literature review entrepreneur

Corporate entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review and future research agenda

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• Published: 05 January 2022
• Volume 59 , pages 1541–1565, ( 2022 )

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• David Urbano   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7600-8656 1 , 2 ,
• Andreu Turro 1 , 2 ,
• Mike Wright 3 &
• Shaker Zahra 4  

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This article analyzes the state of the art of the research on corporate entrepreneurship, develops a conceptual framework that connects its antecedents and consequences, and offers an agenda for future research. We review 310 papers published in entrepreneurship and management journals, providing an assessment of the current state of research and, subsequently, we suggest research avenues in three different areas: corporate entrepreneurship antecedents, dimensions and consequences. Even though a significant part of the overall corporate entrepreneurship literature has appeared in the last decade, most literature reviews were published earlier. These reviews typically cover a single dimension of the corporate entrepreneurship phenomenon and, therefore, do not provide a global perspective on the existing literature. In addition, corporate entrepreneurship has been studied from different fields and there are different approaches and definitions to it. This limits our understanding of accumulated knowledge in this area and hampers the development of further research. Our review addresses these shortcomings, providing a roadmap for future research.

Plain English Summary

This review analyzes the articles published in the corporate entrepreneurship field and presents the future research agenda. Research agrees that corporate entrepreneurship has a positive impact on firms’ profits and growth. This has generated an increase in the number of research articles published in this area. However, previous literature has some limitations and areas that should be further explored. First, there are many different definitions and terms to refer to corporate entrepreneurship activities. This makes it difficult to understand the current state of corporate entrepreneurship research. Second, we lack up to date comprehensive literature reviews summarizing the knowledge and advances generated in the field in the last years. Overall, the objective of this research is to explore the content and evolution of corporate entrepreneurship research. This research contributes by summarizing and synthesizing the main findings in previous literature. It also contributes by identifying relevant inconsistencies and ambiguities in previous literature that have prevented the development of certain areas within the corporate entrepreneurship field.

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1 Introduction

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) has generated considerable research attention because of its importance to corporate vitality and economic wealth generation (Dess et al., 2003 ). Past studies from several complementary fields, such as strategy, finance, entrepreneurship or marketing, have contributed to a better understanding of complex and dynamic entrepreneurship within established organizations (Hornsby, et al., 2013 ). CE is widely considered important for facilitating a firm’s efforts to exploit its current competitive advantages and explore new opportunities and the competencies required to pursue them successfully. Hence, it is widely viewed as contributing to the evolution of a firm’s corporate strategy (Ireland et al., 2003 ) by building new capabilities and businesses that enable renewal, foster strategic change and enhance a company’s profits and growth (Narayanan et al., 2009 ; Zahra & Hayton, 2008 ; Zahra, 1996a ).

However, despite the growing research in the last few years, there are aspects where we still lack understanding (Hornsby et al., 2009 ; Phan et al., 2009 ) as “the theoretical and empirical knowledge about the domain of CE and the entrepreneurial behavior on which it is based are still key issues that warrant a deeper understanding” (Kuratko et al., 2015 , p.247). Since it has been studied from different fields, different definitions and approaches to the CE phenomenon have appeared (Simba & Thai, 2019 ). This fragmentation makes it more difficult to understand the current state of CE research. In this regard, some previous research has used interchangeably different terms, such as, intrapreneurship (Pinchot, 1985 ), corporate venturing (McMillan, 1986 ) or corporate internal entrepreneurship (Schollhammer, 1982 ) as synonyms of CE (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ; Parker, 2011 ). These differences in terminology and the fact that some studies do not build on each other make it difficult to evaluate and compare results across studies (Narayanan et al., 2009 ). Overall, this limits our understanding of the CE phenomenon, hamper the development of further knowledge in this area, and make it more difficult to establish relations and boundaries with other relevant constructs (Shepherd et al., 2015 ).

In addition, there are few literature reviews focusing specifically on the CE phenomenon (Dess et al., 2003 ; Narayanan et al., 2009 ; Phan et al., 2009 ). Moreover, most of these articles focus only on specific dimensions of the CE phenomenon, and thus do not provide an overall perspective on the literature in this field. This limits the capacity of these studies to provide an integrative framework that summarizes and captures the state-of-the-art literature in the CE field. Narayanan et al. ( 2009 ), for example, examine corporate venturing and propose an organizing and integrative framework to guide future research. Similarly, Minola et al. ( 2016 ) focus on corporate venturing in family businesses. In the case of Dess et al. ( 2003 ), the authors attempt to identify emerging issues in CE by focusing specifically on its role in inducing and cultivating organizational learning. Therefore, while informative, these analyses are limited since other CE fundamental activities (such as innovation or strategic renewal) are not part of their remit. Thus, we are missing an up to date comprehensive review that covers the knowledge and advances generated in the field. In this regard, systematic literature reviews are particularly appropriate approaches to highlight the key contents from the literature in a structured way. Focusing on aspects such as the most prestigious journals, the most relevant authors in the field or analyzing the specific contents studied, can contribute to provide an enhanced understanding about the trend a research field is taking (Mourao & Martinho, 2020 ). It is important to address this gap to provide a meaningful assessment of how the CE literature has continued to evolve beyond earlier reviews and to set out new directions for research in this area. Hence, this article addresses the question: How has the field of corporate entrepreneurship research evolved, as reflected in articles published in top management and entrepreneurship journals? Based on this, we develop a systematic literature review and provide a conceptual framework and agenda for future research.

This article makes several contributions to literature. First, we develop a systematic literature review of 310 papers published in the top journals of the management and entrepreneurship fields and we analyze and discuss key aspects in the CE literature (such as, the most cited articles, authors and topics of analysis). In addition, through a citation and co-citation analysis, we provide a map that explains the intellectual structure of the CE phenomenon (Ramos-Rodriguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004 ). Hence, we contribute by summarizing and synthesizing the main findings in previous literature. In doing so, we develop a conceptual framework in which we outline and assess the main antecedents, dimensions and consequences of CE activity (Kolev et al., 2019 ). In this regard, although a very significant part (54%) Footnote 1 of the overall CE research has been published in the last decade, most literature reviews were published earlier. A few introductions to special issues have been published in the last years (Corbett et al., 2013 ; Kuratko et al., 2015 ; Minola et al., 2021 ; Phan et al., 2009 ). These articles typically explain the relevance of the CE phenomenon, summarize the evolution of the CE field and suggest future research. However, these papers do not develop an in-depth literature review analysis as they focus mostly on highlighting the key findings of the papers that are part of the special issue. Thus, although relevant, their contributions are incomplete as they do not provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the research in this area. Second, we also contribute by identifying relevant inconsistencies, ambiguities and gaps in previous literature that have prevented a more detailed understanding of certain areas within the CE field. Based on this, we provide a research agenda for the future.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the next section we provide a summary of the main definitions on CE. Next, we explain the methodology of the study (our journal selection and systematic literature review). We then describe the study’s main findings. Finally, we position our findings in relation to existing literature and suggest future research directions.

2 Definitions and scope

CE research focuses on ways in which companies create new businesses that generate new revenue streams and value for shareholders (Narayanan et al., 2009 ). In this regard, the concept of CE has evolved over time and several definitions have appeared. Guth and Ginsberg ( 1990 ) explained that CE embodies two different phenomena: new venture creation within existing organizations and the transformation of on-going organizations through strategic renewal. One of the most extensively used definitions is that by Sharma and Chrisman ( 1999 , p. 18). They define it as “the process whereby an individual or a group of individuals, in association with an existing organization, create a new organization or instigate renewal or innovation within that organization.” Other previous research use the terms CE and intrapreneurship indistinctively (Hornsby et al., 2002 ). From this perspective, Antoncic and Hisrich ( 2001 , p. 498) use an even broader definition of intrapreneurship, to denote “entrepreneurship within an existing organization.” Later, some studies explicitly differentiated between CE and intrapreneurship (Stam, 2013 ). Following Pinchot ( 1985 ), Stam refers to intrapreneurship or entrepreneurial employee activity as the development of new business activities by an employee; hence, it follows a bottom-up approach. In contrast, CE is considered a decision initiated by the top management team and subsequently implemented to the lower hierarchical levels of the organization.

Overall, there are different types of CE (i.e., sustained regeneration, organizational rejuvenation, strategic renewal or domain redefinition) and organizations that exhibit CE are viewed as dynamic, flexible entities able to take advantage of new opportunities when they arise (Dess et al., 2003 ). Among such organizations, there is an acceptance of risk and an understanding that the outcomes of innovation are uncertain (Bloodgood et al., 2015 ). CE is concerned with various forms of newness (e.g., organizational renewal, innovation, and establishing new ventures) and affects organizational survival, growth and performance (Zahra, 1991 , 1996a ). Following Sharma and Chrisman ( 1999 ) we adopt a broad perspective of CE. Specifically, we consider CE as those initiatives that take place within companies and that aim at creating and adding new business, or at fostering innovation, change and renewal. In the next section, we present the methodology employed to review the literature using this broad approach.

3 Methodology

We conducted a systematic literature review and used a bibliometric approach to analyze and describe the findings. Analyzing the bibliometric structure of a specific body of literature allows for increased objectivity (compared with other forms of literature review) and enables the researcher to sift through large amounts of data (Wallin, 2012 ). Bibliometrics (combined with author citation analysis techniques) have found advocates in the fields of entrepreneurship and innovation (Schildt et al., 2006 ). To our knowledge, this approach has not yet been undertaken in the specific CE literature.

Our research was carried out in several steps. First, as other authors in the management and entrepreneurship fields (e.g., Schildt et al., 2006 ), we used the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) from the Web of Science to search for conceptual and empirical articles. We analyzed exclusively full-length articles as they are considered to be validated knowledge (López-Duarte et al., 2016 ; Phan et al., 2009 ; Urbano et al., 2019 ). Doctoral theses, books or conference proceedings were not considered in this review. The search was conducted following the most commonly used terms in the literature to describe the entrepreneurial activities that occur within organizations: “corporate entrepreneurship,” “intrapreneurship,” “corporate venture,” “corporate venturing,” “internal entrepreneurship,” “strategic renewal,” “entrepreneurial employee activity,” “sustained regeneration,” and “organizational rejuvenation.” We searched for these words in the title, abstract, keywords, and text of the articles and did not limit our search to any specific period of time. Hence, the oldest paper dates back to 1969 (Westfall, 1969 ) and the most recent were published in 2021 (the search ended in November 2021). These terms are consistent with the definitions and forms of CE mentioned above. It is extremely unlikely that an article related to CE is published without using them. Other related terms, such as, organizational creativity, organizational ambidexterity, business model innovation or entrepreneurial orientation were excluded from our search because they are beyond the scope of our analysis.

Second, following an approach similar to Busenitz et al. ( 2014 ) and Marvel et al. ( 2016 ), our search was restricted to top or high impact journals in order to control for overall research quality. From this perspective, the first search round focused on those outlets that are widely agreed to be top journals in the management field. The journals included have the highest five-year impact factor in the 2020 Journals Citations Report (JCR). Footnote 2 These are: Journal of Management (JOM, 16.662), Academy of Management Journal (AMJ, 15.873), Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ, 14.365), Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS, 13.555), Strategic Management Journal (SMJ, 12.226), Journal of Management Studies (JMS, 10.960), and Management Science (MS, 6.619). This first search round yielded 100 articles, however, only 84 remained as 16 were discarded. The reason for this is that although they appeared in the results of the initial search, when analyzing the papers in detail, they used the above terms only in the references section (not in the title, abstract, keywords or text of the articles).

