Introduction

While it has always been important to understand who users interact with, in the present-day competitive world, this need has become even more imperative (Saura et al., 2021a, b). In the domain of business, it is of vital importance, for the success of an organization, to understand what influences entrepreneurs’ or consumers’ satisfaction to take relevant actions. In recent years, technology coupled with innovation processes has led to the emergence of new consumer trends (Alam & Patwary, 2021), as well as promoted digital development (Desai, 2019), creation of digital communities (von Briel & Recker, 2017), use of social networks (Luqman et al., 2021), among other aspects (Huizingh et al., 2011). All these trends jointly determine and directly affect how entrepreneurs relate within the online world (Tu & Akhter, 2022).

In this paradigm, which has a direct relationship to research on human psychology and marketing, there is a well-known classification of personality traits or factors into the so-called Big Five (Leutner et al., 2014). This classification model, which has been widely used in psychology, analyzes the composition of five personality dimensions in a broad sense (Roccas et al., 2002). Within this classification, the first factor is “Openness to experience”, which refers to open-minded, imaginative, curious individuals, with a preference for adventure, emotions, creativity, and a taste for variety. Secondly, there is the so-called “extraversion” factor that encompasses individuals with a high level of sociability, a pronounced connection with the external world, and a tendency to avoid loneliness. The third factor is called “conscientiousness/scrupulousness”, also known as conscientiousness, this is typical of individuals with good levels of self-control, and who are good at planning, organizing, and executing tasks. Fourth, there is the factor “cordiality, friendliness, or agreeableness” which refers to people who reflect on their intrapersonal tendencies, are trustworthy, obedient, and conciliatory in attitude. Finally, there is the trait “emotional instability”, which is typical of people with certain levels of anxiety, worry, and lack of homogeneity in behavior.

Both marketing companies and entrepreneurs can use this classification to successfully implement their actions or strategies aimed at their specific audiences (Weinmann et al., 2016). This has been a useful and valuable resource for years; however, with technological advances and innovation, as well as the emergence of the Internet, there are new needs to know users with whom companies and entrepreneurs with a digital presence relate have emerged. In a connected digital ecosystem where a large amount of information is generated daily, the Internet and social networks have become optimal systems for exploring the world (Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021), creating knowledge and extracting ideas on both traditional and new topics (Tandon et al., 2021).

In these settings, it is important to apply the theory of personality traits in the domain of digital entrepreneurship. The digital entrepreneur is becoming increasingly aware of what s/he is worth within the network (Malgieri & Custers, 2018). Indeed, today’s digital entrepreneurs are increasingly active, impatient, willing to invest a lot of time on online searching and sharing information of all kinds, be it news, promotions, products, opinions (). Accordingly, it is necessary to analyze which traits are determinant in the entrepreneurs’ digital environments. Therefore, the main aim of the present study is to explore different personalities of the digital entrepreneurs. The main research questions addressed in the present study are as follows: RQ1— “What are the personalities of digital entrepreneurs?” and RQ2— “Does digital entrepreneurs’ behavior affect how entrepreneurs develop their projects online? To answer these two questions, we formulate the following objectives:

  • To create knowledge about digital entrepreneurs’ behavior;

  • To identify new perspectives on the boundaries of online entrepreneurs’ behavior and personalities;

  • To establish guidelines for the use of digital personality classification models for entrepreneurs;

  • To develop new digital entrepreneurs’ behavior personalities in digital environments.

The originality of this study lies in a review of relevant scientific literature focused on digital entrepreneurs’ personality classifications, an area that requires constant updating. An important contribution lies in the fact that, in addition to filling a gap in the literature, the results provide significant implications for companies and organizations with a digital presence. Methodologically, as will be specified below, we will conduct a systematic literature review following the approaches previously proposed by Carvalho et al. (2019). Based on the results, the theoretical implications of digital personalities in consumption patterns and the relationship in the digital environment will be discussed. In addition, we will also discuss theory building based on the most current major articles and relevant papers on the relationship between the studied topics.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents an in-depth review of the relevant literature on the topic. Section 3 provides detail on the methodology, while section 4 reports the results. Section 5 provides a discussion of the topic. Finally, section 6 contains the conclusions, theoretical and practical implications, as well as the limitations of the present study.

