IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v103y2026ics0038012125002307.html

The impact of artificial intelligence technological innovation on global entrepreneurial activities

Author

Listed:
  • Tian, Yuqi
  • Wang, Xiaowen
  • Chen, Nanxu
  • Zhang, Zhenhua

Abstract

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has led to transformative advancements across various industries, particularly in innovative sectors, creating both new challenges and opportunities. This study systematically examines the impact of AI technological innovation on global entrepreneurial activities. The basic theoretical framework is constructed using entrepreneurial factor theory and external enabler framework, and a two-way fixed effects model along with a mediation effect model are employed to study the impact of AI technological innovation on corporate entrepreneurial activities in 52 countries and regions from 2002 to 2023, spanning a total of 22 years. The results reveal that AI technological innovation significantly promotes entrepreneurial activities, particularly opportunity-driven ventures. Notably, the impact is especially significant for entrepreneurs aged 18–34 and those with a higher level of education. Additionally, AI technological innovation positively influences entrepreneurial activities through two paths: entrepreneurship education and AI investment. This study provides valuable insights for countries to effectively leverage AI technology, thereby enhancing entrepreneurial vitality and promoting economic resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Tian, Yuqi & Wang, Xiaowen & Chen, Nanxu & Zhang, Zhenhua, 2026. "The impact of artificial intelligence technological innovation on global entrepreneurial activities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:103:y:2026:i:c:s0038012125002307
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2025.102381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012125002307
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2025.102381?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Werner Bönte & Oliver Falck & Stephan Heblich, 2009. "The Impact of Regional Age Structure on Entrepreneurship," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(3), pages 269-287, July.
    2. André Stel & Martin Carree & Roy Thurik, 2005. "The Effect of Entrepreneurial Activity on National Economic Growth," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 311-321, February.
    3. Chiara Peroni & Cesare A. F. Riillo & Francesco Sarracino, 2016. "Entrepreneurship and immigration: evidence from GEM Luxembourg," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 639-656, April.
    4. Parteka, Aleksandra & Kordalska, Aleksandra, 2023. "Artificial intelligence and productivity: global evidence from AI patent and bibliometric data," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    5. Nguyen, Quoc Phu & Vo, Duc Hong, 2022. "Artificial intelligence and unemployment:An international evidence," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 40-55.
    6. Liu, Jun & Chang, Huihong & Forrest, Jeffrey Yi-Lin & Yang, Baohua, 2020. "Influence of artificial intelligence on technological innovation: Evidence from the panel data of china's manufacturing sectors," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Brown, Terrence E., 2017. "Sensor-based entrepreneurship: A framework for developing new products and services," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 819-830.
    8. Busenitz, Lowell W. & Barney, Jay B., 1997. "Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: Biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 9-30, January.
    9. Justin Van Der Sluis & Mirjam Van Praag & Wim Vijverberg, 2008. "Education And Entrepreneurship Selection And Performance: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 795-841, December.
    10. Pierre Azoulay & Christian Fons-Rosen & Joshua S. Graff Zivin, 2019. "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2889-2920, August.
    11. Kerr, William R. & Nanda, Ramana, 2009. "Democratizing entry: Banking deregulations, financing constraints, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 124-149, October.
    12. Wang, Daoping & Liang, Yaxi & Shen, Xinyan, 2025. "Can artificial intelligence assist banks in improving city entrepreneurship?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Gabriele Giorgi & Antonio Ariza-Montes & Nicola Mucci & Antonio L. Leal-Rodríguez, 2022. "The Dark Side and the Light Side of Technology-Related Stress and Stress Related to Workplace Innovations: From Artificial Intelligence to Business Transformations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-5, January.
    14. Jose Maria Millan & Emilio Congregado & Concepcion Roman & Mirjam van Praag & Andre van Stel, 2011. "The Value of an Educated Population for an Individual's Entrepreneurship Success," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-066/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 06 May 2014.
    15. Heiko Bergmann & Christian Hundt & Rolf Sternberg, 2016. "What makes student entrepreneurs? On the relevance (and irrelevance) of the university and the regional context for student start-ups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 53-76, June.
    16. Benjamin F. Jones, 2010. "Age and Great Invention," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 1-14, February.
    17. Zhang, Zhenhua & Luo, Cong & Zhang, Guoxing & Shu, Yuqin & Shao, Shuai, 2024. "New energy policy and green technology innovation of new energy enterprises: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    18. Shore, Adam & Tiwari, Manisha & Tandon, Priyanka & Foropon, Cyril, 2024. "Building entrepreneurial resilience during crisis using generative AI: An empirical study on SMEs," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    19. Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2025. "Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in entrepreneurial education and practice: emerging insights, the GAIN Framework, and research agenda," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-21, December.
