Digital affordances: how entrepreneurs access support in online communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Marie Madeleine Meurer (), Matthias Waldkirch, Peter Kalum Schou, Eliane Léontine Bucher and Katrin Burmeister-Lamp
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Marie Madeleine Meurer: EBS University of Business and Law
Matthias Waldkirch: EBS University of Business and Law
Peter Kalum Schou: BI Norwegian Business School
Eliane Léontine Bucher: BI Norwegian Business School
Katrin Burmeister-Lamp: EBS University of Business and Law

Small Business Economics, 2022, vol. 58, issue 2, No 3, 637-663

Abstract: Abstract COVID-19 has caused significant and unforeseen problems for entrepreneurs. While entrepreneurs would normally seek social support to help deal with these issues, due to social distancing, physical networks are often not available. Consequently, entrepreneurs must turn to alternative support sources, such as online communities, raising the question of how support is created in such spaces. Drawing on an affordance perspective, we investigate how entrepreneurs interact with online communities and base our qualitative analysis on conversation data (76,365 posts) from an online community of entrepreneurs on Reddit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings draw out four affordances that online communities offer to entrepreneurs (resolving problems, reframing problems, reflecting on situations, refocusing thinking and efforts), resulting in a framework of entrepreneurial support creation in online communities. Thus, our study contributes to debates around (1) entrepreneurs’ support during COVID-19 and (2) digital affordances in the entrepreneurship context.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial support; Online communities; Affordances; COVID-19; Big data; L26; M10; M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11187-021-00540-2

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