Theoretical framework

The digital world and the Internet have become integral parts of the social life of individuals, both on personal and professional levels; therefore, entrepreneurs’ behavior is one of the factors that any marketing expert should handle to perfection in order to successfully develop projects (Pereva et al., 2020). One of the clear objectives of marketing is to sell a product or a service to a specific audience, and the only way to achieve this is by learning customers’ patterns, getting to know their needs, and analyzing what actions they perform at each moment of the process. Said differently, digital marketing is an indispensable tool to obtain a better understanding and interpretation of what happens on the virtual plane (Bala & Verma, 2018). It is a modern, dynamic, and constantly evolving tool that every company can use to improve its performance and achieve its objectives.

In the past, understanding the behavior of human beings in relation to organizations was not a relevant factor, or at least one that was of paramount importance. Today, this has changed, and understanding human behavior has become an important aspect for all those who want to achieve good results (Skalicka et al., 2022). Every day, users or consumers become much more demanding in terms of the approach that companies use when selling or interacting with them. In this context, it is necessary to be very attentive to their attitudes, interactions with each other and digital media, movements when making a purchase, as well as preferred channels to communicate (Godwin, 2019).

Classic marketing differs from digital marketing in that the latter puts the network user as the main actor. The power no longer belongs only to marketing departments and their executives; instead, the entrepreneurs set guidelines and directives with their behaviors (Ullal et al., 2021). Due to its constant evolution, digital marketing is a challenge that highlights the interaction between human and computer, described with the acronym HCI (Human Computer Interaction) (Saura et al., 2021a, b). This area of study blends computer engineering, mobile systems, user experience, and context (Balaskas & Rigou, 2021).

Today, it is essential to understand the impact of consumer behavior on every factor of life, including cultural, economic, technological, and routine changes for people (Ebrahimi et al., 2022). In addition, understanding who the specific target audience of each organization facilitates the marketing work through creating an offer for a product, service or good that better fits the needs, tastes, and expectations of the target audience (Cartwright et al., 2021). By adapting the strategy, communication, and tactics to reach a specific market, a company can achieve the ideal of reaching and keeping itself in the minds of its potential customers, who will then feel that they relate to the organization and turn to it when they need any of the goods or services it offers (Sahu et al., 2020).

At present, consumers are rapidly changing. With constant technological innovation, changes in mentality and routine (Mirsch et al., 2017), as well as new formulas for work and life, the customers no longer wait for brands, have a defensive position, or indulge in impulse buying (Bao et al., 2022). Today, owing to the advent of the digital world, people freely share their opinions about a companies, products, or service via the Internet (Mackey et al., 2015). It is already a necessity that they can give their opinions about the products they purchase. This is called omni-channel, which is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to obtain knowledge and extract useful insights for their projects (Bijmolt et al., 2021).

To reach this point, some phenomena have had to occur that explain, to some extent, current trends in consumer behavior (Song, 2019). On the one hand, there is the so-called Google effect, which refers to the impact that this search engine has had on the society. The Google effect is responsible for the great capacity to obtain necessary information with a very simple action of typing what we are interested in the search engine. The number of options that this tool gives directly influences the market, since it can offer all kinds of information a user wants to show and make known (Sparrow et al., 2011). From this source, digital entrepreneurs acquire ideas, information, and specific guidelines for both users and the organizations that, when capable of working with SEO strategies, can create a better positioning in the network (Saura, 2021). On the other hand, there is the effect of social networks (Saxton & Wang, 2014). The creation of social networks has dramatically changed communication in the society on both personal and business levels. As social networks are part of people’s daily lives, organizations and brands have been gradually taking positions and entering this ever-changing world that offers many opportunities (Ullal et al., 2021).

Social networks are now a determining factor in any marketing department, and, when used properly, they can boost sales of any product in record time (Ebrahimi et al., 2022). Social networks are a great alternative in terms of advertising and promotions of any brand, as, with the large amount of information obtained from users, entrepreneurs can also make a much more segmented strategy, direct actions towards a specific audience, as well as get much closer to the target audience (West & Bogers, 2014). In addition, social networks join all that Big Data can offer today (Amado et al., 2018), such as possibility to get and work with a large amount of valid, contrasted, and useful information to understand target customer groups that an organization wants to address and their needs and expectation. In addition to being a great place to know who the entrepreneurs are, social networks are very dynamic and open in terms of freedom of expression, so users can freely share their opinions about brands and their products and services (Sahu et al., 2020).

