ABSTRACT
The Fourth Industrial Revolution - Industry 4.0 (I-4.0) provides innovators new commercial promise and challenges. For the first time, service-based disruptive technologies are included as harbingers of the Schumpeterian economic industrial waves. The strategic, tactical, and operational importance of disruptive technologies and their resultant discontinuous innovations that underpin a new industrial wave are game-changing for state, regional, national, and global economies. However, there are always barriers, both technical and social, to new technology product adoption. The COVID-19-induced industry forcing function has created a ‘low-touch economy', changing business action and creating a new normal. We focus on the challenges to the realisation of I-4.0. We use the internet of things (IoT) as our exemplar. IoT is the first service-based technology to support an industrial revolution. It challenges the traditional view of how firms compete. It is creating wealth and jobs and is an agent of societal transformation. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
ABSTRACT
The widespread access to the Internet has undoubtedly changed the way businesses handle their processes and interact with their customers. With the surge of new devices, business models, technologies, and platforms, alongside social media growth and innovative advertising, it became easier to transition from employment to entrepreneurship. The paper aims to assess the public perception of digital entrepreneurship, with a focus on its barriers, drivers, and expectations for the future. The results show that there is a slight agreement with a digital business being easier to establish compared with a traditional one. The driving forces behind starting a digital business are recognized, and the digital environment is considered essential for business growth in the following years. With some exceptions, there are no significant differences between age groups, genders, relationship statuses, levels of education, and/or occupations when rating the barriers, drivers, and expectations for the future of digital entrepreneurship.