Sociological Examination of the Impact of Digital Platforms on Coporate Startup

The use of digital media enables entrepreneurs to develop their startups in strategic manner. However, how entrepreneurs develop their identity through digital media is currently underexplored. Our focus is on how entrepreneurs describe their products and, in turn, how that shapes the growth of their businesses. The purpose was to take a sociological scrutiny of different processes of developing identity through digital media. The specific objective of the study is to establish the factors responsible for the promotion of digital entrepreneur process amongst others. Survey research design was adopted to meet the objective. The data consists of 50 qualitative interview guide were used in the entrepreneur start-up clinic of both Association of Business Development Professional in Nigeria (ABDPIN) and Longrich Networking Entrepreneurs Webinars. Interview method was used to collect the data. Qualitative analysis was chosen because Its methods are exploratory. Findings to this objective was that the practice of strategic sparring and brand co-creation facilitate the development towards three alternative identity types. The study highlighted the need for every startup to prioritize data collection in order to understand the way to tap into intended audiences and influence them. The economic and sociological theories of entrepreneurship were adopted to help understand what motivates startups. It was concluded that as technology become more powerful, digital business platforms will emerge the leading order of business. Amongst the recommendations made was that there is need for digital startup to understand that Social Media Marketing is one of the best ways to get exposure and customers.


INTRODUCTION
D igital media are very important tools for entrepreneurs and startups. They help in connecting the entrepreneur with external audiences and customers through diverse channels and modes of communication, as well facilitate internal communication, decision-making and organizational development (Kraus,  . This is evident in recent calls to bring mainstream entrepreneurs and predominantly industry-focused research on media entrepreneurship closer together to advance theory-building (Achtenhagen, 2017) and, in turn, create new theoretical constructs that enable capturing and investigating interdisciplinary topics (Horst & Murschetz, 2019). Similarly, Nambisan (2018) calls for explicit theorizing of concepts related to digital technologies which can better address how these digital (media) technologies are transforming the nature of entrepreneurial processes and outcomes as well as how entrepreneurs act.
In particular, there is need to enhance theoretical understanding of entrepreneurial identity development (Leitch & Harrison, 2016). This is shown in a recent study carried out by ( Furthermore, the major concern of industrial and development sociologist is the processes of organizational emergence, development and sustainability. This underline, why we need to know more about how entrepreneurs develop their identity in respect to social media which is highly necessitated due to the global pandemic. Therefore, the study draws on the concept of mediatization, which describes the role of various media as part of the process of the communicative construction of social and cultural reality, (Couldry & Hepp, 2013) and to investigate how entrepreneurs and small startups uses digital media technologies for both individual and organizational development.
Modern study of sociology focuses on the application of traditional sociological concepts in analyzing dynamics in contemporary human society. This marks a departure from the traditional approach of centering on social relation concepts, themes and issues, (Tiryakian, 2001). It is on this premise that this paper is designed to examine the varied views, models and concept of digital platforms on corporate startup. A startup is called digital when it is main assets are linked to technological investments. Its value proposition is based on at least one of the following characteristics: Digital Startup are contributing and feeding off of technological changes at the same time. A startup is a young company that is just beginning to develop. Startups are usually small and initially financed and operated by a handful of founders or one individual.