Finally, the third phenomenon that has influenced the construction of digital entrepreneurs’ behavior is the service effect (Auzair & Langfield-Smith, 2005). Service delivery platforms initiated considerable changes in terms of building a business model that implied a more human advance for brands worldwide. Owing to these service applications, many other businesses, which are mediated by digital systems that allow the exchange of information between consumers and entrepreneurs or vice versa, have emerged (Schneider et al., 2018). With service being a big part of the organizational culture of businesses and brands around the world, apps or platforms offering services changed the game for all entrepreneurs to achieve a successful development of their projects.

There are certain characteristics that define the new way of consuming (Minami et al., 2021) and that any company in digital media should consider keeping up with the needs and desires of its target audience. The focus on customer experience is one of the most relevant points, since advertising and the way in which products or services are sold or offered has a great impact on performing an action. Despite depersonalization promoted by the digital world, the current trend is precisely to demystify digital personalities and create synergies of trust between companies and consumers (Boyd & Pennebacker, 2017). Overall, the quality of advertisements or product prices are less relevant factors unless they are coupled with a satisfactory customer experience (Neumeyer et al., 2020).

This is where another determining aspect of the new characteristics that define the current model comes in: the customer has the power. What may be a classic definition is today more important than ever. With the social networks, the revolution of the real power of the customer has taken on more significance than ever (Shafer et al., 2005). In the digital world, customers always have the power and have the final say, which is why, in the digital world, there are so many options to involve consumers in every step of their customer's journey. Finally, the humanizing trend should also be noted, which marks a shift from the use of very formal language and abundance of corporate and technical terms to a more colloquial, dynamic, and natural language. This trend enhances creating links and generating relationships with the audience (Mauri et al., 2018).

Of note, digital personality is an accurate reflection of not only how digital consumers and entrepreneurs behave and feel, but also of what actions they perform regarding their personal information and how much value they assign to their data protection (Da Veiga & Martins, 2015). Although, in recent years, several laws have been introduced to protect Internet users, there is a great deal of general ignorance about such a specific and technical subject, even though entrepreneurs are increasingly informed about the use and handling of their personal data and digital identity. All this means that their actions can be modified, or that there is a change in the hierarchy of the type of information they are willing to share on the Internet.

Methodology

In the present study, to ensure that our research is carried out in a rigorous, transparent, and reproducible manner, we conducted a systematic literature review. Overall, SLR is a type of literature review that collects and critically analyzes all relevant papers through a rigorous systematic process. It is a systematic method to identify, evaluate, and interpret the work of different researchers, academics, and professionals in the chosen field (Rother, 2007). This includes studies that collect information previously generated by other authors and come from already published articles evaluated through a meta-analysis.

In general, for an optimal research results, a systematic review should be conducted in a rigorous and objective manner, and strategies that limit errors are frequently used (Noble et al., 2019). Some of these strategies include the search for reproducible and explicit selection criteria (Leonelli, 2018), the exhaustive search of all relevant articles on the topic, the evaluation of the synthesis, and interpretation of the results (Papadopoulos et al., 2019). In this type of research, quantitative and qualitative viewpoints are used, and data are collected through primary studies using mathematical and methodological tools to create a combined effect to conclude with a synthesis of the generated evidence. One of the strengths of a systematic review is that it constitutes an efficient research design, is consistent in the generalization of the results, is precise in estimation and, as argued by Saura (2021), offers a strict evaluation of the published information. Furthermore, if the aim is to answer the same question by integrating different studies, the sample size can be increased, which, in turn, increases statistical power (Dickersin & Berlin, 1992).

Our aim was to identify which personality components determine entrepreneurs and online users’ behaviors. Our second goal was to provide a comprehensive summary of the available literature. The documents were initially retrieved from one of the most relevant bibliographic databases in the field of Social Sciences: Web of Science (WoS); we additionally searched Scopus, AIS Digital Library, and IEEE Access. To rule out the subjective bias, a keyword search of the bibliography was used.