Subsequently, we searched the top entrepreneurship and small business journals with the highest five-year impact factor in the 2020 JCR. These are: Journal of Business Venturing (JBV, 15.732), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP, 15.191), Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ, 10.636), Small Business Economics (SBE, 8.139), International Small Business Journal (ISBJ, 7.220), Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM, 6.799), and Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (ERD, 6.142). Using the previous criteria, in this second round, out of a total of 283 articles, 226 remained. Overall, this search yielded 310 papers. The appendix of this paper provides a list of all the articles included.

Third, all papers were read, analyzed, coded, and classified by the authors. Differences in classification were resolved by discussion between the authors. The following information was collected for each article: authors’ names, number of authors per article, publication year, publication journal, theoretical perspective, research objective, type of research (theoretical or empirical), methodology and research technique applied, level of analysis, database origin (country), authors’ affiliation (country), main findings, number of citations and reference list. In addition, we use a co-citation analysis which is defined as the frequency with which two documents (or two authors) are cited together (Small, 1973 ). This technique has been used to map the intellectual structure of various fields of research such as the diffusion of innovations (Cottrill et al., 1989 ), macroeconomics (McCain, 1983 ) or strategic management (Ramos-Rodriguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004 ; Shafique, 2013 ). This type of analysis considers that citations can be used as indicators of present and past activities of scientific work. Hence, it is based on the idea that authors cite those documents they consider to be relevant for their research (Post et al., 2020 ). This analysis was performed using VOSviewer (Mourao & Martinho, 2020 ; van Eck & Waltman, 2010 ).

The results of literature reviews are often explained by differentiating between the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the analysis (Clark et al., 2014 ). From a quantitative point of view, research describes, measures and counts the main results of the analysis. This may include the sources of publication, authors, articles, citations or publishing countries. Conversely, a qualitative analysis (e.g., content analysis) of the results includes the study of the main topics and trends, generally by explaining whether and how the content of the topic has evolved over time (Clark et al., 2014 ).

4.1 Descriptive analysis

Our results show that the number of articles on CE per journal and year has increased significantly (Table 1 ). In the period 2006–2010, 57 papers were published, more than three times the number of articles in the previous five years (17 articles in the 2001–2005 period). This trend continued in the 2011–2015 period when 73 papers were published and it is confirmed in the period 2016–2020 with 76 papers published. This development in the last decade is explained by the entrepreneurship journals (rather than the management ones) and is related to the publication of several special issues (Bettinelli et al., 2017 ; Covin & Lumpkin, 2011 ; Kuratko et al., 2015 ). Overall, 54% of research in the CE field published in top and high impact journals has appeared in the last decade (168 out of the 310 papers studied came out in 2011 or later). Table 1 also shows that this trend is more evident for entrepreneurship than for management journals. In terms of specific journals, JBV is the most prolific as it accounts for the vast majority of publications (25% of the articles; 78 out of 310 papers). To analyze the impact of the articles, we used the number of their SSCI total citations. The most cited article by far is that by Miller ( 1983 ) (2353 citations), which studies the determinants of entrepreneurship in established companies and develops a typology of three different types of firms. Table 2 presents information on the most cited articles.

Overall, the articles reviewed are written by 537 different authors and on average, each article has 2.6 authors. The most prolific in terms of publications are Covin (21 articles), Zahra (18 articles), and Kuratko (18 articles). Table 3 shows that, for instance, the 18 articles published by Zahra have produced 5787 citations in SSCI, which represents 17.1% of the total citations produced by the 310 articles studied. In addition, in 64% of the articles reviewed in Table 1 at least one of the authors is from a US university (198 out of 310). This percentage is more than four times higher than the following country, the UK (14%); 43 articles (out of 310) have at least one author from a British university. This prevalence of American (and Anglo-Saxon) based researchers is common but has begun to change in more recent years.

Most papers are empirical (76%, 237 out of 310) and quantitative (63%, 196 articles). These articles use mostly data for one single country, as shown in Table 4 , in most cases the samples used contain information only for US companies (54.1%, 106 out of 196). In addition, studies using global datasets are not very common in CE research since only 11.2% of the articles use data with information for 3 or more countries (22 out of 196). We also studied the differences in the number of citations depending on the methodology applied: qualitative researches have an average of 72 citations, whereas quantitative works have an average of 109. These differences are statistically not significant.

Finally, following past practice in the literature (e.g., Ramos-Rodriguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004 ; Schildt et al., 2006 ; Wallin, 2012 ), Fig.  1 shows the main intellectual structure of CE research (only the most co-cited researches are shown in the graph) where each circle represents an article. Specifically, the diameter of these circles (and the size of its corresponding labels) is proportional to the number of citations and articles with similar co-citation profiles tend to show up close to each other (van Eck & Waltman, 2010 ). That is, “if two articles are cited in the same paper, they are considered to be closely related to each other either because they belong to the same topic area or their topic areas are closely connected” (Schildt et al., 2006 , p. 400). Similarly, the lines linking different circles/articles show which articles have been cited together in the same paper (to simplify the graph, the lines appear only for those articles that have been cited together 10 times or more).

Intellectual structure of corporate entrepreneurship research

Overall, Fig.  1 shows that the papers on the left-hand side are some of the most cited articles in the CE (Miller, 1983 ) and entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996 ) fields. These highlight the relationship between CE and strategy (Burgelman, 1983a , 1983b ), the effect of CE on firm performance (Zahra, 1991 , 1995 ) or, in some cases, they discuss the main definitions and issues in the field (Guth & Ginsberg, 1990 ; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999 ). In contrast, the articles at the right-hand side tend to be cited together and are not very connected to the rest of the literature. These articles on the right focus mostly on corporate venture capital, which appears as a separate topic within CE literature, and are published more often in strategy and management journals than in entrepreneurship ones (Dushnitsky & Lenox, 2005 ; Wadhwa & Kotha, 2006 , among others).

4.2 Content analysis

Following previous research (Clark et al., 2014 ), in this section we focus on the main topics and their trends in the CE literature. This allows to see how the key concepts and ideas have changed and evolved over time (Volery & Mazzarol, 2015 ).

The increase in the number of articles published in recent years has led to a wider number of topics studied. Emphasis has been placed on the different forms and dimensions of CE, such as: Corporate venture capital (Rind, 1981 ); International CE (Zahra & Garvis, 2000 ); Corporate venturing (Zahra, 1996b ); Social intrapreneurship (Kistruck & Beamish, 2010 ); Franchising (Dada et al., 2012 ); Innovation based CE (Kelley et al., 2009 ; Wadhwa et al., 2016 ); or, Strategic renewal (Glaser et al., 2015 ; Zahra, 1993 , 1996a ). Previous research has highlighted the clarification of the different CE domains (and its definitions) as a key issue for the future understanding of this field (Kuratko et al., 2015 ). In addition, most theoretical models have also paid attention to the role of both antecedents and consequences of engaging in corporate entrepreneurial activity (Zahra, 1991 ). For instance, Antoncic and Hisrich ( 2001 ) present and test a model that studies the effect of a set of antecedents at different levels of analysis (organization and environment). Subsequently, they measure the effect of corporate entrepreneurial activity on firm growth and profitability. Similarly, Ireland et al. ( 2009 ) develop an integrative model of corporate entrepreneurship strategy that considers antecedents, elements and consequences of CE.

Overall, we develop a model (Fig.  2 ) that summarizes extant literature differentiating between 3 main areas: CE antecedents, CE dimensions, and CE consequences. This approach is consistent with previous literature (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ; Ireland et al., 2009 ; Kuratko et al., 2015 ; Zahra, 1991 ) and allows to provide a systematic content analysis as well as an organizing framework to analyze CE literature current status (Keupp & Gassmann, 2009 ). The different clusters presented in Fig.  2 are the result of the analysis and coding of the articles analyzed. In particular, the analysis of the research objectives, findings and levels of analysis was particularly useful for creating and developing this model. Finally, the information in Fig.  2 was complemented with information from other literature reviews and theoretical articles to ensure our model considered and extended the knowledge generated in previous research (Corbett et al., 2013 ; Dess et al., 2003 ; Guth & Ginsberg, 1990 ; Ireland et al., 2009 ; Kuratko et al., 2015 ; Minola et al., 2016 , 2021 ; Narayanan et al., 2009 ; Phan et al., 2009 ; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999 ).

Conceptual model for CE activity

4.2.1 Antecedents

Research has focused on which conditioning factors have an effect on the development of CE initiatives. The main objectives of the early studies (those published in the 1960s and 1970s) were to explain how to stimulate the development of CE activities (Westfall, 1969 ). Later, in the 1980s, the first papers on the antecedents of CE activity and on the compensation and incentive practices for venture managers were published (Block & Ornati, 1987 ). In the 1990s, papers deepened analysis of the antecedents of CE activity (Zahra, 1991 ). Generally, researchers examined company related factors (i.e., Zahra, 1991 , 1993 ), although some started taking into account the role of environmental factors (Tsai et al., 1991 ). Overall, the literature has highlighted at least three different types of factors at different levels that can influence CE: individual, company related and environmental. For instance, Guth and Ginsberg ( 1990 ) highlight the importance of strategic leaders for CE and explain the influence of the environment (competitive, technological, social and political) and of the organization (strategy, structure, process and values). Similarly, Antoncic and Hisrich ( 2001 ) differentiate explicitly between organizational (including person-related) and environmental factors. Other theoretical models such as Zahra ( 1991 , 1993 ), or, Zahra et al. ( 2009 ) follow similar approaches by grouping the conditioning factors at these different levels of analysis.

At the individual level, literature has highlighted demographic and personal characteristics as a key factor for CE (Camelo-Ordaz et al., 2012 ). Specifically, emotional and cognitive factors (Biniari, 2012 ; Corbett & Hmieleski, 2007 ) including attitudes, values and beliefs, have been repeatedly considered to play a crucial role in initiating and sustaining CE activities (Ireland et al., 2009 ; Turner & Pennington, 2015 ). From this perspective, research has explained how having a willingness to change (Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006 ), a risk taking propensity (Heavey et al., 2009 ) or being satisfied and committed to your job (Akehurst et al., 2009 ) increase the likelihood of engaging in CE activity.

In addition, other aspects have also been considered to condition CE. Research has shown that different types of previous professional experiences increase the likelihood of engaging in CE initiatives (Dokko & Gaba, 2012 ). Also, the self-evaluation of entrepreneurial abilities has been considered as an antecedent of CE (Martiarena, 2013 ). Special emphasis has been placed on the effect of compensation (Monsen et al., 2010 ; Wang et al., 2015 ), rewards, awards and recognition in motivating people to engage in CE (Burgers et al., 2009 ).

At the organizational level, one of the first antecedents studied was companies’ organizational structure and values (Zahra, 1991 ) and issues such as communication, formal controls, environmental scanning or organizational support have been shown to have a positive effect on CE (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ). More recently, the literature highlights resource availability as one of the most important organizational antecedents and shows that access to resources is closely related to the firm’s overall entrepreneurial orientation (Grande et al., 2011 ) and strategy (Zahra, 1991 ). From this perspective, time availability (Marvel et al., 2007 ) or knowledge capabilities (Maes & Sels, 2014 ) are also relevant. In addition, the effect of factors such as financial resources, R&D investments (Sahaym et al., 2010 ) or organizational size (Nason et al., 2015 ) have also been researched. However, the nature of the relationship between these specific resources and entrepreneurial activity has been subject to discussion among scholars. One stream of research argues that a bigger pool of such resources should facilitate the development of CE activities. Scholars suggest that having more resources or working in bigger companies may impede developing entrepreneurial activities because employees tend to be more risk averse because of bureaucracy and organizational processes tend to be more complex and rigid (Plambeck, 2012 ). Finally, researchers examined the association of a company’s governance and ownership systems and its level of CE (Romero-Martínez et al., 2010 ; Zahra, 1996a ; Zahra et al., 2000 ).

