Ever since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, the world is revolutionized in ways of communications and social networking. Now technology advancement drives transformation around the world with fastened speed of globalization, allowing more companies achieving globalization and recognize cross-cultural, cross-national, cross-disciplinary opportunities to create new value-added activities. Technology advancement such as the fourth industrial revolution will inevitably transform the ways in which we live, work and interact with one another. As such, we need to embrace technology changes and examine the evolving domain of international entrepreneurship (IE) research and identify where the gaps are in our current knowledge and suggest directions for future research

Guo, Chun (Grace)

Jiang, Crystal X.

English

Sacred Heart University: DigitalCommons@SHU

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship Volume 22 Number 1 Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Context Article 1 2019 Editorial: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Context Chun (Grace) Guo Sacred Heart University, chun-guog@sacredheart.edu Crystal X. Jiang Bryant University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/neje  Part of the Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons Recommended Citation Chun Guo, G. and Jiang, C. (2019), "Entrepreneurship and innovation in a global context", New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 2-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/NEJE-05-2019-025 This Editorial is brought to you for free and open access by the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in New England Journal of Entrepreneurship by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact ferribyp@sacredheart.edu, lysobeyb@sacredheart.edu. EditorialEntrepreneurship and innovation in a global contextEver since Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, the world isrevolutionized in ways of communications and social networking. Now technologyadvancement drives transformation around the world with fastened speed ofglobalization, allowing more companies achieving globalization and recognizecross-cultural, cross-national, cross-disciplinary opportunities to create new value-addedactivities. Technology advancement such as the fourth industrial revolution willinevitably transform the ways in which we live, work and interact with one another. Assuch, we need to embrace technology changes and examine the evolving domain ofinternational entrepreneurship (IE) research and identify where the gaps are in our currentknowledge and suggest directions for future research.IE research is relatively new in the academic field. The widely adopted definition is“the discovery, enactment, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities – across nationalborders – to create future goods and services” (Oviatt and McDougall, 2005, p. 540). Since thedomain of IE includes numerous dimensions, previous cross-country analyses have includedsocioeconomic environment, institutions, norms, culture as well as industry clusters andgeographic parameters, all of which making IE research highly fragmented with substantialknowledge gaps related to content, theory and methodology (Terjesen et al., 2016).A recent review article by Terjesen et al. (2016) suggested a generalizable pattern withsimilarities and differences across countries or country groups to develop better theories inexploring IE phenomena. In another review article of IE, Reuber et al. (2018) suggestedthat the assessment of IE research can be done at individual-, firm- and institutional level, byassessing opportunities as an individual-level cognitive activity, the construction ofopportunity as a firm-level innovative activity, and the shaping of opportunity as aninstitutional-level structuring activity (Reuber et al., 2018).Moreover, advanced technologies create ripple effects on societies, institutions andeconomies. In particular, technological advancement has speeded up the globalization,facilitated communication and transportation, allowed large and small companies tosuccessfully balance globalization and glocalization, survive and thrive in the global market.Undoubtedly, technology advancement has transformed the ways in which we live, workand interact with one another. Therefore, research on IE needs to adopt a dynamicunderstanding of businesses and connections, digital domains and offline reality torecognize cross-cultural, cross-country opportunities and innovation in the IE research.In this broad context, we believe that a special issue on entrepreneurship and innovationin a global context can stimulate more dialogues and add more novel insights for theory andpractice. As an initial effort to address this goal, the New England Journal ofEntrepreneurship (NEJE) proudly collaborated with the 2018 Academy of InternationalBusiness US Northeast Chapter (AIB-NE) Conference and produced this inaugural specialissue. On behalf of the editorial team of NEJE, we would like to thank the AIB-NE ChapterNew England Journal ofEntrepreneurshipVol. 22 No. 1, 2019pp. 2-4Emerald Publishing Limited2574-8904DOI 10.1108/NEJE-05-2019-025© Grace Chun Chun Guo and Crystal X. Jiang. Published in New England Journal of Entrepreneurship.Published by Emerald Group Publishing Limited. This article is published under the CreativeCommons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and createderivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to fullattribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen athttp://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode2NEJE22,11Guo and Jiang: EditorialPublished by DigitalCommons@SHU,President, Dr Margaret Goralski, Conference Chair, Dr John Cantwell, and Program Chairs,Dr Ram Mudambi and Dr Denise Dunlap, for their support and encouragement. We wouldalso like to thank all the contributing authors who answered our Call for papers and thereviewers who supported us by providing timely and high-quality reviews. This specialissue provides a selection of research that contributes to entrepreneurship and innovation ina global context from diverse perspectives. Below we summarize the articles included in thisspecial issue and discuss their contributions to theory and practice.Demirkan, Yang and Jiang provided a systematic and thorough review of CorporateEntrepreneurship (CE) research of emerging market firms (EMFs) in the last two decades(2000–2019). This is an important contribution to IE because EMFs are making significantcontribution to world economy, yet most of the conceptual development in the field of CEhas assumed develop market conditions. Although CE can make a big difference in the firmcompetitiveness of emerging markets (Bruton et al., 2008; Guo et al., 2014), the literature isstill lacking in exploring the dynamics of CE in these contexts (e.g. De Clercq et al., 2010;Kiss et al., 2012). Demirkan et al. study summarized CE research in emerging markets withinmacro and micro contexts and