Supplementary information
The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.15520/ijcrr.v11i08.83 0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
IJCRR 11 (08), 21737−21745 SOCIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS ON COPORATE STARTUP Entrepreneurship refers to the concept of developing and managing a business venture in order to gain profit by taking several risks in the corporate world. Entrepreneurship can also be referred to as the willingness to start a new business. Entrepreneurship can broadly be defined as the creation or extraction of value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, which may include other values than simply economic ones. Entrepreneurship is also seen as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which is often initially a small business, or has the "capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any risks to make profit.
Mediatization on the other hand is part of paradigmatic shift in media and communication research. Following the concept of 'mediation', 'mediatization' has become the proper concept for capturing how the process of communication transform society, designating large-scale relationships. The concept has evolved to focus not only on media effects but on the interrelation between the changes on media communication on the one hand and sociocultural changes on the other hand, as part of our everyday communication practices and communicative construction of reality. Mediatization research investigates the interrelation between media communicative change and socio-cultural change, understood as a meta-process. It is a conceptual construct designating long-term processes of change.
The term "digital identity formation" refers to a body of information about an individual, organization or electronic device that exists online. Digital identity also denotes certain aspects of civil and personal identity that has resulted from the widespread use of identity information to represent people in an acceptable, trusted digital format in computer systems.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
Since the 1980s, the focus of industrial choices in Nigeria has changed substantially as a result of the transition from industrial policies to small, medium enterprises/entrepreneurship policies. More recently, to react to the deep economic and financial crisis of 2008 and to sustain the diffusion of Information Computer Technology ( ICT), industrial policy measures have been fundamentally finalized at providing instruments increasing starting-up and the emergence of the self-employment in general, by spreading entrepreneurial culture and stimulating the direct participation of citizens in entrepreneurial process. New ventures are believed to be pathway for increase in employment, especially for youth suffering from disproportionate lack of job opportunities, while the startups, considered as innovation-based ventures, have spurred up the ambition of accelerating the adoption and diffusion of border line technologies. These purposes have been sustained by measures improving the business environments, trying to make them economically conducive for firm emergence. Among these new measures, there are R&D grants and tax benefits, business accelerators and incubators, incentives and facilities for university-based spin-offs and financing of risk initiatives.
Nevertheless, this strategy has often led to unsatisfactory results, notably as regard to the contribution to territorial economic growth, innovations spreading, and dissemination of skills and competencies. Even in local contexts where high business birth rates were registered, there have been no relevant increases of key economic indicators, such as gross income, firms' survival, or profit level. Secondly, usually new firms are often equated as startups. But not all new firms necessarily are startup, as well as startups are dissimilar in terms of value generation or job creation. The problem is that too few startups are able to become high growth firms, which are able to assure a tangible contribution to the territorial context in terms of employment, income, investment, knowledge, and competencies. Indeed, startups are unsteady activities, with high probability of failure or destined to remain small business. In the last circumstances, the contribution to regional growth is rather limited, or does not exist.
Technological innovation in itself is not a panacea as it is risky and normally takes a long time to deploy its effects and to be fully appreciated. These peculiarities contrast with the typical weaknesses of new ventures, when they are not able to evolve in more established societal or legal forms. The present overwhelming focus of technological innovation might require an ambiguous meaning when related to startups. Firms operating in the traditional sectors (automotive, domestic appliances and furnishings), in Western countries often exhibit higher growth rates than firms placed at the technological border. The capacity to propose, over the time, more and more effective business models could, therefore, overcome the prominence of technological factor. Hence, all higher grown firms are neither necessarily high-tech startups nor a new business in general. It is logical to think that insisting on digital platform as a modest way to business growth is one sure way of combating decimation and oppression from established agencies at work premises and this should be one of the major thrusts of the MSMEs/Entrepreneurial and startups business growth process. This unfortunate, anti-startup behaviour therefore, calls for some intellectual efforts to empirically elucidate factors swaying digital platform of corporate startup.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
The main objective of this study is to examine the social association between digital platforms and corporate startup, during this period of the covid 19 pandemic, while other specific objectives are to: i. Establish the factors responsible for the promotion of digital entrepreneur process.
ii. Ascertain whether the advent of the novel pandemic of covid 19 has resulted to digital platform corporation startup.
iii. Establish the need for digital identity in its proper context for startup corporations.

A Survey of Nigeria's Tech Firms:
In the fall of 2018, ONE Campaign and the Center for Global Development surveyed 93 technological firms, mostly in Lagos and Abuja, to better understand challenges and opportunities in the tech sector. The survey sought to reveal the composition of firms in the tech sector and to describe the constraints facing these firms. To understand the challenges and opportunities in the Nigerian tech sector, a data collection tool was crafted drawing upon various sources, including the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The data collection tool comprises of questions on the operations of firms, the business environment, access to finance, and the degree of innovation in the tech industry. The aim of the work is to support public and private sector efforts to expand the tech sector in Nigeria so that it continues to be a source of employment and inclusive economic growth.
The first major private sector incubation hub in the city the Co-Creation Hub, or CcHub, which includes Facebook and Google as partners was founded in Yaba. Yaba had fewer than 10 start-ups in 2013; it now has close to 100 firms. It hosts digital labs for the First Bank of Nigeria PLC and Stanbic IBTC, which is a subsidiary of Africa's largest financial institution (Ackerman & Ibukan, 2019). In 2013, the Nigerian government was persuaded to waive taxes for MainOne, the firm that installed Yaba's internet infrastructure. The government has since committed to developing Yaba further, taking a group of tech start-ups on a visit to Silicon Valley and buying 30,000 square miles of land to expand the Yaba tech cluster (Ibukan & Ackerman, 2019). Nigeria has 85 tech hubs whose goal is to foster partnerships, train developers, and create spillovers between firms. Over the past two years, 130 new tech hubs have opened across Africa (Adegoke, 2018). These often function like community centers with a steady supply of electricity and internet access but are expanding to provide training and to build a knowledge base.
The CcHub has launched a design lab in Kigali that will function as a research and development (R&D) center for tech firms across Africa. There is a Pan-African network of around 158 hubs called AfriLabs, with deep knowledge of the local customer base and business environment. These types of networks have proven useful in Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, and across the African continent.