The different role of managers at different hierarchical levels has been studied (Radaelli & Sitton-Kent, 2016 ). From a top management team perspective, managers are considered to have multiple and critical roles in CE activity, mainly because they are centrally involved in the defining processes of both the corporate venturing and strategic renewal forms of CE (Kuratko & Audretsch, 2013 ). Further, attention has been given to the vital role that middle managers can have in creating an environment that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship (Wooldridge et al., 2008 ).

Antecedents at the environmental level of analysis have been less researched. Most studies focus on industry-related variables such as: the degree of market dynamism, hostility and heterogeneity (Zahra, 1991 , 1993 ); technological change (Sahaym et al., 2010 ); competitive intensity (Basu et al., 2011 ); industry growth and demand for new products (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ); or the level of munificence and complexity (Simsek et al., 2007 ). Further, only a few authors have empirically examined the influence of national culture related factors on companies’ entrepreneurial initiatives (Judge et al., 2015 ; Turro et al., 2016 ). Similarly, our research identified no empirical studies and only one theoretical article that study the effect of government policy on CE (Doh & Pearce, 2004 ).

4.2.2 Dimensions

In the 1980s, the literature was mainly concerned with the organizational renewal process and the combination of resources necessary to commit to develop an innovative project (Burgelman, 1983a , 1983b ; Pinchot, 1985 ; Schollhammer, 1982 ). Later, in the 1990s, CE was more clearly associated with the creation of new businesses within established companies (Bosma et al., 2013 ; Zahra, 1991 ). Similarly, during this decade some researchers made explicit use for the first time of some theoretical frameworks such as population ecology (Tsai et al., 1991 ) or the resource-based view (McGrath et al., 1994 ).

The beginning of the twenty-first century is associated with a much greater number of topics being studied, such as international CE (Zahra & Garvis, 2000 ), CE in family firms (Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006 ) or the development of theoretical models explaining different areas of CE (Ireland et al., 2009 ). In addition, several studies focused on the differing nature of CE activities compared with those of independent entrepreneurship (e.g., Parker, 2011 ).

In recent years, the different dimensions that constitute the CE phenomenon have become more evident as researchers increasingly study them separately. However, the literature still does not agree completely on its main dimensions (Ireland et al., 2009 ). Based on the entrepreneurial orientation construct, researchers usually classify CE into three to five dimensions (Covin & Slevin, 1991 )—new business venturing, product, service and process innovativeness, self-renewal and proactiveness (Guth & Ginsberg, 1990 ; Lampe et al., 2020 ; Zahra, 1993 ) are the most common. Others, such as Phan et al. ( 2009 ), consider that innovation and corporate venturing activities, on the one hand, and renewal and the ability to compete and take risks, on the other, are two distinct but related phenomena. These activities are closely related to the strategic entrepreneurship concept, which has been defined by Hitt et al., ( 2001 , p. 481) as “the integration of entrepreneurial (i.e., opportunity-seeking behavior) and strategic (i.e., advantage-seeking) perspectives in developing and taking actions designed to create wealth.” Therefore, some previous research propose that CE entails two main activities. The first is a company’s involvement in the creation of new businesses. The second is strategic entrepreneurship, which corresponds to a broader array of entrepreneurial initiatives which do not necessarily involve new businesses being added to the firm (Kuratko et al., 2011 ). In this regard, it has been argued that the main forms that strategic entrepreneurship can take are strategic renewal, sustained regeneration, domain redefinition, organizational rejuvenation and business model reconstruction (Kuratko et al., 2015 ; Pettit & Crossan, 2020 ).

The corporate venturing dimension is the most researched (Narayanan et al., 2009 ; Zahra & Hayton, 2008 ) and the literature usually differentiates between two types of corporate venturing activities: Externally directed corporate venturing units; and internally directed corporate venturing units which try to exploit business opportunities within the boundaries of the parent firm (Covin et al., 2021 ; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999 ). In addition, a growing number of articles have studied the differences between independent (also known as, traditional or private) venture capital and corporate venture capital (Dushnitsky & Shapira, 2010 ).

4.2.3 Consequences

The relationship between CE and firm performance has also attracted considerable research interest over the past four decades. In the late 1980s, researchers began studying the relationship between performance and engagement in CE activities (Miller et al., 1988 ) and during the 1990s, the positive effect of CE on firm performance became even more evident (Zahra, 1991 ). Overall, there is agreement that CE can renew a company’s capabilities and increase its capacity to acquire and use new competencies that improve performance (Zahra et al., 2000 ). Indeed, Antoncic and Hisrich ( 2001 , p. 504) state that “organizations that engage in intrapreneurial activities are expected to achieve higher levels of growth and profitability than organizations that do not.”

Researchers agree that some CE initiatives have strategic objectives, while others pursue financial goals. From a strategic perspective, firms may engage in CE because of several benefits that include: learning, successful integration of a company’s operations, improved responsiveness, successful standard setting (Narayanan et al., 2009 ) or acquiring new skills or technologies (Dushnitsky & Lenox, 2005 ). However, research has primarily focused on the financial consequences of entrepreneurial activities (which may be easier to measure) and, therefore, there is a need to study the non-financial goals of CE initiatives (Zahra, 1991 ).

From a financial perspective, there is general agreement in the literature that CE has a positive effect on firm performance (Bierwerth et al., 2015 ; Zahra, 1991 ) by increasing the company’s proactiveness and risk taking, and by promoting product, process, and service innovations (e.g., Lumpkin & Dess, 1996 ; Walter et al., 2006 ). These capabilities allow the firm to improve its competitive position and can enable it to enter new industries in pursuit of profitability and growth (Clark et al., 2014 ; Zahra et al., 2000 ; Zahra, 1996a ). CE has an effect on a firm’s ability to compete and adapt to successfully perform in increasingly turbulent environments, by enabling the ongoing rejuvenation of product, market and strategic positions and the revitalization of knowledge and intellectual capital (Zahra et al., 1999 ). Thus, CE activities have become a key variable in explaining performance differences across firms (Heavey & Simsek, 2013 ).

Building on key findings of the content analysis we have just presented, Fig.  2 provides a conceptual framework summarizing and synthesizing the most relevant concepts.

5 Emerging trends and avenues for future research

In the light of our preceding analysis and discussion of the literature, in this section, we suggest an agenda for further research on CE antecedents, dimensions and consequences. We also outline limitations of our analysis.

5.1 Corporate entrepreneurship antecedents

The role of the institutional environment.

Studies that emphasize the organizational and individual levels of analysis have focused on issues such as organizational structure (Covin & Slevin, 1991 ; Zahra, 1991 ), incentive and control systems (Sathe, 1985 ), managerial support towards entrepreneurial initiatives (Hornsby et al., 2002 ), personal traits and values (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ), or gender (Lyngsie & Foss, 2017 ).

Yet, as noted, when studying which environmental factors can affect CE, the emphasis is normally placed on industry related factors. Hence, other environmental or even institutional variables that could have a significant influence, such as culture or legal regulations have been less researched (Urbano et al., 2019 ).

To our knowledge, since the early work of Morris et al., ( 1993 , 1994 ), few empirical papers have appeared analyzing the role of national culture related factors at a country (or specific region) level of analysis (Turro et al., 2014 ). Nevertheless, theoretical research has pointed out the importance that institutional variables could have for CE. For instance, Hornsby, Bloodgood, et al. ( 2013 ), p. 312) state that “it is important to consider how cultural factors may also influence the internal dynamics of the CE process.” Some researchers have considered the companies’ internal corporate culture and values (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ; Zahra, 1991 ; Zahra et al., 2009 ). Although internal corporate values may be affected by the more general (national) cultural setting, the literature considers it to be an organizational factor rather than an environmental one. Similarly, even though public policies may have a direct impact on the development of entrepreneurial initiatives (Gnyawali & Fogel, 1994 ), there are very few papers on the role of government regulations in the CE field (Doh & Pearce, 2004 ).

The above shortcomings are even more striking when we consider that the literature on independent entrepreneurship has repeatedly highlighted the impact of informal and formal institutional factors such as culture or regulations (Kreiser et al., 2002 ; Morris et al, 1994 ). Since national culture reinforces certain personal characteristics and penalizes others, these types of studies show how entrepreneurship differs from one national culture to another as some values favor entrepreneurial behavior more than others (Hayton et al., 2002 ). In addition, the literature suggests that regulations can also have a significant effect on entrepreneurship (Begley et al., 2005 ). For instance, inefficient government regulations in the economy may be perceived negatively by entrepreneurs and, hence, this may discourage them from starting new businesses (Djankov et al., 2002 ). Despite the appeal of such claims, we need to study them carefully in the context of CE.

An institutional perspective on CE would help delineate the effect of the environment on stimulating CE activities as well as its potential role as a moderator of the CE-company performance relationships. To gain a better appreciation of the nature and magnitude of this effect, it is necessary for future research to examine different dimensions of institutions such as labor laws, IP, extent of government regulations, among others. Separately and in combination these dimensions could shape managerial incentives which, in turn influence their decision time horizons, willingness to invest in CE, and take the risks associated with various efforts needed to stimulate innovation and strategic renewal. Future research also needs to consider how the nature of the diversity of individuals’ demographics and expertise interacts with institutional factors to facilitate or constrain CE. For example, while we have some evidence that more women on top management teams is associated with more CE (Lyngsie & Foss, 2017 ), we have little understanding of how this might differ in institutional contexts with differing gender attitudes and roles. Similarly, there is an absence of the evidence on the impact on CE of other dimensions such as ethnic and religious diversity. This could be related to those studies that emphasize the relevance of the different entrepreneurial mindsets for CE activities, however, it remains unexplored (Kuratko et al., 2021 ). Previous research has already suggested that the role of the institutional environment for CE can be different between developing and developed countries, however, these findings have not been tested quantitatively (Hughes & Mustafa, 2017 ).

Furthermore, the role of the business sector to which the company belongs has rarely been considered seriously when studying CE. Yet, a business sector has a fundamental influence on CE as it affects the rate of change of the competitive environment (Burgers et al., 2009 ). Further, with very few exceptions (Schildt et al., 2005 ), empirical research focuses upon the manufacturing sector. However, service sectors also develop CE activities which should be systematically studied. More generally, research is now emerging on the nature of the role and dimensions of the ecosystem for the start-up entrepreneurship (e.g., Autio et al., 2018 ). However, we know little about how the ecosystem for CE may be distinctive and the research agenda in this space would appear to be a potentially rich one.