    20. Zhang, Zhenhua & Wu, Huangbin & Zhang, Yunpeng & Hu, Shilei & Pan, Yuxi & Feng, Yanchao, 2024. "Does digital global value chain participation reduce energy resilience? Evidence from 49 countries worldwide," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    21. Townsend, David M. & Hunt, Richard A., 2019. "Entrepreneurial action, creativity, & judgment in the age of artificial intelligence," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-1.
    22. Pierre Azoulay & Benjamin F. Jones & J. Daniel Kim & Javier Miranda, 2020. "Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 65-82, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huang, Bin & Tani, Massimiliano & Zhu, Yu, 2021. "Does higher education make you more entrepreneurial? Causal evidence from China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 543-558.
    2. Song, Zhihui & Zhao, Xiaoying & Peng, Ziqiang & Dai, Yixin, 2026. "Industrial robot adoption and household entrepreneurship," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. Jaroslav BELÁS & Ján DVORSKÝ & Ladislav TYLL & Katarína ZVARÍKOVÁ, 2017. "Entrepreneurship of University Students: Important Factors and the Propensity for Entrepreneurship," REVISTA ADMINISTRATIE SI MANAGEMENT PUBLIC, Faculty of Administration and Public Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 2017(28), pages 6-25, June.
    4. Eckhardt Bode & Dirk Dohse & Ulrich Stolzenburg, 2023. "Aging and regional productivity growth in Germany [Alterung und regionales Produktivitätswachstum in Deutschland]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 43(3), pages 409-432, December.
    5. Anna Kotaskova & Zoltan Rozsa, 2018. "The Impact Of Selected Factors On The Quality Of Business Environment Assessment In The Czech Republic And The Slovak Republic," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Knowledge, Center for International Scientific Research of VSO and VSPP, vol. 6(2), pages 71-80, December.
    6. Zhuoran Bai & Junliang Ge & Danyang Zhang & Yan Zhang, 2026. "Digital infrastructure and export of SMEs: evidence from China," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 66(4), pages 1875-1900, April.
    7. Millán, José María & Congregado, Emilio & Román, Concepción, 2014. "Persistence in entrepreneurship and its implications for the European entrepreneurial promotion policy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 83-106.
    8. Elhem Ben Fatma & Ezzeddine Ben Mohamed & Léo-Paul Dana & Sami Boudabbous, 2021. "Does entrepreneurs’ psychology affect their business venture success? Empirical findings from North Africa," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 921-962, June.
    9. Lutz Bornmann & Russell J. Funk, 2025. "Popper’s probability calculus and the decline of scientific disruptiveness," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(8), pages 4801-4807, August.
    10. repec:osf:socarx:qhs6j_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Anna Kusetogullari & Huseyin Kusetogullari & Martin Andersson & Tony Gorschek, 2025. "GenAI in Entrepreneurship: a systematic review of generative artificial intelligence in entrepreneurship research: current issues and future directions," Papers 2505.05523, arXiv.org.
    12. Qiantao Zhang & Chiara Marzocchi & Shiri M. Breznitz, 2025. "Educational diversity and work experience paths towards entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 1047-1069, August.
    13. Cucchiarini, Veronica & Scicchitano, Sergio & Viale, Riccardo, 2024. "The Entrepreneur's Cognitive and Behavioral Journey: Understanding Heuristics and Bias under Risk and Uncertainty," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1390, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Michelacci, Claudio & Schivardi, Fabiano, 2020. "Are they all like Bill, Mark, and Steve? The education premium for entrepreneurs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Al Asady, Ahmad & Anokhin, Sergey, 2025. "The Trojan horse of international entrepreneurship in the MENA region: Locus of control and the export of corruption," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 60(6).
    16. Gergely Horváth & Rui Zhang, 2022. "Ethnic entrepreneurship, assimilation, and integration policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(4), pages 781-816, August.
    17. Raffaele Fiorentino & Sergio Longobardi & Carla Morrone & Alessandro Scaletti, 2024. "Educational heterogeneity of the founding team of innovative start-ups: confirmations and denials," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 2347-2367, September.
    18. Edward L. Glaeser & William R. Kerr, 2009. "Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 623-663, September.
    19. Isabel Martínez-Rodríguez & Consolación Quintana-Rojo & Pedro Gento & Fernando-Evaristo Callejas-Albiñana, 2022. "Public policy recommendations for promoting female entrepreneurship in Europe," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 1235-1262, September.
    20. Joanna Tyrowicz & Magdalena Smyk & Barbara Liberda, 2017. "Talent workers as entrepreneurs: a new approach to aspirational self-employment," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 48(6), pages 571-592.
    21. Canever, Mario Duarte & Carraro, André & Kohls, Volnei Krause & Teles, Morgan Yuri Oliveira, 2010. "Entrepreneurship in the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: the determinants and consequences for the municipal development," Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural (RESR), Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural, vol. 48(01), January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:103:y:2026:i:c:s0038012125002307. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.