Emergence of entrepreneurship research: a systematic review from 1996 to 2018

This article presents a systematic literature review of the entrepreneurship field and a critical analysis of how this research field has been evolving specially during the last 7 years to conduct future research. The author used the Scopus database instead of the ISI Web of Science, because is considered a credible alternative to identify the number of entrepreneurship-related academic articles published from 1996 to 2018 under the use of specific keywords that resulted in 33,442 articles found. A comparison against the most recent literature reviews published is included to support that the concept of entrepreneurship attracted academic researchers. The results show that half (52%) of the entrepreneurship-related articles are on business, management and accounting, and the USA is the most influential country in entrepreneurship research housing the main business institutions. This review also provides a background of the entrepreneurship field for new researchers planning their own research agendas by providing them the top subject areas, top journals, most cited articles, top cited authors, most frequent venues for publications in academic journals, and most active affiliations/contributors and researchers. It is particularly useful for new researchers because it identifies from the top 20 main venues for entrepreneurship-related publications that 6 are emerging economies which represent 13.83% of the articles published, but it represents more an opportunity rather than a threat if they choose those countries to develop research in entrepreneurship.