Methodological approaches

Despite the literature agreeing on the multilevel nature of CE antecedents (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ; Ireland et al., 2009 ; Zahra, 1991 ), our search identified few studies using a multilevel regression technique (or any other type of hierarchical linear modelling method) (e.g., Behrens & Patzelt, 2016 ; Kang et al., 2016 ). Hence, future research could exploit this methodological approach to better establish the contributions of CE to firm performance. The potential importance of individuals at different levels in the organization, from non-managerial employees upward, suggests scope for future studies to develop linked employee-managerial-organization-databases. Such cross-level analyses may go some way to exploring the gap in understanding of the microfoundations of a firm’s systematic organizational capability for corporate entrepreneurship. Developing such a capability may require firms to combine individual-level entrepreneurial roles and firm-level entrepreneurial processes (Salvato et al., 2009 ).

Hierarchical levels and compensation

The role of first level managers has been less researched as literature focuses mainly on middle and top management. However, some authors have suggested that bottom-up processes are important for CE and that first level managers play a key role in this process (Hornsby et al., 2009 ). Further, in some sectors and firms, non-managerial employees through their day-to-day interaction with the market may have access to the kind of information that enables them to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities. Similarly, the effects of managers’ and employees’ compensation (regardless of the hierarchical level) on CE have not been studied in depth (Hornsby et al., 2002 ). Issues such as which kind of compensation methods should be used with corporate entrepreneurs to foster their entrepreneurial initiatives need further examination. Moreover, although the nature of compensation for management has already been considered important for CE since it can influence time horizons and strategic behaviors (Block & Ornati, 1987 ; Phan et al., 2009 ), recent changes in corporate ownership and funding of innovation and other CE activities make it essential to revisit these contributions to CE.

5.2 Corporate entrepreneurship dimensions

Independent entrepreneurship vs ce.

There have recently been some attempts to compare CE and independent entrepreneurship as two separate phenomena (instead of CE being a sub-field of entrepreneurship) (Stam, 2013 ). Hence, the antecedents that make individuals choose between becoming self-employed or corporate entrepreneurs have been well documented (Hellman, 2007 ; Kacperczyk, 2012 ). However, several issues remain unexplored. For instance, a better understanding of the design of contracts and work environments that minimize the risk that the employees seek to avoid by starting their own ventures, could generate interesting insights (Parker, 2011 ). In addition, while both independent entrepreneurship and CE are important drivers of economic growth, the net effect of both types of ventures is not clear. Therefore, further studies could investigate and compare the performance of internal versus external ventures to assess better their weights and impacts on economic growth (Kacperczyk, 2012 ).

Our results show that, to date, few studies have examined the dissimilarities among the different forms of CE (for an exception, see Verbeke et al., 2007 ). However, since entrepreneurial activities are essential for companies to adapt to environmental changes, a greater appreciation of the factors that determine such activities should have both theoretical and practical implications (Zahra et al., 1999 ). The lack of studies in this particular area reflects a lack of consensus about the main forms of entrepreneurship in established companies, which is surprising given the large volume of research on CE. Understanding these forms will help in establishing their usefulness to companies and the conditions leading to their success.

Opportunity identification process

Relatedly, few studies have explored the opportunity identification side of the different CE activities and the subsequent exploitation of these opportunities (Bloodgood et al., 2015 ; Foss et al., 2013 ). This is in contrast to literature on independent entrepreneurship where the fundamental importance of the opportunity identification process has been extensively highlighted (Shane, 2000 ). Given recent debates in the independent entrepreneurship literature about whether opportunities are created or discovered (Alvarez & Barney, 2019 ), exploration of whether and how the CE context differs in this respect seems warranted. Thus, it may also be fruitful to study the extent to which internal decision-making processes in corporations affect the nature of opportunities identified and pursued because they maybe more attuned to dealing with assessing risk rather than uncertainty. In this regard, O’Connor and Rice ( 2001 ) explore the opportunity identification process for technological breakthrough innovations, however, their multiple case study analysis is limited to large, technology-intensive, established firms. Therefore, further research focusing on other aspects and contexts is necessary.

Life cycle and CE

The life cycle dimension of CE activities has not been sufficiently studied, highlighting the need for further research on the topic. This is an important gap in understanding the processes by which CE activities emerge, develop and decline and their impact on corporate performance is likely to vary with these changes. Understanding this life cycle may clarify how the form of CE might change with increased organizational experience and time (Guerrero et al., 2021 ). Further, understanding the relationship between different life cycles (industry, company, segments or products) and CE could provide significant implications for future research (Hoy, 2006 ). Further, studying firm and organizational life cycles might help researchers identify the gamut of CE activities that unfold over time and their implications for organizational success and adaptation.

Ownership and governance

In the area of governance systems and property rights, findings from prior studies on the role of ownership in different types of CE are fragmentary. Nason et al. ( 2015 ) only cover ownership in the sense that they explore private SMEs versus large listed corporations. But private ownership is more nuanced and includes family firms, venture capital and private equity backed firms, and even socially owned and hybrid enterprises that may engage in CE related activities (Zahra et al., 2009 ). Amess et al. ( 2016 ), Wright et al. ( 1992 ) and Zahra ( 1995 ) consider some initial aspects of CE in private equity owned firms, while Chrisman et al. ( 2015 ) consider CE in the form of innovation in family firms. As a result, more systematic analysis comparing different types of ownerships is needed (Hale & Woronkowicz, 2020 ). We also know that even within different types of ownership, organizations may have different goals (Kotlar et al., 2018 ) which would suggest a need to consider CE in the context of organizational goals.

The role of size: Large Corporation and SME

Even though some authors have explained that CE can be relevant for large corporations as well as small and medium sized enterprises (Carrier, 1994 ; Zahra et al., 2000 ), there are few studies focusing on the different sizes of corporate entrepreneurial projects (an exception is Nason et al., 2015 ). There is little information on antecedents of and the extent to which major and minor intrapreneurial initiatives have the same characteristics. We also know little about their contribution to the general economy and firm performance. Overall, there seems to be a need for further studies focusing on the nature of CE (e.g., focus, goals, form and size) among large, established companies and SMEs (Zahra et al., 2000 ).

Complexity of CE

In addition to the size of CE projects, complexity is also a dimension of CE. Complexity may relate to technological aspects but also to the complexity of the markets to be served and the services to be provided. Such complexity may call for collaboration among organizations. Beyond the extensive literature on joint ventures and alliances between corporations, collaborations may involve corporations and universities, governmental agencies, not-for-profit organizations, individual entrepreneurs, etc. For example, co-creation arrangements, either focused on particular projects or longer term linkages, have emerged recently to engage in CE activities that combine social and commercial goals (DeSilva & Wright, 2019 ). At present, we have very limited analysis of the motivations, organizational forms, processes and outcomes of such CE activities.

5.3 Corporate entrepreneurship consequences

Performance measures.

Our analyses also highlight shortcomings and areas to develop further research in terms of CE consequences. Studies that examine the relation between CE and firm financial performance typically use measures such as return on investment (Zahra, 1991 ), return on sales (Zahra, 1993 ), return on equity (Zahra & Hayton, 2008 ), market share gain (Bojica & Fuentes, 2012 ) or cash flow (Miller et al., 1988 ). Previous literature has already highlighted the difficulties of measuring performance in organizational studies, particularly among new ventures because even successful start-ups often do not reach profitability for a long period of time (Tsai et al., 1991 ). Hence, some researchers have explained the benefits of using other types of performance measures (Miller et al., 1991 ). Similarly, from a CE consequences perspective, we have limited understanding of the drivers that lead to project failure and to the termination of CE activities (Behrens & Patzelt, 2016 ; Shepherd et al., 2009 ). In addition, and related to the points above regarding types of ownership and goal variety, studies of the consequences of CE also need to explore social as well as financial, and economic outcomes in relation to ownership goals. Moreover, prior research ignores the specific goals companies pursue when they measure the overall impact of CE activities, failing to delineate where particular CE efforts influence specific performance goals and criteria (Kreiser et al., 2021 ).

CE consequences and cross-cultural research

Another area for further study relates to the focus of most prior studies on the financial outcomes of developing CE activities in US firms. Few studies focus on European companies (Bojica & Fuentes, 2012 ; Walter et al., 2006 ), or explicitly adopt a cross country comparison between the US and elsewhere (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ) and only one examines this phenomenon using global data (Zahra & Hayton, 2008 ). From this view, some authors have considered that cross-cultural research has the potential to expand the concepts and theories that have been developed in a single cultural setting (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001 ). For instance, Hills and LaForge ( 1992 ) stress the importance of conducting entrepreneurship research in an international context as some authors observe that entrepreneurial initiatives cannot be understood without attention to the context in which they take place. The review by Bierwerth et al ( 2015 ) cites studies on CE in Austria, Canada, China, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Taiwan, and Turkey, among others. This growing interest in CE worldwide reflects its importance for stimulating innovation, risk taking, competitive aggressiveness which are essential for success in today’s intensely competitive global markets. While true of economies the world over, CE is especially relevant to companies in emerging economies where privatization efforts have been widespread aiming to stimulate entrepreneurship. Companies in these economies also seek to catch up technologically with their counterparts from advanced economies. State owned enterprises in these countries are also facing tough competition for foreign entrants as well as local start-ups, making CE a key means for these companies’ adaptation. Recent shifts associated with the resurgence of state capitalism may also warrant a reassessment of how CE is measured (Grossman et al., 2016 ). State owned enterprises may differ in their goals and objectives, the expectations of their stakeholders, their life-cycle phases, their time horizons and the involvement of their owners in boards of directors that can help facilitate or constrain CE rather than just providing a monitoring function. These differences may have implications for the nature and use of CE. For example, to what extent is CE driven by financial and economic objectives, or social and political objectives, and what conflicts arise? Further, how do these conflicts affect CE’s success? Clearly, these issues deserve careful study and analysis.

The lack of good databases poses challenges for conducting cross-cultural and international research on CE – most studies collect their own data (i.e., Maula et al., 2009 ). Among the secondary sources of information, the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) start up database (employed mostly at the beginning of the 1990s) and the VentureXpert database (Park & Steensma, 2012 ) are the most widely employed.

Funding and CE

There are also very few examples of articles that examine the consequences of different types of funding for CE (Park & Steensma, 2012 ), especially across countries and industries despite the acknowledged structural differences that might exist in this regard. This could be explained because researchers tend to assume that companies fund these activities; however, this is not always the case (Dushnitsky & Shapira, 2010 ). Therefore, future research could deepen more specifically the outcomes and consequences of different types of CE funding (e.g., inhouse vs outside), given that managers’ incentives could potentially determine their preferences for particular types of venturing and other CE activities.

Table 5 summarizes our discussion by presenting some examples of future research questions on CE. It also provides a synthesis of topics that the literature has considered to be relevant but that have not been studied in detail. The results of our systematic literature review show that the increase in the number of articles published in the last decade has led to additional research questions and relevant topics to be explored. Moreover, some areas have been significantly more researched than others. Overall, despite the progress made to date, there are many important topics that require further research. With the globalization of the world economy, CE researchers have a golden opportunity to examine differences (and similarities) across countries and document how CE activities of different types could impact companies’ competitiveness, ability to adapt, and engage in continuous innovation and renewal.

6 Conclusion

Despite the recent increase in the number of publications on CE, there are few recent systematic literature reviews focusing on the topic. Offering such a review, this research provides information on the content and evolution of CE. Specifically, 310 papers published in the top and highly cited journals in the business, management and entrepreneurship fields are examined. Our review contributes to the literature by providing a complete analysis of the current state of the art of research in this field. The review highlights the types of articles, theoretical frameworks and quantitative and qualitative methods used. It also provides a detailed analysis of how the main topics studied have evolved over time. This enabled us to identify the main categories (CE antecedents, CE dimensions, and CE consequences) and subcategories in this field. The changing scope of the CE concept over the decades has helped to enlarge the research agenda. The emerging trends and under researched areas of CE that we have identified open up further avenues for scholarly exploration. Clearly, there is a great deal of interest in CE and this interest is global, suggesting the need for more careful investigations of its international dimensions and strategic relevance.

