Journal of Media Management and Entrepreneurship

Volume 1 • Issue 1 • January-June 2019

Social Networking and Its Role

in Media Entrepreneurship:
Evaluating the Use of Mobile Phones in the
Context of Online Shopping – A Review
Syed Far Abid Hossain, School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

ABSTRACT

The paper explores social networking and its role in media entrepreneurship. The key purpose of the
study is to evaluate the role of mobile phone usage in the context of online shopping. The research
sheds light on the prospect of media entrepreneurship based on systematic literature review without
collecting any primary data. The study reviews the literature on social media, social networking,
mobile usage, and media entrepreneurship. This research identifies the immense popularity of social
networking, online shopping, and digital media entrepreneurship due to available and affordable
usage of mobile phones. To do so, the research investigates related literature from the last five years
(2013 and 2018). The findings indicate that even though media entrepreneurship gained increased
popularity, it has not been implemented or initiated properly. This research also indicates a new
path towards ease of online shopping, building trust, ease of decision making in online purchase,
as well as reduction of unemployment problem in emerging and developing nations. Despite some
limitations discussed in the study such as inconsistent research papers, limited studies in the specific
field, and limited empirical evidence, it still offers implications and contributions for online shoppers,
marketers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs. Finally, the research acknowledges the emerging role
of social networking in media entrepreneurship development in the context of mobile phone usage
in online shopping.

Keywords
digital media, emerging nations, media entrepreneurship, mobile phone usage, online shopping, social media,
Social networking

1. INTRODUCTION

On engagement, we’re already seeing that mobile users are more likely to be daily active users than
desktop users. They’re more likely to use Facebook six or seven days of the week. – Mark Zuckerberg,
Founder, Facebook. (Zuckerberg, 2016)

Needless to say, with the rapid advance of social media as well as social networking due to availability
and affordability of mobile devices, “digital entrepreneurship” emerged and inspected the role of
technologies and entrepreneurship (Nambisan, 2017). Media entrepreneurship tendency emerged
among young generation who are opportunity driven, young, and well-educated with the ability to get

DOI: 10.4018/JMME.2019010105

Copyright © 2019, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


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benefit from social networks (Zaheer et al., 2018). In early 2018, the success of Facebook with 2.2
billion dynamic users per month (Statista, 2018) may motivated thousands of youngsters to become
a successful young technology entrepreneur like Mark Elliot Zuckerberg or inaugurate start-ups like
next WhatsApp, Uber or Alibaba. Although, media entrepreneurship is still underdeveloped and
poorly investigated so far (Khajeheian, 2014); it has increased potential due to increased usage and
trust for online review. A recent survey investigated that approximately 88% customers either read
or trust online reviews (Chen, Luo, & Wang, 2017).
Social media is comfortably usable with technological advancement and the devices are smaller,
less expensive, lighter, multi-functional and more user-friendly (Khajeheian, 2014). Mobile phone is
the most commonly used device with 2.53 billion smartphone users in 2018 (Statista, 2017). Apart
from regular usage of mobile phone, smartphone is capable of operating various Apps, communication
and information services like SMS, MMS, weather information, traffic information, entertainment
service like TV, music, mobile games, access to internet and visit different websites, link bank card
with internet banking facility and reserve air ticket, hotels booking, conduct purchase online at anytime,
anywhere with the help of Wi-Fi or mobile internet (Al-Debei & Al-Lozi, 2014; Nikou & Mezei,
2013; Zarmpou, Saprikis, Markos, & Vlachopoulou, 2012). This research focused to discover the
usage of mobile phone in the context of online shopping which is sufficient enough to incorporate
all the literature contained in this review.
Earlier numerous research explicitly attempted to define media entrepreneurship phenomenon
(Achtenhagen, 2008; 2012). As stated by Khajeheian 2017, p. 102, a comprehensive definition of
media entrepreneurship is as follows:

Media entrepreneurship is taking the risk to exploit opportunities (creation/ discovery) by innovative
use of (radical/incremental/imitative) resources (ownership/control) in transform of an idea into
activities to offer value (creation/delivery) in a media form (content/platform/user data) that meets
the need of a specific portion of market (businesses or consumers), either in an individual effort or by
creation of new venture or entrepreneurial managing of an existing organizational entity and to earn
benefit (money/attention/favorite behavior) from one of the sources that is willing to pay for (direct
consumers, advertisers, data demanders or any customer of generated information of consumers).

