I love to write and create. Can I earn money doing it? Entrepreneurial process of bloggers

Abstract

<p>Technological development and new digital opportunities pave way for new and emergning forms of entrepreneurship. Digital entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurial processes have been scarcely studied. This chapter focuses on entrepreneuship taking place in social media by exploring blogging and entrepreneurial process of bloggers based on a netnographical analysis of four Polish bloggers and their blogs. Our findings suggest that the entrepreneurial process of bloggers consists of three phases: legitimization, monetization and professionalization. The study contributes to the existing literature on entrepreneurial process, and that of bloggers particularly. Furthermore, the study makes a methodological contribution as nathnography has not been widely used in entrepreneurship research. The study has also practical implications for educators, for example, as it demonstrates how it is possible to transform passion or hobby into entrepreneurial activity in social media and to gain livelihood thereof. Our study suggests that social media and related opportunities, earning modes and entrepreneurial processes develop rapidly, and are, thus, interesting avenues for future research.</p>