As with all studies, our review also has several limitations that offer opportunities for further research. First, in line with many other review articles, our focus is on the main journals in the management and entrepreneurship fields that involve robust review procedures and are likely to include CE work. This approach is consistent with previous literature (Busenitz et al., 2014 ; Marvel et al., 2016 ) and allowed us to focus on outlets where CE has a central role, however, this implied not searching in journals that focus specifically on fields such as innovation or international business. Similarly, studies published elsewhere in conference proceedings and doctoral theses have been excluded to avoid overlap as they are often the first step before publication in a journal and also to ensure that we include the most rigorous and definitive version. Second, as is generally recognized, citation, and co-citation techniques have some inherent flaws. When compiling citations, it is impossible to distinguish their objectives. Authors may refer to other articles to explain, justify or build their own ideas. However, citations may be used for other purposes such as to criticize another author’s work or to mention one’s own articles, or are simply gratuitous citations. While this may potentially inflate some aspects of the citations analysis, it is less likely to impact the scope of the themes we have presented. Third, although we have adopted a broad definition of CE (Sharma and Chrisman ( 1999 ); Antoncic and Hisrich ( 2001 ), our review did not incorporate the study of the strategic entrepreneurship concept as this was beyond our scope. Although the fields of strategic management and entrepreneurship have developed independently (Ireland et al., 2003 ), they both focus on “how firms adapt to environmental change and exploit opportunities created by uncertainties and discontinuities in the creation of wealth” (Hitt et al., 2001 ; p. 480). Hence, as shown in Fig.  2 , future research should integrate both approaches as some entrepreneurship and innovation activities fit within the definition of both concepts. For the same reason, other overlapping fields such as, organizational creativity, organizational ambidexterity or entrepreneurial orientation were also excluded from the search terms. Future research could deepen on the relation with these neighboring fields.

See Table 1 for more information.

The journals are part of the Business and Management categories. Initially, we searched in the Finance and Economics categories as well. However, no articles were found in these categories. For the same reason, the Marketing and Consumer research journals were also dismissed.

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Acknowledgements

Our co-author, Mike Wright, sadly passed away before this article was published. He is sorely missed. David Urbano acknowledges the financial support from the projects ECO2017-87885-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy & Competitiveness) and 2017-SGR-1056 (Economy & Knowledge Department, Catalan Government), and ICREA under ICREA Academia programme.

Open Access Funding provided by Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

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Department of Business, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Building B, Campus UAB, 08913 - Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain

David Urbano & Andreu Turro

Centre for Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Research (CREIS), Universitat Autònoma Barcelona, Building S, Campus Sabadell UAB, C/ Emprius 2, 08202 - Sabadell, Barcelona, Spain

Centre for Management Buy-Out Research, Imperial College Business School University of Ghent, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

Mike Wright

Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship Department, Carlson School of Management, Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship, 3-430 Carlson School, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Shaker Zahra

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1.1 List of articles included in the study (ranked by number of articles published in each of the selected journals)

Journal of Business Venturing:

Abetti (1997); Allen and Hevert (2007); Antoncic and Hisrich (2001); Arzubiaga et al. (2018); Badguerahanian and Abetti (1995); Basu et al. (2011); Belderbos et al. (2018); Block and Ornati (1987); Bradley et al. (2011); Brazeal (1993); Browder et al. (2019); Brundin et al. (2008); Burgers et al. (2009); Covin et al. (1999); Covin et al. (2015); Covin et al. (2020); DeSarbo et al. (1987); Dushnitsky and Lenox (2006); Filatotchev et al. (1999); Green et al. (2008); Gupta et al. (2004); Gupta and Sapienza (1992); Hill and Birkinshaw (2008); Hornsby et al. (2002); Hornsby et al. (2009); Janney and Dess (2006); Jones et al. (2011); Kang et al. (2016); Kelley et al. (2009); Lin and Lee (2011); MacMillan and Day (1987); Maula et al. (2009); McDougall et al. (1992); McGrath (1995); McGrath et al. (1994); Miller et al. (1989); Miller et al. (1991); Miller et al. (1988); Ohe et al. (1992); Park and Kim (1997); Parker (2011); Patzelt et al. (2020); Patzelt et al. (2021); Pearce et al. (1997); Phan et al. (2009); Plambeck (2012); Ravasi and Turati (2005); Rigtering et al. (2019); Sahaym et al. (2009); Shankar and Shepherd (2019); Shepherd et al. (2009); Shrader and Simon (1997); Siegel et al. (1988); Sorrentino and Williams (1995); Srivastava and Lee (2005); Sykes (1986); Sykes (1990); Sykes (1992); Sykes and Block (1989); Sykes and Dunham (1995); Thornhill and Amit (2000); Tsai et al. (1991); Van de Vrande et al. (2009); Wadhwa et al. (2016); Waldkirch et al. (2021); Walter et al. (2006); Weber and Weber (2011); Westhead and Wright (1998); Wincent et al. (2014); Yang et al. (2009); Zahra (1991); Zahra (1993); Zahra (1995); Zahra (1996a, 1996b); Zahra and Covin (1995); Zahra and Garvis (2000); Zahra and Hayton (2008); Zahra et al. (2009).

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice:

Biniari (2012); Block et al. (2019); Borch et al. (2021); Corbett and Hmieleski (2007); Covin and Lumpkin (2011); Covin and Miles (1999); Covin and Miles (2007); Covin and Miller (2014); Covin and Wales (2019); Covin et al. (2018); De Clercq et al. (2016); Dess et al. (1999); Doughery (1995); Eddleston et al. (2010); Fang et al. (2021); Fini et al. (2012); Finkle (2012); Garret and Covin (2015); Heller (1999); Hornsby et al. (1993); Hornsby et al. (1999); Hoy (2006); Hunt et al. (2019); Ireland et al. (2009); Jennings and Young (1990); Judge et al. (2015); Keil et al. (2010); Kellermanns and Eddleston (2006); Kistruck and Beamish (2010); Kotlar and Sieger (2019); Kreiser et al. (2020); Kuratko et al. (2005); Lampe et al. (2020); Marvel et al. (2007); Miles and Covin (2002); Monsen et al. (2010); Riar et al. (2021); Schild et al. (2005); Sharma and Chrisman (1999); Soleimanof et al. (2019); Titus Jr and Anderson (2018); Titus Jr et al. (2020); Uzuegbunam et al. (2019); Van de Vrande and Vanhaverbeke (2013); Verbeke et al. (2007); Vozikis et al. (1999); Yiu and Lau (2008).

Small Business Economics:

Adachi and Hisada (2017); Akehurst et al. (2009); Amoroso et al. (2017); Audretsch (2015); Audretsch et al. (2015); Ben Arfi and Hikkerova (2019), Bertoni et al. (2013); Bierwerth et al. (2015); Biniari et al. (2015); Bloodgood et al. (2015); Braune et al. (2021); Braunerhjelm et al. (2018); Byrne et al. (2016); Cantner et al. (2020); Covin et al. (2021); Crawford and Kreiser (2015); Cruz and Nordqvist (2012); Cucculelli and Bettinelli (2015); Cucculelli and Peruzzi (2020); Cumming et al. (2008); Douglas and Fitzsimmons (2013); Fryges and Wright (2014); Glaser et al. (2015); Garrett and Holland (2015); Guerrero et al. (2019); Hale and Woronkowicz (2020); Iacobucci and Rosa (2005); Kearney and Morris (2015); Kellermanns et al. (2012); Kreiser et al. (2021); Kuratko et al. (2015); Kuratko et al. (2015); Martiarena (2013); Nason et al. (2015); Stam (2013); Turner and Pennington (2015); Useche and Pommet (2020); Zahra (2015); Zellweger and Sieger (2012).

Strategic Management Journal:

Ahuja and Lampert (2001); Alvarez-Garrido and Dushnitsky (2016); Barringer and Bluedorn (1999); Birkinshaw (1997); Boone et al. (2019); Burgers and Covin (2016); Ceccagnoli et al. (2018); Deichmann and Jensen (2018); Dushnitsky and Lenox (2005); Dushnitsky and Shapira (2010); Dushnitsky and Shaver (2009); Gaba and Dokko (2016); Garud and Van de ven (1992); Guth and Ginsberg (1990); Kannan-Narasimhan and Lawrence (2018); Keil et al. (2008); Kuratko et al. (1990); Larrañeta et al. (2014); Nielsen et al. (1985); Park and Steensma (2012); Pettit and Crossan (2019); Rind (1981); Schendel (1990); Shortell and Zajac (1988); Stopford and Baden-Fuller (1994); Yang et al. (2014).

Journal of Small Business Management:

Bettinelli et al. (2017); Bojica et al. (2017); Brumana et al. (2017); de Lange and Valliere (2020); Gentry et al. (2013); Hakala et al. (2016); Hughes and Mustafa (2017); Johnson (2012); Kim et al. (2018); Kim et al. (2021); Kuratko et al. (2021); Ma and Huang (2016); Maes and Sels (2014); Moreno and Munuera (2016); Naldi et al. (2015); Noyes et al. (2014); Park et al. (2019); Randolph et al. (2017); Simba and Thai (2019); Simon et al. (2002); Swoboda and Olejnik (2016).

Journal of Management:

Anderson et al. (2014); Dess et al. (2003); Drover et al. (2017); Engelen et al. (2015); Engelen et al. (2016); Hill and Birkinshaw (2014); Jennings and Lumpkin (1989); Jones and Butler (1992); Keupp and Gassmann (2009); Kim et al. (2019); Lengnick (1992); Lyon et al. (2000); Morris et al. (1993); Rosenbusch et al. (2013); Russell and Russell (1992); Shepherd et al. (2014); Shepherd et al. (2019); Titus Jr et al. (2017); Wooldridge et al. (2008); Zahra et al. (2000).

Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal:

Basu et al. (2016); Cabral et al. (2020); Di Lorenzo and Van de Vrande (2019); Dushnitsky and Lavie (2010); Eckhardt et al. (2018); Gaba and Bhattacharya (2012); Hill et al. (2009); Hinkler et al. (2010); Huang and Madhavan (2020); McGrath (2015); Minola et al. (2016); Mohammadi and Khashabi (2020); Park and Steensma (2013); Simsek and Heavy (2011); Smith and Shah (2013); Souitaris and Zerbinati (2014); Van Ness and Seifert (2016); Wang and Wan (2013); Weber et al. (2016); Zahra (2016).

Journal of Management Studies:

Alt and Craig (2016); Ambos and Tatarinova (2021); Chirico et al. (2021); De Massis et al. (2021); Dimov and Gedajlovic (2010); Doh and Pearce (2004); Fang et al. (2021); Haynes et al. (2015); Heavy et al. (2009); Keil (2004); Keil et al. (2008); Minola et al. (2021); Prugl and Spitzley (2021); Raitis et al. (2021); Ramirez-Pasillas et al. (2021); Simsek et al. (2007); Simsek et al. (2015); Teng (2007).

International Small Business Journal:

Camelo et al. (2012); Dada and Fogg (2016); Dada et al. (2010); Fini and Toschi (2016); Gupta and Batra (2016); Messeghem (2003); Shu et al. (2020); Thorgren et al. (2012); Wales et al. (2013); Wales et al. (2015); Yu et al. (2019); Zahra et al. (2014).