Therefore, from the above definition, mobile phone is predicted as a kind of media which meets
users need to create a new venture virtually based on social networking. As mobile technology is
designed and intended particularly for individuals (Boakye, 2015); many studies tried to explore online
shopping with the advanced technology of mobile devices and mobile entertainment (Leong, Ooi,
Chong, & Lin, 2013). However, usage of mobile device as a trajectory towards media entrepreneurship
is still under shadow. This research is an attempt to discover the fact and shed light on the successful
media entrepreneurship phenomenon. This study systematically reviewed the contemporary status of
mobile usage in the context of online shopping and extracted the entrepreneurial intention and role
of social networking in media entrepreneurship. This research focused on current data from relevant
literature, presented summarized view in various aspects and finally provided basis for further research
in the next sections. The following sections describe the methodology of the study, result, discussion,
limitations, conclusion and further research direction.

2. RESEARCH METHOD

The study utilized a systematic literature review (SLR) in the arena of social networking, online
shopping, media entrepreneurship and mobile phone usage. Specific steps were followed in the
methodology section as per the guideline presented by Kitchenham (Group, 2007). The steps of
conducted SLR method are discussed in the following sub-sections.

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2.1. Research Questions

This article aims to investigate social networking and its role in media entrepreneurship. In order to
achieve the aim of SLR the study presented the following research questions (RQ).

RQ1: What are the roles of social media in driving media entrepreneurship?

Social networking is basically the base of daily communication and a platform to keep in touch
with own network by sharing something interesting, communicating or receiving feedback from
others. However, the emergence of media entrepreneurship brings social networking closer to work
in the business sector as an open platform now a day which created automatically.

RQ2: What are the usage of mobile phones for online shopping in the context of buyer and individual
seller?

There are different media usage for entrepreneurship. The author (s) sometimes limit the research
in a particular or specific sector like “Facebook” only for an example. This SLR is an attempt to
explore the most widely researched media (i.e. mobile phone) used for media entrepreneurship.

RQ3: What are the factors affect online shopping and social networking in the context of media
entrepreneurship?

As online shopping is growing rapidly and received immense popularity in developed and
developing nations, mobile phone is a simple platform to conduct business virtually without any initial
start-up costs like other business. The increasing use of smartphones and internet availability made it
easier and accessible for mass people with radical innovation and sustainable success (Achtenhagen,
2017). Anyone who is intended to conduct business online within his or her network, may do it with
the help of a mobile device and internet connection. Table 1 represents below the websites accessed
for searching the materials for SLR.

2.2. Search Procedure

The objective of this study is to search research articles which investigated online shopping, mobile
usage, social networking and media entrepreneurship. The search process was conducted between
July 23-25, 2018 with online search engine and extracted data from electronic database. The
following search strings were used to conduct search process for this study: “online shopping”, “social
networking”, “entrepreneurship/women entrepreneurship”, “Social media/digital media”, “media

Table 1. Electronic database used in this SLR.

Source Online Access

Science Direct http://www.sciencedirect.com/
Emerald Insight http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
Scopus http://www.scopus.com/
Springer http://link.springer.com/
Web of Science https://apps.webofknowledge.com
ACM Digital Library http://dl.acm.org/

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entrepreneurship” and “mobile phones”. The study utilized six famous database as stated in table 1
to conduct the search process. Overall search was limited to 2013 and 2018.

2.3. Study Selection

The initial search found numerous result (1148) that needed to be assessed further. The study selection
process followed the procedure below:

1. Exclusion based on specific subject or topic of interest (i.e. e-commerce or entrepreneurship)

2. Exclusion based on duplicate articles.
3. Exclusion based on language (excluded articles written any other language rather than English)
4. Exclusion based on availability of access (excluded articles which could not accessible)
5. Exclusion based on the research topic or title

2.4. Inclusion Criteria

The articles included in this research based on the below criteria.