The search focused on the articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the WoS, Scopus, AIS Digital Library, and IEEE Access database. A structure like the one proposed by Saura (2021) was followed; specifically, the key terms of the research were first identified, and then the relevant searches were performed. As shown in the Fig. 1, the search terms were “entrepreneurs” AND "user behavior" AND "digital user" OR "personality".

Fig. 1
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Search terms in databases

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The search focused on papers published in the period from 2020 to the present, carrying out the data search in April 2022. The search returned a total of 2,651 related articles, of which 177 met the established criteria. In this way, we obtained more rigorous, accurate, and complete results. Table 1 provides further detail on all publications included in the final sample. Furthermore, the details of all articles, including the title, abstract, and keywords, were thoroughly reviewed to verify that the documents were related to our topic. In cases of doubt, or of greater interest in a specific article, the entire document was read, and the most interesting parts were extracted. In this way, all documents that were less relevant for the topic were excluded. The PRISMA diagram in Fig. 2 shows the search and filtering progress (Table 2).

Table 1 Search terms used and results
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Table 2 Included articles
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The obtained results were then classified according to the consequences or influence that these types of personalities have on online entrepreneurs and users’ behavior, and theoretical and practical implications of the results for companies, businesses, and organizations with an online presence were analyzed.

According to the studies mentioned above, in the present study, we conducted a literature review to classify relevant studies in the most relevant databases. The terms "entrepreneurs" and "user behavior" were used to determine which of the studies addressed our research question. When the results were inconclusive, "user behavior", “entrepreneurs’ behavior” OR "personality" were used. The results were then sorted and filtered according to previously established selection criteria in order to select relevant articles, conferences, or book chapters. The articles were then carefully studied to determine whether they contained terms relevant to our topic. In this way, all studies containing irrelevant specifications were excluded.

Figure 2 shows the step-by-step development of the methodology. First, using four databases (Web of Science, Scopus, AIS Digital Library, and IEEE Access), we conducted the searches related through two key terms–"entrepreneurs" AND "user behavior" OR “digital user”, with which a total of 2,651 articles were found. Then, the key word "personality" was used to focus the results to a greater linkage with our research objective. Next, the results were filtered (see Table 1), leaving only the articles published between 2020 and 2022, Open Access, within the category of Computer Science. The results were then analyzed by title, abstract and keywords. At this stage, 2,460 articles were eliminated as irrelevant to the objective of our study. Finally, 18 potential articles were extracted.

Fig. 2
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PRISMA

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Results

The results of this systematic literature review shed light on this very current and necessary topic in order to understand what entrepreneurs’ personalities are like (RQ1), and how different personalities affect their digital projects (RQ2). The emergence of new relationships between entrepreneurs and users as a result of the spread of Internet and its multiple possibilities for two-way communication have given risen to the need to attend to these relationships and work to make them maximally efficiently (Neri & Calderón, 2019). This involved tracking different multifaceted behaviors that digital users and entrepreneurs may have (Vamosi et al., 2022), as well as click streams, geolocation, recording and leveraging the data they generate, and so forth. Today, companies become increasingly interested in optimally using these data; indeed, many of the organizations that store these data do not know how to treat, analyze, and work with them, thus losing an important part of all positive things that Big Data can offer (Márquez et al., 2018).

All this information that can be used to segment entrepreneurs and look for those behavioral similarities can be measured with novel technologies such as the generic framework based on deep neural networks to quantify the similarity of ordered frequencies in observed event histories (Vamosi et al., 2022). Another new technology is the model proposed by Feng (2022), an e-commerce data prediction and analysis method based on the GBDT deep learning model. This model was proposed as a response to the low efficiency of traditional data analysis methods for massive analysis in e-commerce. The GBDT model is an iterative decision tree algorithm and consists of different decision trees. As these technologies arrive and are implemented, there emerges the need to work with previous classifications that can shed light on this paradigm.

Personality determines how Internet users act and interact with companies. Accordingly, empirical research on the impact of digital marketing content with user engagement behaviors (Hou et al., 2021) is essential to categorize and obtain different options to design digital content that enhances online consumer and entrepreneur engagement.

