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Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are intensively shaping businesses and the economy as a whole, and AI-related research is exploding in many domains of business and management research. In contrast, AI has received relatively little attention within the domain of entrepreneurship research, while many entrepreneurship scholars agree that AI will likely shape entrepreneurship research in deep, disruptive ways. When summarizing both the existing entrepreneurship literature on AI and potential avenues for future research, the growing relevance of AI for entrepreneurship research manifests itself along two dimensions. First, AI applications in the real world establish a distinct research topic (e.g., whether and how entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ventures use and develop AI-based technologies, or how AI can function as an external enabler that generates and enhances entrepreneurial outcomes). In other words, AI is changing the research object in entrepreneurship research. The second dimension refers to drawing on AI-based research methods, such as big data techniques or AI-based forecasting methods. Such AI-based methods open several avenues for researchers to gain new, influential insights into entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ventures that are more difficult to assess using traditional methods. In other words, AI is changing the research methods. Given that, so far, human intelligence could not fully uncover and comprehend the secrets behind the entrepreneurial process that is so deeply embedded in uncertainty and opportunity, AI-supported research methods might achieve new breakthrough discoveries. We conclude that the field needs to embrace AI as a topic and research method more enthusiastically while maintaining the essential research standards and scientific rigor that guarantee the field’s well-being, reputation, and impact.

Citizen science and crowd science (CS) projects involve members of the public who participate in response to an open call and who can perform a broad range of research tasks. Scholars using the citizen science lens focus on the fact that many participants do not have formal scientific training, while scholars using the crowd science lens emphasize that participants are often recruited through an open call. CS projects have resulted in large-scale data sets, novel discoveries, and top-tier publications (i.e., scientific impact), but they can also have large societal and practical impacts by increasing the relevance of research or accomplishing other objectives such as science education and building awareness. The diverse landscape of CS projects reflects five underlying paradigms that capture different rationales for involving crowds and that require different organizational setups: crowd volume, broadcast search, user crowds, community production, and crowd wisdom. Within each CS project, the breadth of crowd involvement can be mapped along stages of the research process (e.g., formulating research questions, designing methods, collecting data). Within each stage, the depth of crowd involvement can be mapped with respect to four general types of contributions: activities, knowledge, resources, and decisions. Common challenges of CS projects relate to recruiting and engaging participants, organizational design, resource requirements, and ensuring the quality of contributions. Opportunities for future research include research on the costs and boundary conditions of CS as well as systematic assessments of different aspects of performance and how they relate to project characteristics. Future research should also investigate the role of artificial intelligence both as worker who can take over tasks from crowd members and as manager who can help organize CS activities.

Innovation indicators support research on innovation and the development of innovation policy. Once a policy has been implemented, innovation indicators can be used to monitor and evaluate the result, leading to policy learning. Producing innovation indicators requires an understanding of what innovation is. There are many definitions in the literature, but innovation indicators are based on statistical measurement guided by international standard definitions of innovation and of innovation activities. Policymakers are not just interested in the occurrence of innovation but in the outcome. Does it result in more jobs and economic growth? Is it expected to reduce carbon emissions, to advance renewable energy production and energy storage? How does innovation support the Sustainable Development Goals? From the innovation indicator perspective, innovation can be identified in surveys, but that only shows that there is, or there is not, innovation. To meet specific policy needs, a restriction can be imposed on the measurement of innovation. The population of innovators can be divided into those meeting the restriction, such as environmental improvements, and those that do not. In the case of innovation indicators that show a change over time, such as “inclusive innovation,” there may have to be a baseline measurement followed by a later measurement to see if inclusiveness is present, or growing, or not. This may involve social as well as institutional surveys. Once the innovation indicators are produced, they can be made available to potential users through databases, indexes, and scoreboards. Not all of these are based on the statistical measurement of innovation. Some use proxies, such as the allocation of financial and human resources to research and development, or the use of patents and academic publications. The importance of the databases, indexes, and scoreboards is that the findings may be used for the ranking of “innovation” in participating countries, influencing their behavior. While innovation indicators have always been influential, they have the potential to become more so. For decades, innovation indicators have focused on innovation in the business sector, while there have been experiments on measuring innovation in the public (general government sector and public institutions) and the household sectors. Historically, there has been no standard definition of innovation applicable in all sectors of the economy (business, public, household, and non-profit organizations serving households sectors). This changed with the Oslo Manual in 2018, which published a general definition of innovation applicable in all economic sectors. Applying a general definition of innovation has implications for innovation indicators and for the decisions that they influence. If the general definition is applied to the business sector, it includes product innovations that are made available to potential users rather than being introduced on the market. The product innovation can be made available at zero price, which has influence on innovation indicators that are used to describe the digital transformation of the economy. The general definition of innovation, the digital transformation of the economy, and the growing importance of zero price products influence innovation indicators.