facilitated our understanding of how idiosyncratic firmfactors, the industry in which EMFs operate and changes in institutional conditions affectCE of EMFs. Given how the changes of government policies may affect CE in different ways(Guo et al., 2017), they incorporated how different governments roles (grabbing hand,helping hand and invisible hand) affect EMFs’ CE differently. They encourage futureresearch to consider the stage of evaluation of EMFs and adopt a holistic perspective toexamine firm’s innovation, strategic renewal and venturing in an interconnected way.Du and Wang examined the boundary conditions that fostered knowledge transferwithin business incubation centers in China. This empirical study examined innovativepractices and mechanisms of knowledge transfer across boundary conditions. Based on thequalitative data involving 39 in-depth interviews at three Chinese incubation centers,Du and Wang identified the role of organizational factors and contextual factors ininfluencing knowledge transfer in China. This study showed that shared values andinterests helped build trust among different actors to facilitate the knowledge transferprocess across pragmatic boundaries and that entrepreneurship orientation of small- andmedium-size enterprises and the use of information rich media positively impactedknowledge transfer. Du and Wang’s study contributes to the literature of knowledgetransfer and, in particular, to the understanding of the relationship between boundaryconditions and knowledge transfer in the context of emerging economies.One area that is notably absent in the IE research is the link between academia andindustry. Part of the reason is that in academia, the research time-to-market may not bealigned to industry requirements and academic research may not always focus on latestindustrial trends and interests. This is understandable, given that the speed of currenttechnological breakthroughs has no historical precedent. Firms are exploring and exploitinginnovation at an exponential rather than a linear pace. When technologies allow firms todisrupt almost every industry in every country, it has never been more important thantoday for the higher education institution to emphasize entrepreneurial education in thecurriculum. The perspective article by De Carolis and Litzky discussed how traditionalviews of entrepreneurship limited the potential of entrepreneurial education. They furtherproposed the importance of building college students’ entrepreneurial mindset so that ourtalents can fill the growing needs of global entrepreneurs.We believe that the pursuit of research on entrepreneurship and innovation in a globalcontext can generate meaningful contributions to theory and practice. From the theoryperspective, we need to synthesize different theoretical lens to better define the boundariesof the domain. In terms of practice, we need to collaborate with industry experts to fullygrasp the breadth and the depth of technology changes involved in the transformation of3Editorial2New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 22 [], No. 1, Art. 1https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/neje/vol22/iss1/1DOI: 10.1108/NEJE-05-2019-025systems of production, networking, communication and governance and how such changesaffect firms’ entrepreneurship and innovation activities in a global context. For instance,multinational enterprises (MNEs) are considered the hub in the network of internationalinter-firm relationships. Thus, MNEs need to integrate entrepreneurial opportunities(new means-ends relationships) and international opportunities (new geographic markets)(Reuber et al., 2018). Yet given the evolution of technologies and their impacts on firms,research on these issues are still lacking. We believe that research on IE and innovation in aglobal context can evolve by integrating insights from various disciplines and by adoptingnovel research methods as Demirkan et al. (2019) proposed.In conclusion, we believe that IE has emerged as an emerging field of study and there is agreat need to develop theories and promote actionable research agendas with applied andpractical focuses to stimulate dialogues and collaboration among academia, businesses,nonprofit and public organizations from around the world. This special issue represents theinitial effort to embrace the fast changing and multifaceted challenges we are facing today.After all, we live in a time where technologies are evolving in an exponential way, so we callfor more attention to be directed to issues related to entrepreneurship and innovation in aglobal context.Grace Chun Chun Guo and Crystal X. JiangReferencesBruton, G., Ahlstrom, D. and Obloj, K. (2008), “Entrepreneurship in emerging economics: where are wetoday and where should the research go in the future?”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 1-14.De Clercq, D., Danis, W. and Dakhli, M. (2010), “The moderating effect of institutional context on therelationship between associational activity and new business activity in emerging economies”,International Business Review, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 85-101.Demirkan, I., Yang, Q. and Jiang, C.X. (2019), “Corporate entrepreneurship of emerging market firms:current research and future directions”, New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 22 No. 1,pp. 144-169.Guo, C., Jiang, C. and Yang, Q. (2014), “The development of organizational capabilities and corporateentrepreneurial processes: the case of Chinese automobile firms”, Thunderbird InternationalBusiness Review, Vol. 56 No. 6, pp. 483-500.Guo, C., Jiang, C. and Yang, Q. (2017), “The effect of government involvement on Chinese firms’corporate entrepreneurial activities: the case of Chinese automobile industry”, New EnglandJournal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 6-16.Kiss, A., Danis, W. and Cavusgil, S. (2012), “International entrepreneurship research in emergingeconomies: a critical review and research agenda”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 27 No. 2,pp. 266-290.Oviatt, B.M. and McDougall, P.P. (2005), “Defining international entrepreneurship and modeling thespeed of internationalization”, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Vol. 29, pp. 537-553.Reuber, A.B., Knight, G.A., Liesch, P.W. and Zhou, L. (2018), “International entrepreneurship: thepursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities across national borders”, Journal of InternationalBusiness Studies, Vol. 49, pp. 395-406.Terjesen, S., Hessels, J. and Li, D. (2016), “Comparative international entrepreneurship: a review andresearch agenda”, Journal of Management, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 299-344.4NEJE22,13Guo and Jiang: EditorialPublished by DigitalCommons@SHU,

Editorial: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Context

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Editorial: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in a Global Context

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