These options for successful designs can be broadly classified into three groups: (1) fundamental elements (e.g., the theme and the emotional association) of the content; (2) structural elements (e.g., the use of the first person and segmentation); and (3) presentation elements (e.g., images, videos, etc.). In psychology, the theory of personality traits refers to the attempts to better describe different personalities. Such traits include behavioral patterns and emotional patterns, in addition to the previously established personality types, all of which provide a theoretical basis. A common widely used model is the theory of five personality factors. Other types of personalities proposed in previous research are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3 The identified entrepreneurs’ personalities
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The seven personalities mentioned in Table 3 can be decisive at the time of developing a strategy or knowing how to address the most recurrent type of user. In what follows, we present further detail on each of these types. (i) Altruistic: this type of personality is characterized as informers, i.e., entrepreneurs who share information with others since they consider that their findings can also be important for their acquaintances; (ii) Professionals: in this case, we are dealing with people who share specific information about their professional facet and use the Internet to make their work known. It is their own marketing strategy, consciously or not, to expose themselves to the professional world; (iii) Boomerang: these entrepreneurs publish content expecting a return; thus, they seek the response from their contacts in the network, either through views, comments, likes, and so forth; (iv) Selective: this type of personality is the most exquisite, as such entrepreneurs make a great selection of contacts with whom they have a virtual relationship and always consider sharing certain interests or preferences. Entrepreneurs of this type of focus on sharing information specifically with that segmented group they form; (v) Connectors: in this case, entrepreneurs do share information or opinions of all kinds, they are not limited to a specific group or to specific interests. Entrepreneurs of this type are very attractive for companies and brands, as they tend to have a greater reach and a greater number of followers; (vi) Rebels: these entrepreneurs are the most selective entrepreneurs and believe they are at the forefront in many types of topics. Finally, (vii) Trolls: these entrepreneurs criticize brands or companies, add uncomfortable and harmful comments or opinions, and do not seek to provide constructive criticism. This group is most problematic for marketing departments, since it is not possible to have a great control of what these entrepreneurs do on the Internet.

Many entrepreneurs seek to become more connected with their users and employ the network as a means of communication and sales; in addition, they look for their market niche and address it in a much more direct way than years ago, i.e., when communication channels were more rigid and distant. Knowing what type of personality an entrepreneur has can inform an organization about his/her tastes, interests, and needs. In addition, today’s users are active parts of the brand (Kokina et al., 2021), rather than passive receivers. Therefore, it is important to attend to them and make them feel part of the brand’s community.

In addition to the classification, there are other types of digital entrepreneurs. Table 4 shows the classification of 5 digital consumer personalities, Big Five Model (Zuckerman et al., 1993) developed by Costa and McCrae (1992):

Table 4 Types of digital entrepreneurs
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As can be seen in Table 4, the broad communicator is defined as the one who tends to engage in less risk-averse online activities, has extensive digital knowledge, and acts accordingly. Furthermore, core entrepreneurs seek a beneficial return from other brands, i.e., when they share information, they do so to benefit from a promotion, discount, etc. Next comes the group of basic participants, understood as those entrepreneurs who are not as technologically skilled as the previous group, but who seek interaction and a presence on the network, albeit in a more timid and secondary way. In fourth place in the classification come the so-called exclusively buyers, i.e., the ones who have more confidence in the network to buy and acquire the products they want. Such entrepreneurs search options, compare prices, and make decisions based on the information they find within their reach. On the other hand, another group is passive users who remain reticent to use the benefits of the Internet and spend less time online to perform fewer concrete actions. Finally, there is the group of proactive gatekeepers, who have a great value for companies; such entrepreneurs are highly aware that, in the network, there is a targeted market based on their personal data to suggest a type of products or services; such entrepreneurs see the positive side to this reality. They are not as active on social networks as other groups, but they are very cautious when doing so, so they do not tend to pour opinions or content harmful to brands, and they do feel some reticence regarding privacy issues concerning their personal data (Dalpé et al., 2019).