1. Empirical research articles which explored social networking, online shopping and media
entrepreneurship
2. Empirical research articles published in reputed and well indexed journals.
3. Empirical research articles which presented and analyzed a research model
4. Review articles which analyzed social networking, online shopping and media entrepreneurship

2.5. Quality Assessment (QA)

The articles included in this study were further analyzed for quality assessment by the following QA
questions:

QA1: Is the online shopping filed connected with social media or mobile usage properly defined?
QA2: Does the research article include proper description and analyze entrepreneurship, social
networking, online shopping or mobile phone usage?
QA3: Does the research article contain an acceptable research model?
QA4: Do the articles extracted from similar nature of this study?

For QA1, QA2, QA3 and QA4; Y (yes) refers that the constructs are well defined; N (no) refers
that the constructs are not well defined and P (partially) refers that the constructs are partially defined.
According to Kitchenham et al., 2009, the procedure to judge or score articles follows the system
like: Y = 1, P = 0.5 and N = 0. This scoring system helped to assess the quality of the articles used
in this study. The articles failed to score less than 2 based on for QA questions, were excluded from
the study as per Table 3.

2.6. Data Collection

Data were basically extracted from the selected articles for the base of the study. Apart from that,
other relevant literature also considered in this study. The extracted data includes basic information
of the articles such as: author (s) details, year of publication, core objective of the study, method (s)
and relevant core findings. Table 2 represented the overall synopsis at a glance.

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Table 2. Systematic review of literature

Author (s) ID Year Objective Method Relevant Finding(s)

Hall-Phillips 2016 To discover new opportunity
et al. P1 for social venture through social
media
Ovčjak, Heričko, 2015 To explore the arena of mobile
& Polančič P2 data service
Mariani, Mura, 2018 Strategic use of Facebook to
& Di Felice P3 promote tourism industry
Delacroix, Parguel, P4 2018 To discover buy and sell
& Benoit-Moreau activities in Facebook group
Ribes-Giner et al. P5 2018 To determine economic and
social aspects of female
entrepreneurship
Hamdi-Kidar & 2018 To discover the motives of end
Vellera P6 user entrepreneurs to start-up
Pitt et al. P7 2018 Focus on stakeholders who
engage with social media for
brand engagement
Drummond, McGrath 2018 To examine the impact of social
& O’Toole P8 media in entrepreneurship
Asongu 2016 To analyze mobile phone usage
& Nwachukwu P9 in ease of business
Rippa & Secundo P10 2018 Analyze the opportunity of
digital technologies in academic
entrepreneurship
Geissinger et al. P11 2018 To explore the role of cities in
digital entrepreneurship
McAdam P12 2018 To examine digital
entrepreneurship in developing
economy
Phillips P13 2018 To analyze the weak condition of
American entrepreneurship
Abreu & Grinevich P14 2013 to empirically analyze the
determinants of academic
engagement
Bergmann et al. P15 2018 To analyze students’ perception
in entrepreneurship
Chandna & Salimath P16 2018 to identify new value initiators in
online platforms
Staniewski & Awruk P17 2018 to diagnose entrepreneurial
success
Harrigan et al. P18 2017 To determine customer
engagement through social
media in tourism
Radzi et al. P19 2018 To understand the benefits of
Facebook brand/fan page
Lang & Fink P20 2018 To figure out a better
understanding of social network
in rural entrepreneurship
Malinen P21 2015 To understand the participation
of users in online community
Mai et al. P22 2015 To investigate the effect of
“seen” status of Facebook
Hermsen et al. P23 2016 To disrupt undesired habit
through digital technology
Van Laar et al. P24 2017 To investigate relationship
between digital skills and 21st
century skills
Wang & Nickerson P25 2017 To identify individual’s
creativity support system
Popp & Wilson P26 2018 The study is an attempt to
identify multiple roles of
identification in Facebook usage
Drori et al. P27 2018 To foster way of developing
female entrepreneurship
Data was gathered from 304 social Positive influence and
venture
Systematic review of literature of Discovered the factors affect
80 scholarly articles
Big data, panel data regression
analysis
in-depth interviews and
participatory observation
Data utilized from 29 OECD
countries from 3 databases.
qualitative study, 20 end user
entrepreneurs
6300 job reviews
In-depth interviews
Data from Sub-Saharan Africa
from 2000-2012
qualitative literature review
2 case studies from Sweden
six biographical narrations of
female digital entrepreneurs in
Saudi Arabia
interview
Survey on over 22000 academics
2 unique datasets used with
perceptions of 8009 students
SEM analysis from 366 virtual
entrepreneurial firms
six research tools were used to
examine
144 entrepreneurs
3 factors 11 items scale
snowball sampling method, 195
sets of online questionnaire
Case studies, semi structured and
structured interviews
systematic literature review with
previous empirical studies of 83
scholarly articles
Online survey of 207 respondents
Literature review of 72 studies
Review of 75 scholarly articles
Review of literature from 2
systematic database
Quantitative survey from
Facebook users
Used 2361 microfinance
organizations to collect annual
information from 115 countries
engagement of consumer social
venture.
mobile data adoption
Varied performance of Facebook
in tourism sector of the top 10
visited countries
Satisfactory financial need
and benefits through digital
entrepreneurship
Found risk score conditions,
power positions, high female
entrepreneurship and low gender
gap.
End user possibly switch to
entrepreneurial activity
Significant difference identified
in theoretical dimension
Found the impact of Facebook
and twitter in entrepreneurship
Reduced cost of start up
Emergence of digital academic
entrepreneurship
Digital entrepreneurship faces
serious offer from cities
Digital entrepreneurship provide
opportunities for entepreneurs
Role of educator to lessen
the sad state of current US
entrepreneurial situation
Academics are willing in more
informal entrepreneurial activities
A certain degree may influence
on students in entrepreneurial
activity
significance of holistic business
model
Found high reliability from
questionnaire of entrepreneurial
success
proposed a better customer
engagement scale in tourism
industry
Positive relationship found
between relational benefits and
commitment
social entrepreneurship and rural
development, horizontal and
vertical networking
strategies
Findings discovered less
theoretical discussion and suggest
to develop theoretical foundation
Based on different personality,
users may act differently after
“seen” status in Facebook.
Feedback using digital technology
is an effective way to disrupt
undesired habit
7 more extensive and 5 necessary
contextual skills are identified
from the review
On the basis of different
creativity theory this paper
proposed a new framework for
creativity support system
Identification has impact on
overall loyalty
Women inclusion in
entrepreneurship largely depend
on organizational factors

