Abstract

E-Participation is defined as “the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in implementing democratic decision-making processes” (Roztocki et al., 2025, page 126). While many e-participation tools are available, they are hardly used. Promoting e-participation by integrating entrepreneurship approaches in democratic decision-making processes is promising. However, there is a lack of studies that investigate how entrepreneurship approaches can be applied to boost e-participation. To address this research gap, this study attempts to develop a conceptual framework that provides guidance to boost e-participation by applying entrepreneurship approaches. The framework adopts the lens of Stakeholder Theory, which assumes that for any large entity to be successful it should create value for all its stakeholders (Freeman, 1984). In particular, the focus rests on two major stakeholders in the context of e-participation: citizens and government institutions. As a foundation of this framework, two concepts are proposed that put entrepreneurship into contexts that are not considered entrepreneurial in the typical sense: Citizen Entrepreneurship (Mitra et al., 2020) and Government Entrepreneurship (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). To inform these two concepts of the framework, two entrepreneurial approaches will be applied conceptually as well as methodologically: Business Model Innovation and Lean Start-Up Method. The conceptual framework will be based on an extensive literature review to illustrate potential cause-effect relationships between suggested constructs. In addition, real life projects that simultaneously use entrepreneurship approaches and various forms of e-participation will serve as cases for developing the framework. For instance, one such project is “Socially Engaged” (in Polish: Społecznie Zaangażowani) in Łódź, Poland. To obtain support from local citizens, the project team uses websites and social media channels, an example for bottom-up of e-participation in the form of e-information. Another project is the PLACEProject (in German: PLATZprojekt), in Hanover, Germany. Likewise, this project team uses e-participation tools for informing and obtaining support.

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