From this base comes the HEXACO model (Lee & Ashton, 2004), which is based on the following personality factors: honesty-humanity (H), emotionality (E), extroversion (X), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (O). The scores on each of these factors are obtained based a series of specially designed questions (Ashton and Lee 2009). Other authors have used the five-factor personality model to extract valuable information about entrepreneurs relying on psycholinguistic analysis of entrepreneurs to improve prediction of entrepreneurial performance (Lambiotte & Kosinki, 2014). In this way they distinguish between digital entrepreneurs and traditional entrepreneurs, determining that the former is less concerned about the future than the latter, also using neuroticism to their advantage (Bandera & Passerini, 2020). There is literature that offers more specific insights by conducting personality studies of entrepreneurs through their actions on Twitter (Obschonka et al., 2017). The aim of the study was to test whether there were consistent differences between the personality of entrepreneurs and superstar managers, with the understanding that the former should have more entrepreneurial traits within their behavior and personality. Through a univariate analysis and several multivariate analyses, it was found that there were notable differences between the personalities of the two groups.

In addition, certain practices that directly affect the relationship of digital entrepreneurs with other brands, companies, and users have emerged. The emergence of digital nudging has brought increasing attention of marketers (Djurica & Figl, 2017), as well as researchers who see an opportunity in this theory of nudging. Rather than not using changing or prohibiting anything to potential consumers, this theory focuses on giving the last push that users need to buy in an easy and uncomplicated way. This technique involves many ideas that have been practiced in the marketing world for years and that are already established on a regular basis, such as, for example, suggested or predetermined purchases on web pages that a certain user usually visits. In today's highly competitive world, with so many options available to individuals, this theory has gained ground by guiding and convincing consumers (Shmakov, 2021). In this way, there is a higher probability that a potential consumer will end up making a purchase decision with only a small change in digital marketing strategies, including a minor change in the environment and with a simple and inexpensive way to implement it.

Discussion

In the present study, we investigated the relationship between different personalities and traits of online entrepreneurs and their online behavior. Based on a review of previous research, we obtained conclusive results that confirm that there a close relationship between digital entrepreneurs’ personalities and their online behavior. Our literature review provided a deep understanding of the main research developed in this field of study, obtaining results and data that offer several important implications for further research.

There has been considerable general research on the relationship between digital personalities and entrepreneurs’ online behavior. Several more specific studies analyzed voice systems in virtual environments (Aylett et al., 2017). The results of the latter studies supported the general conclusions of influence of personalities, but qualified specific aspects regarding the implications for the synthesis of voices, the choices of voices to communicate through digital media, and the selection of the type of system for applications used as personal assistants or conversational agents. These findings are important, as it is important to develop an emotional relationship with the entrepreneur who receives spoken information.

On the technological level, there are many avenues to continue exploring in order to work with values such as personality traits, as well as to create a deep learning architecture and obtain the best performance from the existing models. In this respect, previous studies demonstrated that using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to predict personality traits yields a better performance of the system (Christian et al., 2021). These models are characterized by making personality predictions through extracting digital content (Benartzi, 2017) into specific features and then mapping them according to a personality model. This has led to the emergence of the Big Five theory (Azucar et al., 2018), which is now being further developed and refined.

There has also been research into how digital entrepreneurs and users reveal specific aspects of their personality through the content they share on the network (e.g., through opinions, forums, and other interactions) either with their acquaintances and virtual contacts (KN et al., 2021). In the study, a personality assessment system was developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of estimating personality traits through users’ online linguistic-stylistic cues. This knowledge about the entrepreneurs can help to anticipate movements and behaviors from a marketing perspective, directly influencing the actions taken by companies in order to induce them to buy their suppliers products or services (Martín & León, 2018).

One of the important challenges in this domain is the safe implementation of artificial intelligence which, along with making it possible to make more accurate decisions, carries some risk to the privacy of digital users’ personal information (). All information that can be extracted by companies has a counterpoint in terms of the large amount of data continuously generated and accumulated by all devices that digital entrepreneurs have today.

In this study, we investigated major security issues in terms of everything that encompasses artificial intelligence and identified 10 main issues in terms of privacy and user security problems. Some of these issues include malware, cybersecurity attacks, data storage vulnerabilities, use of test software in IoT (Internet of Things), as well as potential leaks due to the lack of digital user experience. All these issues can have negative consequences for users. To minimize such risks, the Data Protection Regulation was recently approved by the European Parliament, where, among other regulations, the concept of the Right to be Forgotten was developed ().