Legal Status of Firms:
The Nigerian tech sector is dominated by firms in their first decade of operations. Firms mostly provide services in software, website and application development, and integration. Figure 1 shows 6 legal status of surveyed firms. The majority of firms (52 per-SOCIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS ON COPORATE STARTUP cent) are shareholding companies with non-traded or privately traded shares. These firms are owned by individuals or by a closely knit group of associates; only a small percentage (16 percent) were a limited partnership or sole proprietorship (15 percent). The tech sector is also highly formalized, with only 1 percent of surveyed companies not registered with the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission. In the digital age where every organization is a digital company, digital identity helps: 1. to understand current customers, future customers, and how they are related to each other and to other organizations.
2. to understand the state and the value of the physical assets.
3. to establish trust among individuals, organizations, etc. so that exchange of information and exchange value through transactions can take place effectively and efficiently.
4. compliance and risk management solutions.
Currently, organizations are looking for more advanced ways to identify, verify, and authenticate individual users through additional identity attributes such as biometrics and through better algorithms to detect anomalies using techniques such as deep learning.

Digital Identity Trends in 2018:
As discussed, there are huge changes in the way digital identity technology is used and adopted, especially for mobile devices and smart city technology, with a greater reliance on the cloud and increased trust in the Internet of Things.
There are five growing trends in 2018 that will influence how organizations create, manage and use trusted identities in a broad range of existing and new use cases.
• Artificial intelligence-based software. II. Digital identity predictive analysis III. Biometric verification systems IV. ID verification V. Authentication & authorization solutions

Digital Identity Technology Statistics & Facts:
Let's look at some statistics and facts to better understand the situation.
According to Juniper research, 600 million devices will use biometric authentication by 2021. Biometrics is coming to be understood as one of the most advanced and secure systems, not only for identity verification but also for improving functionality through capabilities such as facial recognition-based login, making processes faster and easier for the user. The UN and World Bank ID4D initiatives set a goal of providing everyone on the planet with a legal ID by 2030. The European Union's Electronic Identification and Signature (eIDAS) regulation came into force in July 2016, requiring mandatory cross border recognition of (eID) by September 2018. Smart borders/smart airports emerged at a faster pace. Combined with the 700 million plus ePassports now in circulation, and a strong push behind biometrics, particularly face recognition, they offered travelers a taste of cross-border movement that is as secure as it is swift and seamless.
Digital driver's license projects gathered momentum in countries including the USA, UK, Australia and the Netherlands. Smart city growth. Governments are working on advanced solutions to improve public services. eGovernment and mGovernment will force digital innovation and digital identity implementation. In 2017, the message for public authorities was clear: national digital ID is a must. 2018 will also saw further consumerization of security, with heightened demand from users seeking to open doors, and log in to cloud-based resources, as well as have personalized on-demand printing of documents, and to deploy printed credentials remotely or conduct other transactions and daily activities using trusted IDs on their phone, wearable or smart card. In the increasingly connected healthcare environment, institutions are seeking to implement better systems to improve the patient experience and enhance efficiencies, while safeguarding and managing access to equipment, facilities, patient data and electronic prescriptions.

Digital Sociology:
Digital sociology is a sub-discipline of sociology that focuses on understanding the use of digital media as part of everyday life, and how these various technologies contribute to patterns of human behaviour, social relationships, and concepts of the self. The first scholarly article to have the term 'digital sociology' in the title appeared in 2009. The author reflected ways in which digital technologies may influence both sociological research and teaching. In 2010, 'digital sociology' was described, by Richard Neal, in terms of bridging the growing academic focus with the increasing interest from global business. It was not until 2013 that the first purely academic book tackling the subject of 'digital sociology' was published. The first sole-authored book entitled Digital Sociology was published in 2015, and the first academic conference on "Digital Sociology" was held in New York, NY in the same year.
Although the term 'digital sociology' has not yet fully entered the cultural lexicon, sociologists have engaged in research related to the Internet since its inception. These sociologists have addressed many social issues relating to online communities, cyberspace and cyber-identities. This and similar research have attracted many different names such as 'cybersociology', 'the sociology of the internet', 'the sociology of online communities', 'the sociology of social media', 'the sociology of cyberculture' or something else again. Digital sociology differs from these terms in that it is wider in its scope, addressing not only the Internet or cyberculture but also the impact of the other digital media and devices that have emerged since the first decade of the twentyfirst century. Since the Internet has become more pervasive and linked with everyday life, references to the 'cyber' in the social sciences seems now to have been replaced by the 'digital'. 'Digital sociology' is related to other sub-disciplines such as digital humanities and digital anthropology. It is beginning to supersede and incorporate the other titles above, as well as including the newest Web 2.0 digital technologies into its purview, such as wearable technology, augmented reality, smart objects, the Internet of Things and big data.

