A systematic literature review on entrepreneurial intentions: citation, thematic analyses, and research agenda

By F. Liñán, Alain Fayolle. The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2015

1,339 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Entrepreneurial intention is a rapidly evolving field of research. A growing number of studies use entrepreneurial intention as a powerful theoretical framework. However, a substantial part of this research lacks systematization and categorization, and there seems to be a tendency to start anew with every study. Therefore, there is a need to take stock of current knowledge in this field. In this sense, this paper carries out a review of the literature on entrepreneurial intentions. A total of 409 papers addressing entrepreneurial intention, published between 2004 and 2013 (inclusive), have been analyzed. The purpose and contribution of this paper is to offer a clearer picture of the sub-fields in entrepreneurial intention research, by concentrating on two aspects. Firstly, it reviews recent research by means of a citation analysis to categorize the main areas of specialization currently attracting the attention of the academic community. Secondly, a thematic analysis is carried out to identify the specific themes being researched within each category. Despite the large number of publications and their diversity, the present study identifies five main research areas, plus an additional sixth category for a number of new research papers that cannot be easily classified into the five areas. Within those categories, up to twenty-five different themes are recognized. A number of research gaps are singled out within each of these areas of specialization, in order to induce new ways and perspectives in the entrepreneurial intention field of research that may be fruitful in filling these gaps.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Management of Technology and Innovation, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c2cd77233ebcbd95c775a9b8a128ff4b4d925767

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Business and International Management

In Management of Technology and Innovation

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention: the role of social support and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (2020, background): “…the relationship between individual differences such as passion and entrepreneurial intentions is characterized by several underlying mechanisms that need to be properly understood in order to develop effective strategies for encouraging entrepreneurship (Liñán and Fayolle 2015; Syed et al. 2020).”
Feeling capable and valued: A prosocial perspective on the link between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions (2018, background): “Social entrepreneurial (SE) intentions are a subject of growing interest in the entrepreneurship literature (Liñán and Fayolle, 2015).”
A systematic literature review of the influence of the university’s environment and support system on the precursors of social entrepreneurial intention of students (2020, background): “It is also an indication that the scientific knowledge conveyed in these articles is the foundation of foreground knowledge of more recent articles (Acedo & Casillas, 2005; Casillas & Acedo, 2007; Liñán & Fayolle, 2015).”
Perceived entrepreneurial munificence and entrepreneurial intentions: A social cognitive perspective (2016, background): “Recently, Liñán and Fayolle (2015) conducted a comprehensive study of the large body of published work on entrepreneurial intentions during a 10-year period from 2004 to 2013, categorizing this work into several thematic areas and identifying significant gaps within each of these groupings.”