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The tourism and hospitality sector in twenty-first century becomes technology driven. Technology application in those sectors is strategic and demand driven. It facilitates tourism and hospitality marketing; destination promotion and imaging makes the services innovative, turns the interaction between industry and its consumers better than ever before, and enables the industry to cope with neo-competitive environment. Changes occur too in tourists’ demand, choices, and consumption patterns with the advent of e-mobility. Thus shifts within the paradigm of tourism and hospitality practices are perceived overtly. This chapter will study the expanse of technology application within those sectors, endeavour to develop a conceptual frame; and review the shifts and impacts that appear out of technology and those sectors interactions.

The global shipping industry has been rocked by a wave of disruptive innovation driven by a thriving ecosystem of digital technology start-ups that have emerged in the last few years and set up offices in Greece. After the appearance of COVID-19, entrepreneurial leadership has grown in importance for guiding commercial shipping through times of exceptional circumstances. The problem is that there is a lack of understanding of the experiences of Greek digital entrepreneurs launching their tech start-ups within the maritime sector – from the initial vision to a real-world innovative business disruptor. We aim to answer the questions of who the Greek digital entrepreneur in the maritime sector is and how their entrepreneurial actions contribute to a growing knowledge base of digital entrepreneurship for future theoretical research and professional practice. This single-subject, archival case study demonstrates the social and commercial value of the “who” and “how” of digital entrepreneurship in the maritime sector through the case of Harbor Lab, an Athens-based start-up that disrupted the maritime industry through innovative use of emerging technologies to calculate disbursements (port expenses) and through the establishment of a horizontal, empathetic, open workplace culture. The outcomes of this study contributed a fresh perspective of scholarly knowledge on digital entrepreneurship for future theoretical research and professional practice.

This chapter addresses ambidexterity at the individual level. Ambidexterity is defined as a company's ability to guarantee both short- and long-term successes by simultaneously exploring new market or new technological paths and improving existing products. We demonstrate that this ability can result from the evolution of social networks linking individuals involved in idea development. We used a longitudinal approach that combined case study and social network structure analysis of the R&D center of a semiconductor company. Six cases have been selected according to the level of disruption of the first idea generated and the end result in terms of exploration and exploitation. For these six cases, data have been gathered from monthly project reviews, press articles and listings of patents. Seventy-four interviews with key actors in the idea-development process have also been conducted.We mapped the relationships between actors who have contributed to the development of the idea through creative thinking and/or helped it to be accepted both internally and externally over three-year windows. Consequently, two network pictures are drawn for each case, and network structure indicators are computed for these two representations. We created a description of network evolution and the consequences of this process on the level of disruption of the ideas involved. This research demonstrated that different network structures and types of connections are relied upon depending on the explorative or exploitative objectives of teams of individuals.

In this paper, we investigate how digital technology disruptors and the incumbents who stand to be disrupted by them frame their arguments to transform or sustain existing institutional frameworks to enable or deter the market entry of these technologies. Using a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of three digital technologies – namely, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), cloud antenna, and over-the-top (OTT) technologies – we explore how stakeholders use public interest frames for this purpose. We find that entrepreneurs use three specific frames to drive institutional change for the successful adoption of digital technologies in the presence of established incumbents and powerful regulators: frames that emphasize the broad public appeal of the new digital technology; frames that emphasize efficiency, democracy, and technological advancement; and frames that emphasize present as well as future benefits to the public. We find that constructing interpretations of what serves the public interest is the primary tactic used by disruptors to gain market entry, and an equally popular weapon for incumbents to block the entry of new digital technologies. These interpretations lead to a framing contest aimed at influencing regulators and obtaining a more favorable institutional environment. Our empirical findings illustrate that new digital technologies themselves are not the sole contributors to institutional change. Rather, institutional outcomes associated with the introduction of new digital technologies are shaped by how disruptors and incumbents use public interest frames and how regulators react to these frames.