The metaverse as an opportunity for entrepreneurship and innovation

From social simulation platforms like The Sims to virtual environments like Second Life, the metaverse has evolved both as a concept and business practice for many new or established ventures. Fragmented research, mainly from computer sciences and, to a lesser extent, from business and management has been struggling to keep up with the pace of the evolution and use of the metaverse. This highlights the pressing need for a critical examination of the opportunities offered by the metaverse and of its transformative potential from the perspective of the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation. The diversity of topics in this special issue on the role of the metaverse in transforming business models, its use in unexpected industries like that of wine and in the future of education, its adoption and the related collaboration and engagement reveal that our understanding of it has started to mature. Yet, significant gaps remain to be addressed. As the metaverse moves beyond entertainment and gaming or experimentation within firms’ boundaries to become an interorganizational connecting, networking, and collaborating space, research also needs to move from trying to define the metaverse into conceptualizing its role in multiuser business, industrial, and commercial environments. As the metaverse is set to reshape the entrepreneurial landscape by transforming cross-platform digital innovations and economies, technical and ethical issues remain to be solved as part of a collaborative value creation process for balanced opportunities across various industries, ventures and consumers.