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Table 3. Quality measurement analysis

Paper ID QA1 QA2 QA3 QA4 Total Score

P1 Y Y P Y 3.5
P2 Y Y Y Y 4
P3 Y Y Y P 3.5
P4 P Y Y Y 3.5
P5 P P Y Y 3
P6 Y Y Y Y 4
P7 P Y Y Y 3.5
P8 P P Y P 2.5
P9 Y Y Y Y 4
P10 Y Y Y Y 4
P11 Y Y Y P 3.5
P12 P Y Y Y 3.5
P13 P P Y Y 3
P14 Y Y Y Y 4
P15 P Y Y Y 3.5
P16 Y Y P Y 3.5
P17 Y Y Y Y 4
P18 Y Y Y P 3.5
P19 P Y Y Y 3.5
P20 P P Y Y 3
P21 Y Y Y Y 4
P22 Y Y Y Y 4
P23 P Y Y Y 3.5
P24 P P Y P 2.5
P25 Y Y Y Y 4
P26 Y Y Y Y 4
P27 Y Y Y P 3.5

3. RESULTS

The next section of the study summarizes the results of the systemic literature review. At first, the
authors represents the search result which is represented in table 2 with a brief overview at a glance.
The primary selected literature undergone a quality assessment scoring as per table 3 as well.

3.1. Search Result

After a rigorous search process, finally the authors of this study decided to finalize 27 scholarly
articles. The details about the selected articles are represented in table 2. Although different electronic
databases were used to extract the article, same procedure was followed for every database to search
the literature. For each and every selected article, table 2 represented author (s) details, year of

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publication, aim and objective of the study, methodology and core findings of the study. Most of the
chosen articles were published in last five years in reputed and well indexed journals.

3.2. Quality Evaluation of the Papers

The study further considered quality assessment analysis with a scoring system stated in details in
table 3. Quality evaluation was performed based on four quality assessment questions which are
stated in section 2.5. As mentioned earlier, the papers failed to pass the quality assessment test, were
excluded from the study. The selected papers achieved a minimum score of 2.5 out of 4 as described
in details in table 3. However, in most of the cases the papers seem to have a higher score like 3.5 -4.0.

