Science mapping: a bibliometric analysis of female entrepreneurship studies

Abstract

Purpose This bibliometric review aims to display visually the intellectual communities (i.e. the cooperation networks among various countries, institutions, journals and individuals), the intellectual structure (i.e. the status quo and development trajectory of the intellectual base) and emerging hot topics of the female entrepreneurship research in 1975–2018. Based on the comprehensive review of the state-of-the-science, this paper aims to identify significant research gaps in extant studies and develop potential future research agendas that may catalyse new streams of female entrepreneurship research. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric analysis via science mapping provides in-depth analyzes, highlights the intellectual structure and identifies hot topics. Using CiteSpace, co-citation networks of contributing countries, institutions, cited journals and authors are mapped first. Second, co-citation network analysis helps to identify the key “nodes” in the intellectual structure. The landscape view identifies main clusters from an overall perspective, while a timeline view delineates the characteristics and evolution of focal clusters. Major clusters are interpreted in detail with the help of foam tree graph processed by Carrot. Finally, the co-occurrence network analysis is conducted by using VOSviewer to examine hot topics and research frontiers Findings The findings show that the publications of female entrepreneurship increase exponentially. The major driving force of female entrepreneurship research is from the USA and England. In terms of intellectual structure, key concepts behind different clusters represent the major milestones in relation to individual determinants of female entrepreneurship, the impact of cultural and contextual factors on female entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship in non-OECD countries, as well as the impact of family, social and institutional factors on the survival and exit of male and female enterprises. Hot topics include financing sources, the embeddedness nature, the impact and environmental factors of female entrepreneurship. Practical implications This study presents important practical implications. The findings suggest that intellectual communities of the female entrepreneurship field are relatively loose. Close contact and cooperation among different countries, institutions and researchers are lacking. To promote the evolution of the field, researchers who belong to different institutions in different countries may need to strengthen contact and cooperation. Additionally, papers in journals from the business and management discipline are most cited in this field, preventing new knowledge from other disciplines flowing into the female entrepreneurship field. Accordingly, female entrepreneurship research journals may need to expand their focus and combine knowledge from various domains. Originality/value This bibliometric review provides a more comprehensive, systematic and objective review of the female entrepreneurship field. Previous qualitative reviews are typically based on personal judgement, while a few quantitative reviews only describe statistical data. This study is based on thousands of citation data rather than a small number of papers pre-selected by the researcher, thus, is more data-grounded and less biased than prior reviews. It expands previous reviews by transparently visualizing the underlying structure and evolution of the field. Moreover, it highlights significant gaps in extant studies and develops future research agendas to catalyse new streams of research.

Female entrepreneurship in emerging markets: challenges of running a business in turbulent contexts and times

“…The data analysis followed a thematic analysis process (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2012) grounded on a mixed embeddedness approach/perspective, as endorsed by Deng et al (2020), Ojong et al (2021) and Kloosterman (2010). “The approach combines the micro-level of the individual entrepreneur (with his or her resources), with the meso-level of the local opportunity structure and links the latter, in more loose way, to the macro-institutional framework” (Kloosterman, 2010, p. 25).…”

“…To do so, we investigated five SMEs in the Latin American country of Brazil and in the MENA-region country of Tunisia. Attempting to account for micro, meso and macro factors influencing the development of female entrepreneurship in diverse contexts, a mixed embeddedness perspective (Deng et al , 2020; Ojong et al , 2021; Kloosterman, 2010) was adopted to orient the literature review, data collection and analysis. Contributions were both practical (for female entrepreneurs, local policy makers and global agencies) and theoretical (for the fields of entrepreneurship, FE and crisis management).…”

Blue Economy and Coastal Tourism: A Comprehensive Visualization Bibliometric Analysis

“…Furthermore, these three software tools are entirely free, giving preference and convenience in using different analytical tools that can be used without any commercial licenses [22,36]. Moreover, many scholars have used a combination of these programs to perform bibliometric analysis in various disciplines [24,[37][38][39].…”

The Past, the Present, and the Future: A Bibliometric Analysis of Failed/Fragile/Collapsed State Research During 1990–2020

“…In brief, reviews are a sort of creative destruction in that they establish a cohesive sub-domain based on a set of exemplars and reduce the impact of non-exemplars in the future (McMahan and McFarland, 2021). Although, it seems to be a convention in bibliometric analysis to analyze articles and reviews together (Deng et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2020;Ye N. et al, 2020;Ye P. et al, 2020;Yeung and Mozos, 2020;Yu et al, 2020;Zhai et al, 2020). My review is not exempt, which uses a joint analysis of articles and reviews, but it should not be overlooked that the analysis might be more scientific and rational if the reviews had been removed from the search query.…”