Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the Age of Digital Transformation

Entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a driver of innovation and economic growth, supported by nations globally. It is an efficient and effective activity leveraging available resources, driven by creativity and innovation, to achieve specific business outcomes. This involves producing and offering new and innovative products and services, aligning with market needs, while embracing risk and flexibility. However, the concepts of entrepreneurship have undergone significant changes in recent years. The world has been grappling with major environmental and social challenges over the past few decades. Despite technical, economic, and social advancements, these challenges persist and continue to have destructive impacts over time. Can entrepreneurship help address these grand challenges? Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been studied as a mechanism to stimulate economic development and create financial value. However, growing awareness of global social and environmental challenges has led many scholars to reconsider entrepreneurship, viewing it not merely as a profit-generating activity but as an effort that should also incorporate elements fostering social and environmental development. Accordingly, traditional entrepreneurship, focusing solely on economic profitability, is increasingly evolving into sustainable entrepreneurship, aiming to tackle social and environmental challenges in the digital age. The analysis of the role of sustainability in the digital age on new entrepreneurship is a significant topic that requires a more detailed and profound examination. This research has been conducted using a systematic review methodology. Initially, relevant articles were selected from four reputable databases- Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, and MPDI, using the keywords “sustainable entrepreneurship” and “digital entrepreneurship.” After several screening stages, including reviewing titles, abstracts, and content, a total of 42 articles from reputable journals ranked Q1 and Q2 were chosen as the final selected papers. Upon thorough examination of these articles, new entrepreneurship based on sustainability in the digital age was described. The conclusion drawn is that in new entrepreneurship, in addition to the economic sustainability emphasized in traditional entrepreneurship, it is essential to focus on two important aspects- environmental sustainability and social sustainability. Furthermore, it is suggested that digital transformation technologies should be utilized to accelerate the implementation of these sustainability aspects.