Conclusions

The main aim of the present study was identified major classifications of digital users and entrepreneurs’ personalities so that to provide a clearer view of the issue for companies, brands, and organizations in the digital world and to enable them to take advantage of this knowledge to create their digital marketing strategies. Doing so would also increase brand value and help companies to position themselves correctly in a changing and very demanding environment.

To this end, we conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) through which we identified 18 potential articles that provide useful knowledge on this topic. Based on this finding, it can be concluded that there is room for the creation of new literature on the subject, since there are no studies in the academic or business literature that have analyzed the subject using same approach. Our results also demonstrate that we are facing a challenging topic, of complete actuality and necessity, on which new relevant research can be developed. Along these lines, this study aims to open new perspectives.

With respect to our first research question (RQ1: What are the personalities of digital entrepreneurs?), our results suggest that there is specific knowledge about the traits, personalities, and behavior of certain types of entrepreneurs who surf the Internet. Accordingly, in order to obtain successful results in their online projects, companies must consider this information and develop a marketing plan and corresponding specific strategies. In this way, they will be able to achieve benefits in the short-, medium-, and long term.

As concerns the second question (RQ2: Does digital entrepreneurs’ behavior affect how they develop their projects online?), a review of the published literature revealed that digital entrepreneurs’ behavior it does affect the success of a entrepreneurs depending on what kind of behavior its audience has, those who interact with them, since these actions can drive good product innovations by detecting certain needs, and new marketing campaigns with more specific approaches can emerge. For these reasons, and in order to work with more concrete and achievable objectives, it is important to highlight the need to implement techniques and training to detect what type of consumers the entrepreneur is interested in.

Theoretical implications

The present study offers a broader and more comprehensive understanding of a complex topic that can be explored in depth in future research, as there are different variables to consider regarding the constant changes in the digital world. Our results can help to simplify concepts so that future academics can establish new relevant research. Opportunities in the digital science and technology sectors, as well as advances in psychology discussed in the present study, are rapidly and continuously advancing, so this study will be updated with the development of new formulas and relevant behavioral factors. In addition, several of the topics discussed here can be considered in future research, as they are of interest to the business domain related to or positioned in the digital world.

Practical implications

The results of the present study are also of interest to all professionals related to the world of digital marketing, and all entrepreneurs, managers, and workers in the digital sector who want to improve the results of their companies, brands, or customers, deepen their knowledge on the subject, and become more efficient in their communication on the Internet and management. Of note, the implementation of strategies based on the types of personalities or behaviors described in this study will improve not only in the processes of creating actions, but also in the quality of the offered services.

The results reported in the present study can be used by entrepreneurs or by the marketing or communication departments of the companies themselves, to better understand which consumers they have and which methods and tools they should better use to improve effectiveness of their practices and communication. This will improve results, help entrepreneurs make better decisions, actions, and campaigns, as well as become reference companies or brands with a remarkable success in the sales of goods or services. Today when technology and all the options it offers are a premium, it is essential to use this knowledge for the benefit of the company and its potential customers that, owing the data, can ensure a fast and easy communication of the Internet and improve the image and services offered by designing better solutions.

Limitations and future research

The limitations of the present study include a rather small number of reviewed papers published to date at the same time, scarcity of previous research on the topic also demonstrated that this field of study can be expanded and studied soon. Another limitation is related to the chosen databases since, although the selected databases are among the most relevant and prestigious in the field of social sciences, any choice may lead to the omission of some relevant articles.

It is interesting to analyze how technological progress is transforming the business domain, which brings the digital world to the forefront, from the perspective of who it is addressed to. This also fills and completes the limited available literature and provides novel opportunities for further research. In terms of directions of future research, the following aspects deserve further investigation: (i) the heterogeneity of end-users, (ii) collective aspects of end-user empowerment, and (iii) contextual aspects of end-user empowerment. Overall, there has been some previous research on the importance of digital entrepreneurs not only in terms of the end-user, but also in terms of organizations and how it affects them more internally. Workers are, after all, consumers with personalities to be valued (Hacker & Riemer, 2021). It is at this point where another interesting avenue of conducting a CSR analysis to identify different roles of this type of digital entrepreneur emerged. Digital entrepreneurs’ empowerment with a human-centered approach towards the online economy must be considered as a fundamental aspect (Neumann et al., 2020).