Seite - 260 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

3 ConceptualModel: The Influence ofDigital Technologies to International Opportunity Pursuit According to Tilson et al. (2010: 749), digitalization refers to ‘a sociotechnical processofapplyingdigitizing techniques tobroader social and institutional contexts that render digital technologies infrastructural.’ Building on this notion, the understanding of international opportunity pursuit in a digitally enabledworld can be enrichedbyanexplorationof howdigital technologies (DTs) impact on theway ofpursuitpreviouslycharacterized (Autioet al. 2018).TheconceptofDTshasbeen broadly defined, and in linewithNambisan (2017),DTs consist ofmany elements which could be classified into three groups, i.e., digital artifacts (components and functions of product or service), digital platform (architectures hosting comple- mentary offerings), and digital infrastructure (broad digital tools and systems). These three groups of DTs are intertwinedwith each other and collectively influ- ence entrepreneurial activities (Nambisan 2017). Asaforementionedarguments indicate, eithermarket-specificknowledgeorgen- eral knowledge is closely associated with international opportunity pursuit. To investigate the impact ofDTs,we arenow interested inhowDTsaffect theoriginal relationship.We propose that DTs could be viewed as either one of the two roles, which were labeled as ‘driving force’ and ‘disrupting force,’ respectively. The explanation for these two roles is summarized inTable 2.WhenDTsare viewedas ‘driving force,’ it is assumed tobe a facilitator for acquiringmarket-specificknowl- edge and general knowledge. DTs are positioned as the antecedents of knowledge acquisition. In this sense,DTscanbeunderstoodas a ‘reformer.’Bycontrast,when DTsareviewedas‘disruptingforce,’weregardDTsasthefactorthatalterstherelative importanceof experiential knowledge to international opportunity creationandcap- ture.Theeffectofmarket-specificknowledgeandgeneralknowledgeonopportunity pursuitismoderatedbyDTs.Inthissense,DTcanbeparaphrasedasa‘revolutionary.’ Tobetter facilitate the interpretationof twodistinctive rolesofDTs,we integrate DTswith themodel based on IP theory, which is illustrated in Fig. 1. It is shown thatDTscanbeeither viewedas the antecedent of the experiential knowledgeor as the contingent effect of the knowledge–opportunity relationship. Below,we discuss two perspectives of DTs in detail. Table 1 Abrief description of each dimension of experiential knowledge Knowledge type Definition Market-specific knowledge Foreign business knowledge Experiential knowledge about clients, themarket, and competitors Foreign institutional knowledge Experiential knowledge about government, institutional framework, rules, norms, and values General knowledge Internationalization knowledge Experiential knowledgeabout thefirm’scapability and resources to engage in international operation SourceAdapted fromEriksson et al. (1997) 268 D. Song andA.Wu