Supporting entrepreneurs: A systematic review of literature and an agenda for research

By T. Ratinho, Alejandro S. Amezcua, Benson Honig, Zhaocheng Zeng. 2020

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Entrepreneurship has become a cornerstone of economic development. The public awareness of this phenomenon spurred great interest from the academic community and policy makers alongside the creation of a vast range of entrepreneurship support initiatives. We conduct a systematic review of 122 academic articles published during a thirty year period between 1985–2015 that help to identify a series of theoretical, empirical, and practical gaps that form the basis of a research agenda. For instance, there is a shortage of conceptual articles and few empirical studies generating theoretical contributions; samples are small and idiosyncratic; context is rarely considered; and that mechanisms of ES are largely unknown. We propose that ES should develop along four main themes that ameliorate these exposed gaps: acknowledge and understand the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs and new ventures; apply existing theories to ES; improve methods and research design; and integrate ES into the ecosystem of support.

Subfields: Accounting, Business and International Management, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/447cae85f79fd81c97437b496970ad7a2ffc4f6f