The Internet, as a chance element in the entrepreneurial practice and studies, appears to be increasingly important under the background of transition dilemma of traditional enterprises and "Internet Plus" actions on the national level. However, the current entrepreneurship studies lack attention to the Internet context on both micro and macro levels. This paper systematically reviews the entrepreneurial actions under the current Internet context and attempts to answer the three related questions as follows: 1. What progress has been made so far in the studies of entrepreneurship in the Internet context? 2. What new features do those entrepreneurial activities show? 3. What is the relationship between the studies of entrepreneurship in the Internet context and the traditional studies? To answer these questions, we selected 25 essays related both to the Internet context and to entrepreneur studies after secondary research, analysis and filtering based on articles published in six high-impact business journals during 2009-2015. Through content analysis, we categorized the current studies of entrepreneurship in the Internet context into three subjects: start-up financing under crowdfunding mode, international entrepreneurship against the background of e-commerce, and entrepreneurial communication under the new social media context. Next, we analyze and summarize the research background, the theoretical developments and the empirical results of each subject. As far as research progress is concerned, the first subject, start-up financing of the crowdfunding mode, mainly focuses on the concept connotation, the influential factors and the decision process of crowdfunding; the second subject, the international start-ups against the background of e-commerce is mainly based on key factors of traditional studies and studies the relationships between international entrepreneurship and the enterprise-related Internet resources and capacity; and the third subject, entrepreneurial communication under the new social media context, explores the characteristics and effectiveness of online communication as well as the relationship between effect reasoning cognition in communication and opportunity identification and development. In terms of their characteristics, entrepreneurial activities in the Internet context are characterized by openness, boundlessness and strong interaction, which are different from those of traditional entrepreneurship. In terms of the research background, scholars focus on online context partly because offline context needs to be expanded to online context in study, and partly because the theoretical assumptions of entrepreneurship have been challenged in the Internet context. Therefore, the studies of entrepreneurship in the Internet context can enrich and expand the theories of traditional entrepreneurship. In conclusion, we once again emphasize the importance of the Internet in entrepreneurial activities in China, and try to call for more attention to China’s “Internet Plus” practice and its related theories. Therefore, this paper puts forward three topics for future studies: Firstly, collect vast amounts of second-hand data on the Internet to be used for quantitative research, or explore the characteristics and laws of entrepreneurial activities in the new Internet context so as to deepen the current studies. Secondly, cross-regional and cross-cultural comparative studies are needed to verify if foreign research findings can apply to Chinese context. Finally, future studies need to establish a model of cross-layer analysis to explore the multiple effects of the Internet context on entrepreneurial activities.
王重鸣 吴 挺. 互联网情境下的创业研究[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2016, 2(1): 131-.
Wang Zhongming Wu Ting. Entrepreneurship in the Internet Context. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2016, 2(1): 131-.