Professional Digital Practice:
Although there has been a reluctant use of social and other digital media platform for professional academics purposes, sociologists are slowly beginning to adopt them for teaching and research. An increasing number of sociological blogs are beginning to appear and more sociologists are joining Twitter, Google classroom for example. Some are writing about the best ways for sociologists to employ social media as part of academic practice and the importance of self-archiving and making sociological research open access, as well as writing for Wikipedia.

Sociological Analyses of Digital Media Use:
Digital sociologists have begun to write about the use of wearable technologies as part of quantifying the body and the social dimensions of big data and the algorithms that are used to interpret these data. Others have directed attention at the role of digital technologies as part of the surveillance of people's activities, via such technologies as CCTV cameras and customer loyalty schemes as well as the mass surveillance of the Internet that is being conducted by secret services such as the NSA. The 'digital divide', or the differences in access to digital technologies experienced by certain social groups such as the socioeconomically disadvantaged, those of lower education levels, women and the elderly, this has preoccupied many researchers in the social scientific study of digital media. However, several sociologists have pointed out that while it is important to acknowledge and identify the structural inequalities inherent in the use of digital technology, this concept is rather simplistic and fails to incorporate the complexities of access to knowledge on digital technologies.
There is a growing interest in the ways in which social media contribute to the development of intimate relationships and concepts of the self. One of the best-known sociologists who has written about social relationships, selfhood and digital technologies is Sherry Turkle. In her most recent book Turkle addresses the topic of social media. She argues that relationships conducted via these platforms are not as authentic as those encounters that take place "in real life". Visual media allows the viewer to be a more passive consumer of information. Viewers are more likely to develop online personas that differ from their personas in the real world. This contrast between the digital world (or 'cyberspace') and the 'real world', however, this has been critiqued as 'digital dualism', a concept similar to the 'aura of the digital'. Other sociologists have argued that relationships conducted through digital media are inextricably part of the 'real world'.
Augmented reality is an interactive experience where reality is being altered in some way by the use of digital media but not replaced. The use of social media for social activism have also provided a focus for digital sociology. For example, numerous sociological articles, and at least one book have appeared on the use of such social media platforms as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as a means of conveying messages about activist causes and organizing political movements. Research has also been done on how racial minorities and the use of technology by racial minorities and other groups. These "digital practice" studies explore the ways in which the practices that groups adopt when using new technologies mitigate or reproduce social inequalities.

Understanding Entrepreneurial Theory:
Several theories have been put forward by scholars to explain the field of entrepreneurship. These theories have their roots in economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and management. The multidisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship is given a close examination in this study, however, two theories will be adopted to elucidate the dynamics of digital startups. Namely; Economic Entrepreneurship Theory and Sociological Entrepreneurship Theory.

Economic Entrepreneurship Theories:
The economic entrepreneurship theory has deep roots in the classical and neoclassical theories of economics, and the Austrian market process (AMP). These theories explore the economic factors that enhance entrepreneurial behaviour.

Classical Theory:
The classical theory extolled the virtues of free trade, specialization, and competition (Ricardo, 1817; Smith, 1776).The theory was the result of IJCRR 11 (08), 21737−21745 (2020) Britain's industrial revolution which took place in the mid-1700 and lasted until the 1830s.The classical movement described the directing role of the entrepreneur in the context of production and distribution of goods in a competitive marketplace (Say, 1803). Classical theorists articulated three modes of production: land; capital; and labour. There have been objections to the classical theory. These theorists failed to explain the dynamic upheaval generated by entrepreneurs of the industrial age (Murphy, Liao & Welsch, 2006).

