External Enablers of Entrepreneurship: A Review and Agenda for Accumulation of Strategically Actionable Knowledge

Abstract

The enabling influence of environmental changes—be they technological, regulatory, demographic, sociocultural, or otherwise—on emerging ventures receives a growing interest from researchers and practitioners. To support knowledge accumulation in this important area, we systematically review and integrate research that is dispersed across disciplines, nominal types of change, and theoretical approaches. Under a unified terminology within a cross-level (environment to agent), process-aware framework, we examine what has been done and learnt. On this basis, we develop an agenda for further, future accumulation of knowledge about the strategic and serendipitous influence of environmental changes throughout and beyond the venture creation process.