Academy of Management Journal:

Chin et al. (2021); Bae and Lee (2021); Dokko and Gaba (2012); Gaba and Meyer (2008); Ling et al. (2008); Souitaris et al. (2012); Wadhwa and Kotha (2006); Westfall (1969); Zahra (1996a, 1996b).

Entrepreneurship and Regional Development:

Casillas and Moreno (2010); Fayolle et al. (2010); Grande et al. (2011); Herbane (2019); Kemelgor (2002); Marchisio et al. (2010); Nordqvist and Melin (2010); Salvato et al. (2010); Turro et al. (2016).

Administrative Science Quarterly:

Burgelman (1983a, 1983b); Chen and Nadkarni (2017); Kacperczyk (2012); Pahnke et al. (2015); Pontikes (2012).

Management Science:

Bhardwaj et al. (2006); Burgelman (1983a, 1983b); de Bettignies and Chemla (2008); Miller (1983).

Journal of International Business Studies:

Morris et al. (1994); Yiu et al. (2007).

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Urbano, D., Turro, A., Wright, M. et al. Corporate entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review and future research agenda. Small Bus Econ 59 , 1541–1565 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-021-00590-6

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A Systems View Across Time and Space

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Fifty years of artisan entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review

• Uswatun Hasanah 1 ,
• Badri Munir Sukoco   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0416-1480 2 ,
• Elisabeth Supriharyanti 3 &
• Wann-Yih Wu 4  

Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship volume  12 , Article number:  46 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Culturally based products and businesses have become increasingly common, drawing attention to artisan entrepreneurship. A small number of studies have comprehensively reviewed artisan entrepreneurship in terms of its antecedents and consequences, as is examined in this study. Specifically, this research looked at the factors that contribute to successful artisan entrepreneurship, managing environmental dynamism, markets, and institutional pressures. This study focuses on developing antecedents and consequences that may be used as a reference for the development of artisan entrepreneurship. A systematic literature review was conducted on 72 papers from the last 50 years from the first quartile of the Scopus database. This study identified that environmental, social, organizational, and individual factors could determine the development of artisan entrepreneurship and have consequences on social, organizational, and individual levels. This framework may aid artisan entrepreneurship and stakeholders in identifying the factors needed in the development of artisan entrepreneurship. The main elements of the resulting research agenda include suggestions for theory development, methodology, antecedents, and consequences.

Introduction

In recent years, artisan entrepreneurship has attracted increasing attention in entrepreneurship and management literature (Arias & Cruz, 2019 ; Hill, 2020 ; Igwe, 2018 ; Tregear, 2005 ). Increased interest in artisan entrepreneurship has been due to the expansion of creative industries and focus on goods and services that have a cultural component (Ratten et al., 2019 ), such as those using traditional skills, innovation (Hoyte, 2018 ; Marques et al., 2018 ; Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ), cultural identities, and social networks (Bhattacharjya et al., 2018 ; Brooker & Joppe, 2014 ; Hill, 2020 ; Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ; Sehnem, et al., 2020 ; Solomon & Mathias, 2020 ; Wherry, 2006 ; Wu et al., 2021 ; Tregear, 2005 ). Moreover, artisan entrepreneurship is a creative industry that connects people and cultures on a global scale (Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ).

Much artisan entrepreneurship is centred on the clothing and grocery industry because artisans prefer to create products tied to cultural heritage (Bravi & Murmura, 2021 ; Lindbergh & Schwarts, 2021 ; Tregear, 2005 ) to have an advantage (Brooker & Joppe, 2017 ; Kapferer, 2014 ; Wherry, 2006 ) and offer unique products, which are the distinguishing features of the market (Marques et al., 2018 ). However, a number of studies have discussed artisan entrepreneurship outside of clothing and food industries, looking at artisan products related to agriculture (Hilton, 2006 ; Torres et al., 2020 ). For example, Pret and Cogan ( 2018 ) focused more on understanding seven important themes in artisanal entrepreneurship, namely behavioural context, motivation, development, resources, diversity, and classification. Unfortunately, this study does not explore the antecedents related to factors that may be developed in response to market pressures nor the ability to survive in the midst of competition. According to Jones and Gatrell ( 2014 ), this systematic literature review is key in understanding existing knowledge and identifying new research directions.

The diversity of research that has emerged on artisan entrepreneurship is for several reasons. A number of studies have, for example, looked at artisan entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial products, and the direct or indirect relationship between tourism competitiveness, environmental impacts, and artisan activities (Arias & Cruz, 2019 ; Hoyte, 2018 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ; Salas-Vargas et al., 2021 ; Soukhathammavong & Park, 2019 ; Teixeria & Ferreira, 2019 ). Furthermore, much of the research on artisan entrepreneurship has found that there are stories in the works of artisans related to skills, innovation, motivation, and entrepreneurial personality (Hoyte, 2018 ; Marques et al., 2018 ; Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ;). Artisan entrepreneurship experiences challenges related to limited resources, cultural identity, policies, social networks (Bhattacharjya et al., 2018 ; Brooker et al., 2014 ; Hill, 2020 ; Sehnem et al., 2020 ; Solomon & Mathias, 2020 ; Tregear, 2005 ; Wherry, 2006 ; Wu et al., 2021 ), and economic and environmental change (Drummond et al., 2018 ; Friedrichs, 1976 ; Nason, 1984 ). However, the factors that enable artisan entrepreneurs to deal with environmental dynamics and the resulting consequences remain largely unknown, becoming the focus of this study.

Being responsive and proactive on the global market is important in artisan entrepreneurship achieving success (Bislimi, 2022 ; Blundel, 2002 ; Fuller, 2003 ; Paige & Littrell, 2002 ). In Western cultures, the production of artisan goods reflects the qualities of the community, embodying dignity, skill, integrity, self-confidence, and an emphasis on factors surrounding skills related to artisanal production (Teixeira & Ferreira, 2019 ). Therefore, a region may develop its competitiveness by taking advantage of its cultural heritage, social networks, and artisan products (Franceschi, 2020 ; Oral et al., 2021 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ; Salas-Vargas et al., 2021 ). However, without understanding factors that lead to the success of artisan entrepreneurship, there may be a lack of support for its development. Therefore, the research questions for this paper are as follows:

What factors enable artisanal entrepreneurship to deal with environmental dynamics and resulting consequences in existing literature?

What possibilities are available to future research to further develop and expand on existing literature in this field?

To answer these research questions, this research refers to a study conducted by Supriharyanti and Sukoco ( 2023 ) using Tranfield et al.’s ( 2003 ) method, namely a systematic review that involves conducting complete literature study through a scientifically replicable and transparent process. This method was undertaken on the Scopus database search for studies published between 1976 and 2023 with several criteria, such as only in the field of Business, Management, and Accounting, the first quartile, and English literature. A study assessment and in-depth analysis of each selected and extracted paper were also performed (Sweeney et al., 2018 ) to determine which specific papers and components were relevant to the study.

This research makes a number of contributions. Firstly, the study synthesizes existing studies on how artisan entrepreneurship develops (Hilton, 2006 ; Kapferer, 2014 ; Nason, 1984 ; Popelka & Littrell, 1991 ; Ramachandran et al., 2012 ; Sturmer, 1979 ; Tregear, 2005 ) by developing antecedents and consequences, expanding on the success factors of artisan entrepreneurship developed by Loarne-Lemaire et al. ( 2020 ), which focus more on antecedents in developing artisan entrepreneurship. This focus is different from that conducted by Pret and Cogan ( 2018 ), which focuses on understanding seven important themes in artisan entrepreneurship, namely behaviour context, motivation, development, resources, diversity, and classification. These findings offer insights into the antecedents related to factors that may be developed in response to market pressures, as well as an ability to survive amongst competition. According to Jones and Gatrell ( 2014 ), systematic literature reviews are important in understanding existing knowledge and identifying new research directions. For example, reviewing existing gaps in artisan entrepreneurship literature will motivate researchers with an interest in artisan entrepreneurship to conduct research, particularly in terms of artisan entrepreneurship in facing environmental dynamism with a quantitative approach.

Methodology

This study performed a systematic literature review, a method that involves the search for exhaustive literature studies through a transparent, scientifically replicable process (Tranfield et al., 2003 ) into a structured review that explores approaches widely used by reviewed articles such as methods, theories, publications, research problems, and countries (Paul & Criado, 2020 ). This process consisted of several stages, the first of which was exploration of the topic. The authors used their expertise to assess knowledge related to artisan entrepreneurship to define topics and concepts used as a key search (Bodolica & Spraggon, 2018 ) and identify research questions and objectives that would guide the literature search (Jocevski et al., 2020 ) as this study aims to determine what existing studies have examined.

The second stage involved searching and filtering the literature by adopting a snowballing procedure (Wohlin, 2014 ), such as developing a start set and iteration by applying criteria to determine the appropriate article as follows:

The database used was Scopus because its content contains scientific publications from publishers around the world based on scientific criteria and rigour (Baas et al., 2019 ), and limited the number of analysed articles, as the review was targeted to including leading peer reviewed journals;

The period of 1976–2023 was chosen on the basis that, over the last 50 years, artisan publications have increased and Western countries such as the US, Germany, and Spain are active in developing culturally charged products, as evidenced by the existence of traditional technologies (such as looms) used to support business activities (Nason, 1984 );

This type of research source focuses on final articles and not conference papers because they are not comprehensive (Gonzalez-Albo & Bordon, 2011 );

First quartile journals (Q1) based on Scopus (sources) represent categorised journal prestige and prestige and effect of journals categorized as journal visibility in the academic community (Garcia et al., 2011a , 2011b ); and

Only papers in English were chosen as it is the most commonly used language for articles published in international journals and for global academia (Lopes, et al., 2021 ; Supriharyanti & Sukoco, 2023 ).

The following stage of the process involved searching for papers from publishers such as Sage Journal, Springer, Taylor and Francis, Emerald Insight, Wiley-Blackwell, and Elsevier (Fig.  1 ).

Research protocol

In the literature search and screening procedure, the authors developed an initial setting that would identify papers to generate an introduction related to the research questions by applying a keyword a search technique of “artisan” and abstracts that included this keyword. It was then necessary to conduct an iteration process to determine suitability. Each study deemed relevant was then discussed for a quality audit, which required determining the clarity of the research question, the appropriateness of the methodology and rigour used, the sample size selected, the specification of the theoretical framework and measurement approach, and the validity of findings. The studies chosen for the research include those on craft, fashion, and other products that carry an artisanal element. One example is in Salas-Vargas et al., ( 2021 ), in Environmental impact of Oaxaca cheese production and wastewater from artisanal dairies under two scenarios in Aculco, State of Mexico , in which entrepreneurial artisans created small batches of unique products manually and with tools only as support (Arias & Cruz, 2019 ). The majority of artisan entrepreneurship focuses on clothing and food ingredients, and creators prefer to produce because the products are tied to their cultural heritage (Tregear, 2005 ). In general, artisan entrepreneurship prioritizes craftsman skills and techniques that include local potential, culture, and authenticity.

The third stage of the process was assessment and study selection. In this phase, a literature search sampling and screening procedure was performed by reviewing each selected abstract and full text of the chosen studies. If the articles did not meet the predetermined criteria, they were excluded from the final dataset. Furthermore, to ensure objectivity, the study conducted a review with other authors to conduct independent selection and compare with one another.