Neo-classical Theory:
The neo-classical model emerged from the criticisms of the classical model and indicated that economic phenomena could be relegated to instances of pure exchange, reflect an optimal ratio, and transpire in an economic system that was basically closed. The economic system consisted of exchange participants, exchange occurrences, and the impact of results of the exchange on other market actors. The importance of exchange coupled with diminishing marginal utility created enough impetus for entrepreneurship in the neoclassical movement (Murphy, Liao & Welsch, 2006). Some criticisms were raised against the neoclassical conjectures. The first is that aggregate demand ignores the uniqueness of individual-level entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, neither use nor exchange value reflects the future value of innovation outcomes. Thirdly, rational resource allocation does not capture the complexity of market-based systems. The fourth point raised was that, efficiencybased performance does not subsume innovation and non-uniform outputs; known means/ends and perfect or semi-perfect knowledge does not describe uncertainty. In addition, perfect competition does not allow innovation and entrepreneurial activity. The fifth point is that, it is impossible to trace all inputs and outputs in a market system. Finally, entrepreneurial activity is destructive to the order of an economic system.

Sociological Entrepreneurship Theory:
The sociological theory is the third of the major entrepreneurship theories. Sociological enterprise focuses on the social context. In other words, in the sociological theories the level of analysis is traditionally the society (Landstrom, 1998). Reynolds (1991) has identified four social contexts that relates to entrepreneurial opportunity. The first one is social networks. Here, the focus is on building social relationships and bonds that promote trust and not opportunism. In other words, the entrepreneur should not take undue advantage of people to be successful rather success comes as a result of keeping faith with the people. The second he called the life course stage context which involves analyzing the life situations and characteristic of individuals who have decided to become entrepreneurs. The experiences of people could influence their thought and action so they want to do something meaningful with their lives.
The third context is ethnic identification. One's social background is one of the decisive "push" factors to become an entrepreneur. For example, the social background of a person determines how far he/she can go. Marginalized groups may violate all obstacles and strive for success, spurred up by their disadvantaged background to make life better. The fourth social context is called population ecology. The idea is that environmental factors play an important role in the survival of businesses. The political system, government legislation, customers, employees and competition are some of the environmental factors that may have an impact on survival of new venture or the success of the entrepreneur.

SUMMARY:
The dynamic character of the contemporary society is regarded as a result of alarming alterations in social environment. Introduction of new cultural traits into society brings about new social changes, hence the present society is dominated by a complex culture of networking and informationalism. The Information Technology Revolution has brought many changes in the social structure. This explains the reason why most people rely on technology for many needs. However, the transition of the economy toward the digital era is determining the arising of a type of entrepreneurship based on factors and features quite different from established game rules. These changes disclose a series of opportunities for those firms which will be able to adapt at the new parameters and functionalities related to digital technological SOCIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS ON COPORATE STARTUP diffusion. This contribution underlines some dynamics that should be considered from policy makers who aspire to promote the emergence of a significant number of startups operating in the digital field and nurture the growth process of startups into scale ups.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION:
As the general population becomes increasingly refined in understanding and use of computers and as the technology associated with computing become more powerful especially with the advent of the current pandemic, which has left the world with no choice but to embrace technology more than ever before, there is a strong possibility that digital business platforms will emerge the leading order of business from startup through every phase and processes of growth and expansion. From the above discussions it is clear that the field of entrepreneurship have some interesting and relevant theories such as economic and sociological entrepreneurship theories which are underpinned by empirical research evidence. This development holds a rather brighter future for the study, research, and practice of digital startup and entrepreneurship in general.
The following recommendations were put forth by this study.
What seems certain is that if you're managing an incumbent company, you cannot predict, much less invent, the future on your own. Your employees are held back by a pre-digital worldview, and for the most part they lack the skills to develop cuttingedge digital offerings. Therefore, companies should increasingly seek ways to tap into the creative milieu of the start-up world.
With technology, you will easily get acquainted with your consumers and their behaviours." This indeed emphasizes the need for every startup to prioritize data collation as well as collection in order to understand the way to tap into your intended audiences and influence them.
There is need for digital startup to understand that Social Media Marketing is one of the best ways to get exposure and customers for your startup. It is one of the best low-cost marketing techniques to use for your business. Indeed Social Media Marketing has the power to turn your startup into a profitable brand but you must know how to use it for your business.
As an entrepreneur, especially a digital startup, there is need for startup not to be afraid of failures when striving hard to take their startup to a new height. Failure may happen. Obstacles may roadblock the way towards growth and success. But, instead of holding onto any mishap, they should be able to get the best possible learning from their mistakes.
There is need for government to enact, implement and monitor policies that would help the general public understand the value of working with startups, provide them with a three step approach and framework to evaluate and select suitable programmes to engage with startups and to empower those who want to champion startup engagement inside their company with case studies and stories that clearly illustrate the transformative benefits of collaborations.