4. DISCUSSION

In the next section the authors attempted to answer the research questions of this study through
systematic literature review. Every sub-section of the discussion tried to answer one research question
of this study.

4.1. Role of Social Media in Driving Media Entrepreneurship

Global social media exceeds 2 billion users in 2016 (Statista, 2018b). As a result, the opportunity of
media entrepreneurship is tremendous. Media entrepreneurship is an attempt to exploit opportunities
by innovative usage of resources and transform ideas into values (Khajeheian, 2017). In order to reduce
the complexity of establishment of a traditional entrepreneurship and cost, media entrepreneurship
is an ideal choice for the new start-ups. Hall-Phillips et al. (2016) discovered new opportunities for
ventures with the help of social media. Positive feedback was found in the research for social media
usage but the exact social media or the media which are more effective are still under shadow and
have less attention by the researchers. According to the result of Statista (2018), the most popular
social media is Facebook followed by YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Instagram
and QQ. Numerous research articles discussed the benefits of Facebook and the opportunity to use
Facebook as a tool to increaser the brand value of an organization (Radzi et al., 2018). However,
in terms of geographical location the usage of a particular media of social networking may vary
tremendously. For instance, WeChat is the most popular social media platform in China and intention
to purchase with the help of WeChat is predicted by usefulness factors (Chen, 2017). As per the
analysis of Tencent Tech, (2016), approximately 200 million WeChat users registered for WeChat
payment which indicates the flexibility and positive intention for virtual payment wherever necessary.
Thus, WeChat was recognized as the most effective platform than any other social media in China
(Jin, Park, & Li, 2015).
Identity is a key issue to consider in terms of virtual transaction via social media. The necessity
of identification of Facebook and multiple roles of identification was addressed by Popp & Wilson
(2018). In this instance the benefit of social media users related to entrepreneurial activity is, the
network is usually known and identification is easier. So that, people who want to buy online can rely
more on known individual within the social network channel rather than regular online sellers. Malinen
(2015), investigated the role of online community and tried to understand the role of participants in
online community. In case of any suggestion, recommendation, query, question, interest or complain;
online community is strong enough at present to answer any questions as well as solve any kind of
misunderstanding or fraudulence activities. Even though the anonymous online community and their
role was identified recently by the researchers (Kim, Lee, & Lee, 2018). In case of developing a better
understanding in rural entrepreneurship Lang & Fink (2018), showed some networking strategies
which may help the new people to involve in entrepreneurial activities.
Although, this is not true that people visit social media to buy products always. However, while
people check daily post of other users or check their moments or posts as a part of regular usage of
social media users, sometimes people get attracted to various offers provided by entrepreneurs who use

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social media as a platform to sell products. Above all, B2C, Mixed B2B/B2C and B2B2C models are
effective for social media but B2C have lower comparative effect as per recent comparative analysis
(Iankova, Davies, Archer-Brown, Marder, & Yau, 2018).

