Instagram as an external enabler: Exploring the roles and mechanisms that shape – and challenge – social media entrepreneurship

Abstract

This article examines Instagram as an external enabler of social media entrepreneurship. Adopting a process-oriented lens, we explore how and when enabling mechanisms are activated to enhance outcomes while also causing significant challenges for entrepreneurs. A flexible pattern matching analysis of 15 case studies reveals that while Instagram embodies many of the enabling mechanisms proposed by the external enabler (EE) framework, venture triggering is often unintentional and serendipitous, challenging agent-centric assumptions. We identify ‘market engagement’ and ‘resource collaboration’ as novel emergent mechanisms that shape markets and products while simultaneously creating tensions for entrepreneurs through increased relational and emotional demands, challenges to integrity, and anticipated loss of control over their ventures. This article extends the EE framework by defining these new mechanisms and contributing a process-oriented perspective linking enabling forces directly to the ‘dark side’ of social media entrepreneurship, illustrating how the drivers of success are inextricably linked to detrimental consequences.