SECTION A [40 Marks] Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow. The Relevance of Digitalization to International Opportunity Pursuit Economies and societies are transforming, and the ways in which we create, communicate, work. and collaborate are changing (Rogers, 2016). Today's society and business landscape are characterized by trends such as pervasive connectivity, improved performance of information technologies, information abundance, and emergence of big data (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). Accordingly, digital transformation and new business models have also changed consumers' expectations imposing pressure on traditional companies (Verhoef et al., 2016). In this new digital age, creativity and innovation play an important role in creating value for businesses (Sousa and Rocha, 2019). Entrepreneurs are typically dened by their risk taking, innovation, and opportunity-seeking behaviour (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999). Their contribution to economic growth is widely accepted. Entrepreneurship provides employment and income to a wide range of citizens and contributes to increased innovation, productivity, and competitiveness (OECD, 201?; Wennekers and Thun'k, 1999). For decades, creativity has been used to generate ideas among entrepreneurs and their teams. Although extensive research has been conducted on creativity, the majority of the studies have focused on traditional ways of stimulating creativity. The advent of the digital age appears to challenge much of this existing work on the nature of creativity. Digital technologies are providing new opportunities for value creation, value capture, and value delivery for not only entrepreneurs but also investors. It is clear that online creativity and audiences are affecting the meaning, expression and impact of creativity (Hisrich and Soltanifar, 2020}. The need for adopting a digital entrepreneurial mindset is informed by ve trends shaping the digital future: (1) mobile computing, (2) cloud computing, (3) social media. (4) the Internet of things and (5) big data (Soltanifar and Smailhodiic. 2021). The traditional techniques of stimulating creativity have been replaced and aided by technology-driven innovations. such as articial intelligence (AI). virtual reality (VR) and Internet of things [IoT]. This observation calls for the exploration of ways to activate the creativity of entrepreneurs and their team through the use of digital technologies. In a world witnessing continuous and radical innovations, entrepreneurs are developing business ideas that capitalize on the power of technology. Digitalization has tremendously challenged how business opportunities are created and captured. Entrepreneurs are exploiting new technologies to develop, market, and sell traditional and new products and services in new ways to global markets 24171365. Digital entrepreneurship is dened as the identication and pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities based on the creation of digital artifacts. platforms, and infrastructures that provide services through technology (Schmidt, 2011; Giones and Brem, 201T). Entrepreneurs have the opportunity to offer new products and services to consumers through social media platforms and to use artificial intelligence to measure their impact and reach. While the role of digital technologies in business development has receive considerable attention as a scientic inquiry. the While the role of digital technologies in business development has receive considerable attention as a scientic inquiry. the interaction of digitalization and international opportunity has received limited attention in business and management research. In a recent study. Song and Wu (2021) provided a comprehensive framework toward the impact of digital technologies (DTs) on opportunity pursuit in foreign markets and identied two perspectives of DTs, i.e., DTs as 'driving force' and DTs as 'disrupting force'. The 'driving force' perspective characterises DTs as a catalyst of experiential knowledge acquisition. As a 'disrupting force'. DTs are largely perceived as a factor altering the relative significance of experiential knowledge to opportunity pursuit. By bridging these two perspectives with the notion of market-specic knowledge and general knowledge within internationalization process theory, some arguments with regard to what specic inuences DTs play on international opportunity pursuit require further interrogation. In this regard, Song and Wu (2021) highlighted a number of avenues that can be considered for future research. In general, entrepreneurs are assumed to be basically risk-aversive (Welch et al., 2016), and thus experiential knowledge becomes the cornerstone for international opportunity creation and capture. In this sense. firms largely prefer long-term profits and organic growth. Although some entrepreneurs are quite conservative in practice, others are not concerned much with international business knowledge (Zahra, 2005) and hope to pursue opportunities across the globe as rapidly as possible. In this regard, the heterogeneity of both the rm and the entrepreneur ought to be taken into consideration. Relatedly, in line with IP theory which fundamentally claims some necessary knowledge should he possessed for effective international activities (Welch et al., 2016: Sapienza et al., 2006), a number of scholars take a more objective stance which assumes opportunities are 'out there.' However, in entrepreneurship literature, another prevalent stance (i.e., creation perspective} denies this assumption and maintains entrepreneurial opportunities can also be created (Alvarez & Barney, 2007). Astride these two contrasting views, it is arguable that the topic of international opportunity pursuit in a digitally enabled world can possibly be better understood by addressing the creation perspective. A further investigation of We as 'driving force' and DTs as 'disrupting force' is another area which can be explored. For instance, scholars can continue to investigate and identify other factors regarding how these emerging technologies facilitate knowledge accumulation and change the relative importance of experiential knowledge. Moreover, as we discuss these two perspectives separately. some efforts can be taken to examine whether and how some specic categories of DTs can play both roles at the same time. In addition, while our primary focus in this chapter is to explore how to acquire knowledge and how knowledge matters for opportunity pursuit in a digitally enabled world, knowledge perspective studies have also underlined the importance of knowledge application (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Grant, 1996}. The ability of knowledge application by nature varies across firms (Wu et al., 2019}, and therefore should be considered as the boundary condition for the conceptual framework proposed here. Source: Digital entrepreneurship: Impact on business and society. Available from: httpszlflinkspringercomlbook 0.1007 [978-3-030-53914-6 Motivation for the proposed study There is no doubt that digitalization has challenged the traditional pattern of doing business including opportunity pursuit in foreign markets. Past studies have offered many valuable insights with regard to international opportunity creation and capture in a digitally enabled world. but they are generally scattered and fragmented. With a keen interest in the entrepreneurial stance of South African businesses towards the broad African business landscape, and drawing on the entrepreneurship and international business (IB) literature, you seek to investigate how J8E- listed companies deploy digital technologies DTs as 'driving force' versus DTs as 'disrupting force' within the African Continental free trade area (AfCFTA) market. You view the interaction of digitalization and international opportunity as an objective reality; thus. you have decided to use a quantitative approach to answer the following research questions: Do JSE-listed companies rationalise their digital technologies within the AfCFTA market as a 'driving force' or as a 'disrupting force'? Does the performance of the AfCFTA operations of JSE-listed companies deploying DTs as 'driving force' differ from those deploying DTs as 'disrupting force"? What recommendations can be made to the management of JSE-listed companies on how best to leverage digital technologies within their AfCFTA operations?1.3 1.4 Briey discuss the essential ontological and epistemological elements of the research philosophy that would underpin your study. Briey elaborate on the research design that you would use in the study and the process you would follow to operationalise this particular design. (4 marks) (4 marks)