4.2. Usage of Mobile Phones for Online Shopping

Maity & Dass (2014) investigated the effect of media richness and the way consumers make decision
and finally choose a channel to buy products. Findings reveled that most of the consumers intend
to make simple decision making in purchasing using m-commerce rather than other similar channel
like e-commerce. This is an indication of strong acceptance of mobile phone usage in terms of online
shopping in the context of buyer. The reality is, when the buyers are comfortable to buy goods using
mobile phone as a media, some of them get motivated to sell goods using the mobile phone simply
within his or her known network. This is one of the facts of mobile data adoption in recent situation
(Ovčjak, Heričko, & Polančič, 2015). The key factor behind the scene is that most of the people are
attached with mobile phone now a day with extensive use of data and social media. According to a
report by Statista (2018b), the usage of social media users globally has an increased usage of 9 minutes
in 2017 than the previous year with the usage of 135 minutes per day in 2017 while in 2016, it was
126 minutes per day. Although the usage of social media does not indicate online shopping directly,
it has an indirect effect through enormous posts of goods, pictures, catalogues and daily deal offers
(Carlson & Kukar-Kinney, 2018). Van Laar et al. (2017) investigated how the digital skills transform
the way of business in 21st century and found 7 more extensive and 5 necessary contextual skills.
These skills are essential to become successful entrepreneur using digital technology such as mobile
phone and internet to sell products virtually within a known network at the beginning. The network
may get bigger and stronger depend on the capability, trust service and product quality of the sellers
even though the second hand products get popularity and customized e-commerce websites for second
hand products appeared and the reputation of the sellers are investigated and considered through text
analytics (Chen, Zheng, Xu, Liu, & Wang, 2018). As a result, it is noticeable that the usage of mobile
phone has direct and indirect effect on buyers and sellers in terms of online shopping.
According to a recent survey conducted by Fuentes & Svingstedt (2017), mobile phones are
capable to access and process information in a different way which supports and motivate new way
of social shopping. Social shopping is actually the output from social networking. The system spread
instantly and quickly in a way of sharing a picture of a purchased product from an online seller followed
by questions and queries from a range of friend circle who are also interested to buy the similar product.
Recent study also identified the role of “flow” as a mediating role on consumers’ online shopping
behavior (Chen, Hsu, & Lu, 2018). Theoretically, the main idea of flow is nothing but enjoyment
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Afterwards, perceived enjoyment received increased attention as a part
of TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) theory by Davis (1989). This is an indication that people
use mobile phone primarily to communicate but in reality “enjoyment” is a very effective factor.
Enjoyment using a mobile device consists with multidisciplinary paths. However, this is needless to
say that online shopping using a mobile phone is also a kind of enjoyment. Recent empirical findings
also revealed that online experience as well as mobile experience both has significant effect on mobile
Apps (Kim, Kim, Choi, & Trivedi, 2017). For instance, online shopping App named “Taobao” in
China, achieved 14.3 billion USD on a single day sales on 11.11.2015 (Alizila, 2015). “Taobao”
is a well-established online platform and a concern of reputed group “Alibaba”; so that, the sales
volume is extraordinary. However, the output of individual seller using a mobile phone could not be
comparable with big instance like this but it is an indication to earn a minimum amount of money
to support a young entrepreneur to survive in the emerging economy where getting a desired job
is called as getting a “golden deer”. So, it is crystal clear that the usage of mobile phone in online
shopping gained popularity over time because the customers are accompanied by mobile phone almost
all the time and they can search extensively prior to purchase online (Huang, Lurie, & Mitra, 2009).
Entire consumer decision making process is controllable by the retailers due to mobile technology
because mobile shopping has become a continuous process rather than discrete activity (Faulds,
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Mangold, Raju, & Valsalan, 2018). Recent research attempted to discover the buy and sales activities
of different Facebook group (Delacroix, Parguel & Benoit-Moreau, 2018) and discussed about digital
entrepreneurship. Considering the fact of economic and social aspect of female entrepreneurship
(Ribes-Giner et al., 2018); mobile phone could be a feasible solution to start-up with a small business
and sell product virtually with a limited number of products or with a particular industry like fashion
and clothing or make up and jewelry for women. Moreover, the daily necessary items and foods
could be a better choice to sell virtually as people need this on daily basis and sometimes they have
limited time to buy physically. Selling the food of restaurant as a delivery system (Kapoor & Vij,
2018) received increased attention recently. This may lessen the burden of innumerable stages which
could discourage initiators to become an entrepreneur. This may also support individual’s creativity
support system (Wang & Nickerson, 2017) to represent unique way to sell products.
So far, the study discussed everything about product. However, in case of service marketing, the
use of mobile phone as a media could even be more effective due to the effect of increased online
community (Malinen, 2015). People now a day ask question about getting a reliable service in the online
community to make sure about good service. At the same time, in the same online community there
may have people who can take the opportunity to sell a particular service like air ticket reservation,
holiday package or hire a tourist guide. As other devices like computers or notebooks are not usable
everywhere, mobile phone is comparatively a better choice to involve with digital entrepreneurial
activities because mobile phone data is identified as most promising and applied rather than any
trajectory or sensor data (Yue, Lan, Yeh, & Li, 2014).

