Page - 264 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

3.2 DTs as ‘Disrupting Force’ Another perspective understands DTs as ‘disrupting force,’which highlights that functions or affordances ofDTs can reshape business activities (Autio et al. 2018; Nambisan 2017; Yoo et al. 2012). The internationalization pattern has fundamen- tally changed (Coviello et al. 2017; Alcácer et al. 2016; Autio 2017), and the relative significance of experiential knowledgewith regard to international oppor- tunity creation and capture is assumed altered, no matter experiential knowledge still plays a role or not. From this perspective, by changing the way of business activities are conducted in the international marketplace, these emerging tech- nologies allow the pursuit of cross-border opportunities less constrained by the amount of knowledge firms possess as suggested by traditional IP theory. Some- times, DTs also introduce new forms of knowledge and capabilities that firms require in order to pursue international opportunities. Market-specific knowledge With regard tomarket-specific knowledge, there are at least two reasonswhy it is not equally significant for opportunity pursuit in a digitally enabled world. In the first place, customers get involved in value creation with the help of DTs (e.g., Chandra andCoviello 2010;Amit andHan 2017). Chen et al. (2019) emphasized the relative importance of knowledge formarket entry is decreased from the point view of network effects. For app developers, foreign market penetration is some- times not purposeful since borderless user networks can help to channel to product information toconsumers inother countries. Inspiredby the research,weconjecture that international opportunity creation and capture is realized largely owing to demand-side network effects rather than purely supply-side knowledge accumula- tion. In the second place, alternative governance approach is available enabled by DTs(Covielloet al. 2017;Alcáceret al. 2016).Different from ‘prudent’within-firm administrative control documented in early IP theory literature (Johanson and Vahlne 1977), the prevalence of emerging technologies allows the firm to loosely separate eachunit of thewholefirm indifferent countries.As such,firmsare able to conduct business abroad easily by cooperatingwith foreign contractors instead of controlling tangible assets. Therefore, enabled byDTs, ownership advantage is not only associated with the proprietary rights over certain resources, but also in connectionwith the ability to orchestrate resources across the globe (Alcácer et al. 2016). Inanempirical investigationof international technologyalliances,Lewet al. (2016) observed that fragmentation of product modular permits alliance with the internalization of partner’s specialized knowledge, and the relationship between alliance partners is less susceptible to the cultural distance. It demonstrates that comparatively loose collaboration is likely among the international technology alliances setting. Overall, this suggests that with the help of DTs, even if not familiar with the specific market, the firm is also likely to international opportunities. 272 D. Song andA.Wu