The fourth stage of the research was literature analysis, which involved conducting an in-depth analysis of the selected studies to summarize the parts considered important and mapped them. The Excel spreadsheet table proposed by Sweeney et al. ( 2018 ) was used as a guide for analytical reading. A total of 72 articles were extracted based on their titles, journals, authors, years, research questions, phenomenon gaps, research gaps, methods, context, types of artisans, variables used, findings, theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research.

Results and discussion of results

This section describes the responses to the research questions through a structured review focusing on widely used definition, theories, methodologies, and constructs. This section further expands on results with an analysis of units, countries, themes, and leading researchers in the artisan entrepreneurship literature.

Overview of artisan entrepreneurship

Artisan entrepreneurship dates back to the seventeenth century, as presented by Friedrichs ( 1976 ) in his research on wool weavers in the German city of Nordlingen facing difficulties in dealing with economic and environmental changes. According to Nason ( 1984 ), environmental dynamism did not only occur in the seventeenth century, but also occurred in the following period, during which US commercial companies aimed to enhance the quality of handicrafts to adapt to market changes and open new markets abroad. The development of artisan entrepreneurship is currently increasing because artisan entrepreneurship is at the heart of the creative economy (Rashid, 2021 ), one of the subsectors of the creative industry (Pret & Cogan, 2018 ), and due to the expansion of creative industries and increased focus on homemade goods and services (Bislimi, 2022 ).

This creative industry has provided sustainable community development in the global economy (Arias and Cruz, ( 2019 ) and plays an important role in communities and social networks that depend on the local environment (Ratten et al., 2019 ). A number of countries in Europe (Hill, 2020 ; Ramadani et al., 2017 ) have paid particular attention to artisan entrepreneurship because it has had an impact on regional competitiveness and tourism development (Teixeira & Ferreira, 2019 ). Artisan entrepreneurship has emerged as a culture-based business related to tourism, culture, and regional development (Hoyte, 2018 ), playing a central role in the country’s economic development and protection of cultural heritage (Marques et al., 2018 ).

Solomon and Mathias ( 2020 ) define artisan entrepreneurship as work completed by individuals who emphasize manual production, independence above conglomeration, local community above scale, and value creation above profit maximization. The existence of artisan entrepreneurship is important because of the shift towards more culture-based businesses and increasing emphasis on local, handcrafted goods related to an area’s culture and tourism. Furthermore, products such as local food and handmade clothing related to the cultural heritage of entrepreneurs (Tregear, 2005 ) are becomingly increasingly in demand. Culture also determines the context and environment (i.e. place, time, and certain stimuli), in which social origins, culture, and shared traditions are maintained across generations, and artisan entrepreneurship develops identity from crafts or commerce (Hoyte, 2018 ).

Theoretical framework

To evaluate the development of artisan entrepreneurship research, it is important to consider the dominant theoretical and methodological tools used by researchers. Of the 72 articles reviewed, only 14 mention the theoretical framework; the rest describe concepts that refer to existing studies. The following is a description of the theoretical framework used in the research to date.

Sustainable Development Theory , as used by Nayak et al. ( 2022 ), assumes that the development should meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Keeble, 1988).

According to Value Capture Theory , despite different approaches used, all areas converge to the same central idea, involving the value captured from a consumer’s characteristics to develop an offer (Graciano, et al., 2022 ).

Socio-technical System Theory (Appelbaum, 1997), as used by Oral et al. ( 2021 ), assumes that a series of activities are a synergistic blend of human, technology, culture, work practices, and organizational structure with the aim of increasing artisans’ overall work-life quality.

Institutional Logic Theory , as one of the developments of institutional theory, assumes that how individuals respond to competition is based on five factors, namely ignorance, compliance, defiance, compartmentalization, and combinations. These five factors were also discussed in Lindbergh and Schwartz ( 2021 ), who found that there was tension between two institutional logics, namely combination and compartmentalization.

Dynamic Capability Theory was used by Tiwari and Korneliussen ( 2022 ) and also Torres et al. ( 2020 ) to explore interaction dynamics by developing socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) dimensions.

Social Practice Theory provides an analytical framework for Routine Deconstruction and Ritual interaction Theory. Wu et al., ( 2021 ) combines the Social Practice Theory with Ritual Interaction to explore artisanal routines consisting of three practices: cultural production; transmission; and operation.

Practice Theory explores how humans establish social interaction relationships in achieving a common goal with three cultural capitals: objectified; institutionalized; and embodied (Bourdieu, 1986, 1990). These relationships are integrated into the dynamic process faced by artisan entrepreneurship (Nicolini and Monteiro, 2017).

Social Capital Theory forms the basis of the development of artisan entrepreneurship because it is assumed that resources contained in individuals and groups are connected in a network that benefits all other parties in said network (Ramadani et al., 2017 ).

Actor-Network Theory posits that everything in the social and natural world exists in a network of constantly changing and complex relationships (Blundel, 2002 ). Drummond et al. ( 2018 ) combine the theory with the Interaction Theory based on the assumption of how one understands another, focusing on the behaviour and environmental context in maintaining an entrepreneur's business network.

Congruity Theory assumes that the role of a country's information can influence the evaluation of its products and affect the authenticity of the products produced by artisans, as well as that of raw materials and craft skills.

Collaboration Theory assumes that the extent to which owners or managers collaborate, collaborations are carried out between organizations or between groups of artisans, not intragroup such as joining associations. Furthermore, there are differences for communities included in associations but not part of associations related to marketing activities (Alonso & Bressan, 2014 ).

Theory of Planned Behaviour posits that intentions are determined by three constructs: attitudes; subjective norms; and perceived control. It is assumed that consumers’ beliefs in buying artisan products are based on ethical content and the desire to support social issues (Ma Jin et al., 2012 ).

A Wealth of Nation assumes that, given an individual's need to fulfil personal interests and generate social benefits, artisan entrepreneurship has internal motivational power concentrated on one’s importance to society and personal relationships in business (Fuller, 2003 ).

Competitive Advantage Theory assumes that, in the context of artisan entrepreneurship, there are different strategies for achieving success. Artisans define success by traditional criteria such as profit and growth, as well as intrinsic factors such as personal satisfaction (Paige & Littrell, 2002 ) (Table 1 ).

Methodological approach

This paper presents methodological trends in artisan entrepreneurship research by reviewing the methods used in each study, which are broadly divided into qualitative, quantitative, and the mixed-methods approaches. Among the 72 articles reviewed, most employed a qualitative method with a case study approach. According to Parren and Ram ( 2004 ), qualitative methods are suitable for studying entrepreneurship and small businesses because they aid in in understanding complex situations. Furthermore, the case study approach has proven to be a useful method in providing a holistic picture in exploring and understanding meaning based on individual or group factors of social or human problems (Creswell, 2013 ). The philosophy and implications of case studies have received significant attention and have a considerable history in management literature (Perren & Ram, 2004 ).

In addition to qualitative methods, quantitative methods have been employed in a number of the reviewed studies, with the survey method most frequently being adopted. The use of this method is reasonable because surveys permit researchers to gain insights and are reliable and valid in assessing opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about behaviour and values, particularly cultural values (Ljubica et al., 2022 ). Larsson ( 1993 ) also explains that, with a survey, researchers may determine relationships among variables using hypothesis testing (Table 2 ).

Publication outlets

This systematic review found that articles related to artisan entrepreneurship literature were published in 38 first quartile journals, 19 of which were top-tier journals, with the majority being in the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research (12 articles). This journal is a leading publication on the development of entrepreneurship behaviour and one of the most highly tanked journals concerned with artisan entrepreneurship. The second-largest number of artisan entrepreneurship literature studies were found in the Annals of Tourism Research, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development (four articles), followed by the Journal of Cleaner Production, Business History Review, (three articles). Furthermore, The Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Technology in Society, Tourism Management Perspectives, International Small Business Journal, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, British Food Journal, all had two articles. The following journals all had one article: Journal of Technology kin Society; Journal of Engineering and Technology Management; Journal of Knowledge Management; Journal of Business Venturing; European Journal of Marketing; Tourism Management; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; Management Learning; Journal Of Marketing Management; Journal Of Tourism and Cultural Change; Technological Forecasting & Social Change; Journal of Product & Brand Management; Journal of Business Research; Current Issues in Tourism; Journal of Global Fashion Marketing; Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice; Journal of Travel Research; European Business Review; Business Horizons; Tourism Review; International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management; Journal of Product Innovation Management; Journal of Management; Spirituality & Religion; Journal of Consumer Culture; Journal of fashion marketing and management, Futures; Journal of Small Business Management; Technovation; Business history; Journal of Management in Engineering; and Long Range Planning; Journal of Family Business Management; Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal; The International Journal of Logistics Management. Table 3 presents the publication outlets on the study of artisan entrepreneurship.

Countries under study

The most widely studied country was the US ( n  = 12) followed by the UK ( n  = 11). It is assumed that this finding is due to the use of traditional technologies such as looms used to support business activities. Nason ( 1984 ) states that Western countries actively develop culturally charged products. Europe and India ( n  = 5), Africa, Italy and Ireland ( n  = 4), Nigeria and Mexico ( n  = 3), Australia, Portugal, China, Brazil and Spanyol ( n  = 2) are followed by several countries, including Afghanistan, Sweden, Brazil, Laos, Spain, Japan, Thailand, New York, Denmark, Kosovo, German, Aland, Vietnam, Serbia and Croatia ( n  = 1). These findings indicate that studies in Western countries dominate publications of high repute (Q1) over regions such as Asia because varied cultural contexts lead to different motivations and entrepreneurial behaviour, and US commercial companies appreciate and purchase artisan products to a larger extent (Nason, 1984 ). Table 4 presents countries in which there have been studies into artisan entrepreneurship.

Authors in artisan entrepreneurship research

This review, to assess the extent of authors’ contribution to the development of artisan entrepreneurship literature, adopted the method used by Canabal and White ( 2008 ), which identified how many articles on artisan entrepreneurship were published by each researcher and weighted them based on the frequency with which papers were published. Table 5 presents the authors with the highest number of studies.

These findings suggest that the author that has contributed most significantly to the field is Littrell, followed by Ratten, whereas all other authors have conducted one study. These results indicate that there is still little research on artisan entrepreneurship conducted by researchers published in leading journals. Furthermore, studies into artisan entrepreneurship have been dominated by women. This finding is reasonable because the majority of artisans are female, and people tend to work with individuals that share characteristics such as gender (Trevino et al., 2018 ).

The results of this study suggest that much of the research on artisan entrepreneurship has been conducted by scholars, in which innovation is a theme often reviewed. This theme is reasonable because innovation is one of the main factors of increased turnover (Tiwari & Korneliussen, 2022 ; Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ; Marque, et al., 2018 ; Hoyte, 2018 ) (Fig.  2 and Table 6 ).

The theme of artisan entrepreneurship

Citation analysis

This study examined the most influential articles using a citation analysis of data retrieved from scopus.com consisting of the total number of citations. Documents were reviewed from 1976 to 2023, with the highest number of citations being 101 in 2002. This finding is reasonable because the three papers with the most citations were published in top-tier journals, namely the Journal of Small Business Management, Business Horizons, Entrepreneurship Theory, and Practice. High-status journals can provide the benefits of citing publications, as well as the perceived value of high status from journals not only rooted in positions within the academic community, but also placed within a wider ranking ecosystem (Salandra et al., 2021 ). Table 7 presents the most influential studies (Fig.  3 and Table 7 ).