4.3. Factors Affect Online Shopping and Social Networking

in the Context of Media Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial activities are associated with media entrepreneurship due to industry competition
and changes (Khajeheian & Arbatani, 2011). With the passage of time, buying and selling activities
noticed obvious changes with the convenience of online shopping (Lim et al. 2016). People recently
regardless age, gender, profession, religion, region and faith; are mostly involved with social media
not because of any particular reason except “engagement” and “influence” (Smith & Taylor, 2017).
With the help of media entrepreneurship in the digital setting especially, online shopping attracted
more trust and reliability among consumers within a particular social network especially for women
and younger users (Warner-Søderholm et al., 2018); but the level of trust found diverse for different
level. As a result, trust is the first factor which affect online shopping in a positive way in the context
of media entrepreneurship through social networking as a platform where a portable device like
mobile phone can be the most useful tool for shopping due to m-shopping’s novelty and m-shoppers’
loyalty (Groß, 2018). For the commercialization of media products, Khajeheian (2012) provided a
framework with the development of an idea of gathering strategy and stability with social network.
This framework is applicable to sell products online with the help of social networking without
various additional establishment cost.
“Cost” is another factor to consider for the entrepreneurs. Even though “risk” is a part and
parcel of business, the financial risk is lower in terms of media entrepreneurship. However other
risk factors are still evident like hacking, criticism, malware, spam, ethical risk, information loss,
information quality, copyright violation, identity theft, criticism and astroturfing (commenting on
own) as stated by Williams & Hausman (2017). On the other hand, the role of formal and informal
organizations in terms of entrepreneurial opportunity is revealed (Fuentelsaz, González, & Maicas,
2018). Informal entrepreneurship is known as (non-registered) entrepreneurship and the characteristics
of this entrepreneurship is quite different than formal entrepreneurship (Fuentelsaz, González, &
Maicas, 2018). In the case of media entrepreneurship, the possibility of informal entrepreneurship is
higher because of less risk taking tendency by the initiator. However, later on, depend on the success,
informal media entrepreneurship may expand and become formal. This is another path to avoid cost
at the initial level of start-up.

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A recent review result from Amazon found popularity in online food and grocery shopping based
on objective and subjective reviews (Heng, Gao, Jiang, & Chen, 2018). Likewise, more and more
industries may gain popularity in this way of virtual selling. Customers’ engagement in writing online
review is recently discovered with a key focus on mobile devices (Thakur, 2018). This research papers
disclose the customer engagement, trust and satisfaction issues in terms of online shopping. As a result
online review is another key factor in online shopping in the context of media entrepreneurship. For
an instance, if a seller sells something via Facebook and receives good reviews, it may help the seller
to boost the sales. Again, the same thing is applicable if a seller use a particular Apps or other media
as a platform and where review or ranking is an option. It’s hard to sell product without reputation at
this era unless the seller has a trusted network because buyer reputation is as significant as product
presentation according to recent research (Wang, Cui, Huang, & Dai, 2016). Figure 1 represents the
unique way of media entrepreneurship initiated by mobile device usage.

5. CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH DIRECTION

The research contribute to the literature with a few number of contribution. First of all, the research
is a focus to initiate media entrepreneurship with the help of easiest possible method which is mobile
device technology. In addition, the research highlighted the power of social network and online
community as strong indicators for those who are intended to sell products virtually with a mobile
technology. Finally, the study identified the role of mobile phone usage in online shopping as well as
the role of social networking as the initiator for media entrepreneurship. The research implication is
not limited to those who have potential capability or desire to become entrepreneurs but also for the
managers, decision makers of different organizations in terms of a new way to market their product
to boost sales volume with low cost. Readers of this SLR may consider a few limitations like: this
research focused only one single mobile device only which is mobile phone. Further research may
consider few mobile devices like IPad, tablet, notebook and so on. Also, the search process of the base
articles was limited to scholarly journal articles from reputed and well indexed journals only. Future
research may consider relevant books, conferences, newspaper or any further necessary materials to
come up with extended ideas. Further research also can consider meta-analysis or empirical study of
the conceptual framework provided in figure 1 of this study. Overall, from the SLR, a crystal clear
idea is the utilization of mobile device as a tool to boost media entrepreneurship with the help of
social networking for the initiators, entrepreneurs, unemployed people, and deprived females with
less opportunity, students or even people who are on the job with limited or insufficient income.

Figure 1. Proposed model from the systematic literature review

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Syed Far Abid Hossain is PhD scholar at School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. His research
interest includes women entrepreneurship, mobile phone usage, e-commerce and regional development. He
has experience in both academic and corporate sectors for more than 8 years. Currently he is working for IUBAT
University as a Lecturer (on study leave).

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