Title: E-entrepreneurship strategies to overcome barriers to market entry – a system theory and cybernetics perspective

Authors: Frank Keuper, Gerrit Brosel, Rene Hans

Addresses: Prof. Dr. rer. pol. habil. Frank Keuper, Lehrstuhl fur Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Konvergenz- und Medienmanagement, Steinbeis-Hochschule Berlin–Wissenschaftliche, Hochschule fur Unternehmensfuhrung und Innovationen, Gurtelstr. 29a/30, 10247 Berlin, Germany. ' Prof. Dr. rer. pol. habil. Frank Keuper, Lehrstuhl fur Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Konvergenz- und Medienmanagement, Steinbeis-Hochschule Berlin–Wissenschaftliche, Hochschule fur Unternehmensfuhrung und Innovationen, Gurtelstr. 29a/30, 10247 Berlin, Germany. ' Prof. Dr. rer. pol. habil. Frank Keuper, Lehrstuhl fur Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Konvergenz- und Medienmanagement, Steinbeis-Hochschule Berlin–Wissenschaftliche, Hochschule fur Unternehmensfuhrung und Innovationen, Gurtelstr. 29a/30, 10247 Berlin, Germany

Abstract: Any market – and thus also that of the Telecommunications, IT, Media, and Entertainment (TIME) field – can be characterised as a system. All systems have a particular degree of complexity. As e-enterprises are sub-systems of the overall |TIME| system, they will always be of lesser complexity than their |parent| system. It is this differential, named in this article the complexity gradient, which, seen from both the cybernetics and the system theory perspective, effectively constitutes the most significant barrier to market entry for e-entrepreneurs. It is thus appropriate for those e-enterprises to consider three questions: how can complexity be characterised in the TIME industry? What visible commercial challenges does this produce? What are the challenges when interpreted from a system theory and cybernetics standpoint? These questions are addressed in the following article, which also offers e-entrepreneur recommendations based in system theory and cybernetics.

Keywords: complexity; convergence; cybernetics; divergence; external systems; market entry barriers; market exit barriers; multi-stability; system theory; strategy; e-entrepreneurship; electronic entrepreneurship; telecommunications; information technology; media; entertainment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2006.009251

International Journal of Technology Management, 2006 Vol.33 No.4, pp.389 - 405

Published online: 13 Mar 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article