Page 59 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Swaty Sharma, Munish Gupta: Does the Rise of Emerging Technologies Transform Digital
Entrepreneurial Activity? Evidence from OECD Nations

1. INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship should not be merely thought of as self-employment but as avenues
for digital entrepreneur to grow their business. Digital entrepreneurs take advantage
of information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet-based platforms to
identify and capitalise on unexplored opportunities (Antonizzi & Smuts, 2020).

ICT and digital platforms enable business owners to develop a foothold in today’s
competitive business market. Technology such as mobile services, ICT, and cloud
computing has changed the world of business and DIGITAL entrepreneurship. Digital
technology is at the heart of devising models for business success and starting new
businesses. It continuously innovates and fosters entrepreneurship, ensuring that new
approaches to enterprising business models (Zahra et al., 2023), (Jasmi & Hassan, 2024).

Entrepreneurship stimulates the economy, create jobs, opening up new opportunities,
inspire new innovations and driving up competition. Studies have proven that
entrepreneurship generates very high economic development outcomes through
technological embedding, the sharing of ideas & knowledge, and creating diverse
businesses (Afawubo & Noglo, 2022; D’Angelo et al., 2024).

Digitalisation has further increased the economic outcome. For instance, digitalisation
has raised the average economic growth of the world’s 10 largest economies by 32
percent (Macchi et al., 2015). The emergence of the sharing economy illustrates how
digital platforms can optimise the unused resources in order to create large and
efficient economic opportunities (Acquier et al., 2017).

Digital tools, technologies, and platforms, in the last two decades, have changed the
way entrepreneurship works (Chen & Ifenthaler, 2023). However, there has been
relatively little and limited research about how digital transformation has impacted
entrepreneurship. The current study aims to address that gap and examines the process
of how the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), the internet,
research and development (R&D), and researchers in R&D have impacted digital
entrepreneurship. They have used data from OECD countries from 2004 to 2025, and
also used data on existing businesses, financial risk, and GDP (Awamleh et al., 2026).
The current study undertakes a thorough analysis of the digital entrepreneurship
ecology in OECD countries. It also covers the challenges and benefits of digital
projects and the impact of financial risks. In summary, this study provides the basis
for further research into how future strategic interventions or policies can be
developed to address the needs of OECD countries.

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