A Systematic Literature Review on Female Entrepreneurship: Citation and Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Research investigating female entrepreneurs has developed considerably over the past two decades. But a significant part of this research area lacks systematization and categorization. Therefore, there is a need to understand the current knowledge in this field. In this setting, this paper carries out a systematic review of the literature on female entrepreneurship. A total of 192 papers focusing on female entrepreneurship, published between 2000 and 2019, were analyzed. The purpose of this paper is to give a clear picture of the sub-areas in female entrepreneurship research by concentrating on two aspects. Firstly, it reviews recent research papers by using citation analysis to identify and categorize the main areas of specialization currently interesting the attention of the academic community. Secondly, a thematic analysis is performed to explore the specific themes being researched. Regardless of a large number of publications and their diversity, the present study finds six different themes. A number of research gaps were identified within each of these areas of specialization, in order to persuade new avenues and angles in the female entrepreneurship field of research that may be productive in filling these gaps.