds us that digital technology will not only involve removal of previous boundaries, but also the imposition of new boundaries. For example, the dynamics of winner-take-all competition observed in digital platforms and marketplaces with network effects (Rysman, 2009) make it increasingly difficult for new entrepreneurial start-ups to challenge established leaders.

For this upcoming "Handbook of Digital Entrepreneurship" to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing, we invite scholarly contributions on digital entrepreneurship covering the state of the art in digital entrepreneurship and its various subtopics. All types of scholarly papers are solicited but three types of papers are specifically encouraged for this handbook: theory or commentary, review, and descriptive studies. Contributions should ideally provide an overview of a topic area that would be useful as an introduction to that area for the uninitiated. The aim is to produce a reference handbook that can be used both by academics aiming to familiarize themselves with the state of research and theory within topics and subtopics in digital entrepreneurship, as well as practicing entrepreneurs and managers aiming to familiarize themselves with leading edge practices and insights in digital entrepreneurship.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Foundations of Digital Entrepreneurship
Theories, frameworks and typologies relevant to digital entrepreneurship
Agents of digital entrepreneurship (individuals, teams, networks, crowds, competencies, etc.)
The history and evolution of digital entrepreneurship
Measurement issues in digital entrepreneurship
Research methods and data analytics in digital entrepreneurship
Digital Business Models and Sub-Types of Digital Entrepreneurship
Multi-sided platform entrepreneurship
Digital social entrepreneurship
Digital academic entrepreneurship
Market design and entrepreneurship
The sharing economy and entrepreneurship
The task economy and entrepreneurship
Business models of social media influencers
Technologies of Digital Entrepreneurship (Technologies, AI, Blockchain etc.)
Startup stacks and the technologies of entrepreneurship
Social media and entrepreneurship
Cloud technology and entrepreneurship
Crowdsourcing
Crowdfunding
Dropshipping
Automation and entrepreneurship (automated and semi-automated entrepreneurship)
Open source technology and entrepreneurship
Artificial intelligence, machine learning and entrepreneurship
Blockchain, crypto-currencies and entrepreneurship
Society and Ecosystems of Digital Entrepreneurship (Networks, Structures, Incubators)
The institutions and infrastructures of digital entrepreneurship
The societal impact of digital entrepreneurship
Social justice, inequality, gender and race in digital entrepreneurship
Diversity and inclusion in digital entrepreneurship
Digital divide in entrepreneurship
Digital entrepreneurship policy and the regulatory environment
Digital technology and subsistence entrepreneurship
Digital technologies and entrepreneurial solutions to societal problems
Strategy and Processes of Digital Entrepreneurship
Growth hacking / growth marketing
Digitization and entrepreneurship Strategy
What it takes to be a digital entrepreneur
Gamification and digital entrepreneurship
Digitization and the internationalization of new ventures
Financing in digital entrepreneurship
Recruitment and team building in digital entrepreneurship
Collaboration, coordination and project management in digital entrepreneurship
Transaction costs in digital entrepreneurship
Global Digital Entrepreneurship
Digital entrepreneurship in specific national, geographical, demographic or industry contexts
Digital entrepreneurship and development (economic growth, job creation, innovation)
Country comparisons or case studies of digital entrepreneurship or ecosystem and policy development relevant to digital entrepreneurship

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT
All scholarly contributions are welcome and the handbook will include a variety of scholarly chapters. We especially encourage three types of papers: theory (including commentary), review, and descriptive studies.
Theory papers include contributions that provide novel insights, helpful frameworks, conceptual developments, interesting interdisciplinary connections, useful applications of analytical frameworks, critical commentaries and challenges to prevalent theories, or counter-intuitive or controversial scholarly opinion pieces informed by theory and evidence. Short commentaries and opinion pieces are encouraged if they can provide novel insight and interesting perspectives that advance scholarship.

Review articles of all types including meta-analyses and reviews with a temporal structure or historical perspective that outline the timeline of developments in phenomena related to digital entrepreneurship are welcome for the present handbook.
Descriptive or phenomenon-based empirical studies are encouraged that use quantitative or qualitative data to describe a phenomenon, practice, trend, behavior, or to delineate the landscape of an empirical context related to digital entrepreneurship. The aim of phenomenon-based empirical research and descriptive empirical studies is to capture, describe, and document, as well as conceptualize a phenomenon so that appropriate theorizing and the development of research designs can proceed.

Chapters shall be no longer than 8,000 words (including references), with a shorter length expected for commentaries. An introductory chapter by the editors will provide a background and review on the general digital entrepreneurship literature and phenomena, and a brief summary of the chapters selected for publication.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Please submit an abstract of at least 1000 words by November 1, 2020 directly via email to mkeyhani@ucalgary.ca or any of the editors. More complete drafts or full chapters are also accepted, within the 8000 word length limit. There are no specific formatting requirements for abstract submissions, but authors invited for full chapter submission will be notified of formatting requirements at that stage.

REFERENCES
Berger, E. S. C., von Briel, F., Davidsson, P., & Kuckertz, A. (2019). Digital or not – The future of entrepreneurship and innovation: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Business Research.
Kallinikos, J., Aaltonen, A., & Marton, A. (2013). The ambivalent ontology of digital artifacts. Mis Quarterly, 357-370.
Leonardi, P. M. (2011). When flexible routines meet flexible technologies: Affordance, constraint, and the imbrication of human and material agencies. Mis Quarterly, 147-167.
Matt, C., Hess, T., & Benlian, A. (2015). Digital transformation strategies. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 57(5), 339-343.
Nambisan, S. (2017). Digital entrepreneurship: Toward a digital technology perspective of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(6).
Orlikowski, W. J. (2009). The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34(1), 125-141.
Rogers, D. L. (2016). The digital transformation playbook: Rethink your business for the digital age: Columbia University Press.
Rysman, M. (2009). The economics of two-sided markets. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23(3), 125-143.
Thomas, L. D., Autio, E., & Gann, D. M. (2014). Architectural leverage: putting platforms in context. Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(2), 198-219.
Zittrain, J. L. (2006). The generative internet. Harvard Law Review, 1974-2040.