Fiona Sussan's Blog

Fiona Sussan's Blog

Digitization, Digitalization, and Sustainability

I find it incredibly exciting that this year’s KWBA Annual Symposium will be conducted online.

Local and Global Politics in Economic Development

Colonialism, Regime change, Social Movement, Sovereinty Change, Revolution, War, and many political happenings impact how we do business. In particular, for small and medium sized businesses, the role of local and global politics is important also.  Since political happenings at both the local and global levels are not static, it is important to investigate the dynamic changes occurring in local or global politics that shape the development (progress, stagnant, or regress) of entrepreneurial ecosystems in any place, be it a city, a region, or a country.  Major political happenings include regime change (e.g., Iran), sovereignty change (e.g., Hong Kong), war (e.g., Lebanon), social movement (e.g., Arab Spring), new nation formation (e.g., Serbia), and many others.  While happening locally, these political changes are directly or indirectly impacted by external forces beyond a nation’s political decisions and control.  Research on economic development,  in particular entrepreneurial ecosystems, focuses mainly on the internal workings of a place within the boundaries of its institutions and its agents.  As we know, institutions, both formal and informal, are not static.  In fact, the primary antecedent relative to the dynamics of institutions and their changes are political happenings.  An example that supports our positioning is the recent re-birth of entrepreneurial activities in many Eastern European countries following the collapse of the Soviet Union where communism had politicized economic life. There is a need for researchers to expand their investigation beyond static institutions to find new concepts for explaining and understanding the influence of macro and dynamic political happenings at home and abroad in the formation of any entrepreneurial ecosystem.  
 

Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Research Agenda

Recent research in entrepreneurial ecosystems views entrepreneurs as the main actors within the systems of institutions and infrastructures.   Focusing on the digital economy, this Center is interested in investigating how digitalization, i.e., leveraging the use of Internet technologies, has enabled entrepreneurs to operate beyond endowment of factors within a region.  We are interested in understanding how entrepreneurs in regions faced with depopulation, e.g., inner cities, or unfavourable endowment of factors can leverage the use of digital technologies and their digital infrastructures to start, grow, and sustain their businesses.  First, access to Internet is a requirement to become a participant in the digital economy.  Second, digital skills are essential to leverage digital technologies to engage in entrepreneurship in digital business.  Third, governance of digital ecosystem impacts entrepreneurs’ ability to compete in the digital economy.  Do regions faced with depopulation or unfavourable endowment of factors also fall behind in these three dimensions?  

Less can be More: Writing for a Practitioner Audience

It is an open secret among business academics that “research conducted at business schools often offers no obvious va

Digital Economy and the Sharing Economy: What do we know and what do we NOT know?

We have been in the digital economy for almost two decades now, but most of our businesses have yet to to grasp what digitization (i.e., a technical process) and digitalization (i.e., a socio-technological process of applying digitization techniques to broader social and institutional contexts that render digital technologies infrastructure) means.

Digital Economy: Business Not as Usual

Digital economy is built on digitization and the advent of the Internet. Digitization and its infrastructure for communications and networking changes the way we live and work.

Customer Satisfaction: A Universal Conceptual Framework

My article titled "Convering and Diverging Forces on Customer Satisfation: Comparative Empirical Analysis of Hollywoo

Adaptive Selling to Ominchannel Consumers: Product Types as Moderators

I recently visited my dentist.

Digitization and Retailing

Retail has gone digital!

South Korea's Creative Economy - Where Is It Going?

After delivering the keynote speech at the Korean-ASEAN forum in Seoul Korea, I reflected on the status of Korea's cr

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