ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the linkages between technological change, broadband and entrepreneurial activity. It presents a theoretical rationale for these linkages, a discussion of broadband-enabled innovations and details regarding the importance of broadband as a general-purpose technology (GPT). A conceptual framework for understanding broadband as an enabling infrastructure for entrepreneurial activity is also developed. This framework is employed to analyze a sub-dimension of the Broadband-Business Nexus (BBN), the Broadband-Entrepreneurship Nexus (BEN). In particular, the relationship between broadband and new business activity is analyzed in both space and time, at the inter- and intra-metropolitan scales. This analysis highlights the utility of the conceptual framework as well as important directions for future research. Despite the importance of technological change and entrepreneurship to national prosperity in the global information economy, existing theoretical and applied research in macroeconomics and entrepreneurship treat technological change and entrepreneurship as unrelated components of economic growth.
