Entrepreneurship in emerging markets: mapping the scholarship and suggesting future research directions

Purpose - To provide a comprehensive systematic review of entrepreneurship in the context of emerging markets (EMs). The area of research is topical considering the rise of EMs on the global scene and the importance of entrepreneurship in the development of EMs.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper utilizes scientometrics to provide a systematic review of the emerging field of entrepreneurship in EMs (EEMs). The entire Web of Science database was searched, and 2,568 scholarly outputs were extracted and analyzed as a result. The review further compares the EEMs research to the mainstream entrepreneurship research based on the top trending and high impact themes, demonstrates which countries published and are studied in the EEMs scholarship, and finally, it provides a proportion of empirical research done on EEMs to highlight methods utilized in the existing research.

Findings - The scientometric review reveals three broad domains of the EEMs scholarship-(1) Entrepreneurship in EMs and its implications; (2) MNEs, institutional environments, and FDI; and (3) Strategy, innovation and performance. The findings demonstrate that EEMs' scholarship primarily discusses environments within which EEMs takes place, the implications of EEMs, strategy and performance of EEMs (macro and meso-levels), thus highlighting the need for micro-level (individual-based) analysis of EEMs. Approximately, a third of the EEMs research is of empirical nature, more should be done especially in quantitative studies to develop this field further.

Originality/value - This research is unique in providing the largest review of EEMs scholarship. It divides the entire scholarship into three inter-related research streams and identifies future research directions in this immensely important field of research.