CHALLENGES OF INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN A TECHNOLOGICAL ERA: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected entrepreneurs, compelling them to close, downsize, diversify, or adopt innovative approaches to stay afloat. This global challenge, coupled with technological disruptions, resulted in many losing their jobs and entering the competitive entrepreneurship space that requires them to be innovative to succeed. However, without the right resources, context, and environment, entrepreneurs may struggle to innovate. This paper aims to investigate the challenges to innovative entrepreneurship in a technological era. We used an integrative review to synthesize challenges to innovative entrepreneurship from 42 empirical studies in different countries worldwide. A thematic approach was used to analyse the content of the articles. Results reveal that factors related to the entrepreneur’s skills and traits impede innovative entrepreneurship. Also, challenges related to finance, human resources, operational capabilities, and marketing obstruct innovation in entrepreneurship. In addition, environmental factors related to the country, social and cultural norms, and the entrepreneurship ecosystem pose challenges to innovative entrepreneurship. Innovation has become the order of the day, and knowledge of the obstacles to innovative entrepreneurship is vital. Findings can help in designing all-around support to promote innovative entrepreneurship.