A deductive approach to a systematic review of entrepreneurship literature

Justin R. Hall (), Selen Savas-Hall () and Eric H. Shaw ()
Additional contact information
Justin R. Hall: Jacksonville University
Selen Savas-Hall: Jacksonville University
Eric H. Shaw: Florida Atlantic University

Management Review Quarterly, 2023, vol. 73, issue 3, No 2, 987-1016

Abstract: Abstract Due to the diversity of disciplines, scholars, and journals that publish entrepreneurship research, the literature has become a disorganized clutter, hindering the field’s ability to develop theory. The purpose of this research is to establish a meta-framework that could unify and subsume the diverse disciplines, scholars, and approaches to understanding entrepreneurship phenomena. In contrast to all the inductive approaches to organizing entrepreneurship literature, this exploratory study is the first to use a deductive approach based on General Systems Theory (GST). The paper begins by utilizing the process model of the GST to deduce seven fundamental categories for understanding entrepreneurship, which include: (1) the Entrepreneur, (2) Entrepreneurial Assistance, (3), Strategy, (4) Performance, (5) Academics, (6) Entrepreneurship Environment, and (7) Interactions (among the other categories). The paper then tests the validity and reliability of the GST framework using “expert” entrepreneurship researchers, based on a sample of 621 articles from several of the field’s most highly respected journals using content analysis. Based on this exploratory study, the GST meta-framework of entrepreneurship is shown valid and reliable. Consequently, virtually all entrepreneurship literature can be subsumed under its umbrella. Lastly, this paper organizes almost 50 years of entrepreneurship literature according to the GST framework and offers an overview of the literature across the seven categories and areas of future research.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship academics; Entrepreneurship theory; Entrepreneurship literature; Entrepreneurship research; General systems theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11301-022-00266-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:manrev:v:73:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11301-022-00266-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11301

DOI: 10.1007/s11301-022-00266-9

Access Statistics for this article

Management Review Quarterly is currently edited by Thomas Reutterer, Jonas F. Puck, Engelbert Dockner and Anne d'Arcy

More articles in Management Review Quarterly from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().