Top influential articles

Recent research framework

This section presents a conceptual framework that describes the antecedents and consequences of a systematically reviewed study into artisan entrepreneurship. The study used the framework developed by Pret and Cogan ( 2018 ), which focuses on seven main themes related to the study of artisan entrepreneurship: behaviour; context; motivation; development; resources; diversity; and classification. The antecedents and consequences were developed to describe the antecedents as inputs and consequences as outputs in an effort to develop artisan entrepreneurship. These findings were derived from 72 studies identified in the systematic review. Figure  1 presents a framework for the findings of this study in terms of the identified factors.

Antecedents in developing artisan entrepreneurship

This section groups antecedents in the development of artisan entrepreneurship into four categories, namely environmental, social, organizational, and individual factors. Innovation (organizational factor) has been reviewed and discussed in a number of studies, which makes sense because innovation in the craftsman sector, particularly in the traditions and capacities of craftsmen, in a technical domain, in empowering actors involved in new market trends, among other innovative characteristics that attract tourism, such as ensuring that the authenticity of the area and their cultural heritage do not disappear (Teixeira and Ferreira, 2019 ). Therefore, the ability to innovate in developing artisan entrepreneurship is a key factor. In some villages in Oaxaca, Mexico, artisans employ traditional techniques of producing textiles. Initially, artisans weaved textiles for use within their communities or local trade. Several artisan entrepreneurs in Teotitlan de1 Valle, Oaxaca, then developed tourism and export markets for their handmade textiles, and artisans have learned to understand market needs so that the products that they create meet these needs (Popelka & Littrell, 1991 ; Tiwari & Korneliussen, 2022 ).

Another antecedent frequently reviewed is cultural identity (social factors). Previous research has found how cultural heritage is increasingly important in different ways and at varying economic levels (Ratten et al., 2019 ; Teixeira and Ferreira, 2019 ), and that regions can develop competitiveness by taking advantage of their cultural heritage and artisan skills (Hill, 2020 ; Oral et al., 2021 ; Salas-Vargaz et al., 2021 ). Artisans are characterized as individuals who practise certain types of trades, in which manual techniques are preferred, such as textiles and metal tools (Moreno and Leiirell, 2001 ; Popelka & Littrell, 1991 ; Nason, 1984 ).

Consequences of developing artisan entrepreneurship

The consequences of developing artisan entrepreneurship are grouped into three categories, namely social, organizational, and individual consequences. Social consequences are based on the quality of one’s social life (Franceschi, 2020 ; Hill, 2020 ; Nayak et al., 2022 ; Ramadani et al., 2017 ). As found by Tregear ( 2005 ), artisans strike a balance between community involvement and commercial success with which they feel comfortable. Cooperation in the form of social collaboration may be used to create solutions related to the capital and funding system to enhance the creative economy business performance and increase the quality of artisans’ social life (Hill, 2020 ). Social identity is also the consequence of developing artisan entrepreneurship because it is focused on a common goal (socio-economic). After all, small businesses are the result of this focus (Fuller, 2003 ) and strengthening their social identity (Rytkonen, et al., 2023 ; Riddering, 2016 ) (Fig.  4 ).

Antecedents and consequences

This study employed a structured review, the results of which show that theory, methodology, and state require further discussion. Theoretically, there are limitations to the theories and phenomena explored. As well as the phenomenon of the demand to have the ability to innovate (Brooker & Joppe, 2014 ; Hagtvedt et al., 2019 ; Marques et al., 2018 ; Rashid & Ratten, 2021 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ), confronted with cultural identity (Cheah et al., 2016 ; Hilton, 2006 ; Kepferer, 2014 ; Nason, 1984 ; Ratten et al., 2019 ; Soukhathammavong, 2019 ; Wherry, 2006 ), methodologically, literature. Artisan entrepreneurship has largely been studied using qualitative methods to explore the phenomenon of artisan entrepreneurship as socially constructed and highly contextual knowledge of reality, as revealed with a comprehensive description (Solomon & Mathias, 2020 ) and explored by in-depth interviews through quantitative methods and primary and secondary data. The country with the largest number of studies on artisan entrepreneurship is the US, whereas Asian countries such as China, Thailand, Laos, and Japan, have been explored with a limited number of studies.

This study focuses on artisan entrepreneurship, which has mostly been studied in a Western context, where development is increasingly comprehensive. Most of the reviewed studies have explored different methods to develop artisan entrepreneurship. This study explores this field through the framework of antecedents and consequences. The results of the analysis show that there are a number of environmental, social, organizational, and individual factors. Organizational factors, specifically the ability to innovate, play a dominant role and have been more widely explored in the development of artisan entrepreneurship (Wu et al., 2021 ; Solomon & Mathias, 2020 ; Torres et al., 2020 ).

Main conclusions

This study explored artisan entrepreneurship literature, which has grown significantly in the last 50 years. The complex nature of artisan entrepreneurship has made this industry increasingly important over the last decade as an increasing number of people and organizations are interested in issues related to fostering a sustainable world for future generations. The proposed antecedents of artisan entrepreneurship include environmental, social, organizational, and individual factors. Organizational factors, particularly the ability to innovate, have played a dominant and widely explored role in the development of artisan entrepreneurship in the last fifty years. In addition to antecedents, there are consequences resulting from environmental dynamism, consisting of social, organizational, and individual consequences.

On each level, many factors can be explored or tested with theory. In terms of the consequences of artisan entrepreneurship, this review focused mostly on an organizational level. Future studies may explore new theories or refine existing theories on the individual consequences of artisan entrepreneurship. The proposed framework serves as a guide for scholars to conduct future researchers and assist business owners and managers in identifying factors needed by stakeholders who wish to ensure individual well-being.

The study also identified future research possibilities to develop, strengthen, and expand on literature in this domain. A small number of studies have used a theoretical lens to understand the phenomenon of artisan entrepreneurship. In general, researchers have used descriptive qualitative research methods in a limited number of developing countries. Although there are a number of studies and findings related to artisan entrepreneurship, it is still a new research field and requires further investigation.

This study’s recommendations are for future research concern theory, methodology, and research settings, as well as a developed framework. Due to the limited theoretical lens used in the study of artisan entrepreneurship, future studies should examine existing theories (such as Social Cognitive Theory, Stakeholder Theory, or Dynamic Competitive Theory). Developing a new theory based on artisan entrepreneurship may be challenging for future research. In terms of methods, this review found that exploratory studies have become a dominant method. Enriching the generalizability of the study of artisan entrepreneurship by using quantitative methods is a method achieved by expanding the respondents not only to business owners and managers, but also to artisans through a multi-level analysis. The use of the mixed-methods approach will also strengthen the findings of the Artisan Entrepreneurship Theory.

Theoretical implications

The complex nature of artisan entrepreneurship has made this industry increasingly important in the last decade as an increasing number of people and organizations are interested in issues related to fostering a sustainable world for future generations. These organizations are more dynamic than large organizations that are able to respond to the environment and change members’ values and beliefs to suit the environment (Bashokuh-E-Ajirlo et al., 2021). Artisan entrepreneurship must keep up with these dynamics by reconfiguring structures and processes by facilitating innovation and adapting to a rapidly moving business environment with organizational innovation capabilities because competitive advantage requires more than just ownership of assets (knowledge) that are difficult to imitate. This finding is in line with the concept of Dynamic Capability (DC) derived from Resource-Based View (RBV) to explain how organizations may deploy internal resources and capabilities to gain competitive advantage in a dynamic business environment.

This review contributes to theory offering a specific framework for development by identifying the antecedents and consequences of artisan entrepreneurship. Artisan entrepreneurship creates an artisan economy that gives rise to collective power to achieve desired outcomes, due to social influence and cognition. This finding supports the research of Bandura ( 1997 ). The importance of the growth and development of artisan entrepreneurship is inseparable from roles such as government, craftsmen, consumers, social communities and the availability of financial aspects (financiers) in line with stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984 ).

Practical implications

This systematic review contributes to the understanding of research on artisan entrepreneurship to date and its impact on the development of artisan entrepreneurship. This review contributes to practice by offering a specific framework for development by identifying the antecedents and consequences of artisan entrepreneurship. For organizations, artisan entrepreneurship may be used to create managerial practices that focus on innovation. Because innovation is the most frequently discussed theme and antecedent in this literature review and today’s dynamic world, it may represent both a challenge and opportunity for organizations (Sukoco et al., 2019 ).

Organizations are required to continue to innovate and emphasize market orientation but not ignore cultural identity as an indicator of organizational performance. For individuals (artisans), through this practice, artisan entrepreneurship may evaluate and motivate other artisans to promote products. A number of artisan entrepreneurs in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, provide examples of craftsmen who have developed tourism and export markets for handmade textiles. Furthermore, artisans should learn to understand market needs so that they are able to create products that are needed (Popelka & Littrell, 1991 ), which, in turn, will positively affect the quality of life (Carter, 2011 ) of each artisan.

Policy implications

This research proposes a framework that may be used by the government as a policymaker in the national strategic plan, facilitating artisan entrepreneurship in developing local products using as model an optimized version of the existing “Bangga Buatan Indonesia” policy. Furthermore, the government must foster creativity in all aspects of welfare of the population (Gouvea et al., 2020 ) so that the state is able to develop a “One Village, one Product” policy, as has been done by Japan, which was initiated by the Governor of OITA Province, Morihiko Hiramatsu in 1979. The government can also grant legality or patent rights to artisan products to maintain adapted to regional uniqueness (local wisdom). Authenticity (distinctiveness/authenticity) is also an opportunity to be developed and to create a competitive advantage for artisan entrepreneurship, as suggested by Bhaduri and Stanforth ( 2017 ) and Cheah et al. ( 2016 ) because the authenticity of raw materials has a positive effect on the assessment of products made by Prada (famous brand) and Touche (Peruvian brand).

Limitations and future lines of investigation

This section presents follow-up research questions and future research directions based on the gaps in the findings to motivate scholars to conduct further research into artisan entrepreneurship (Table 8 ).

Theory—research direction

This study found that existing research on artisan entrepreneurship has not been particularly diverse, and there are still limitations in the use of theory. Only 13 articles have explicitly sought to expand on or develop a new theory. In the future, to recognize changes and developments in the study of artisan entrepreneurship, new theories should be at the core. This section offers a number of theoretical suggestions.

Firstly, artisan entrepreneurs have received increasing recognition, from the importance of the arts to economic development, as well as their role in society and regional development. There is also now a more significant emphasis on local and artisanal goods related to an area’s culture and tourism. Artisan entrepreneurship allows for the creation of a craftsman economy that revives cities and encourages the development of businesses that respect traditions within the community by incorporating a social mission in line with Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1997 ), in which people share belief in the collective power to achieve desired outcomes. This theory also explains that a person’s behaviour is, in part, shaped and controlled by one’s social networks (i.e. social systems) and cognitions (e.g., expectations and beliefs) (Bandura, 1997 ). These cognitions occur socially within organizational contexts, in which people work together to achieve the desired results and goals. Bandura ( 1997 ) argues that there is a reciprocal relationship between person, environment, and behaviour. Social Cognitive Theory is still rarely used in research into artisan entrepreneurship, which is in line with Crowley ( 2019 ), who argues that three main perspectives should be identified in the study of artisan entrepreneurship behaviour, one of which is the study of factors at the micro-level such as cognition as an antecedent to the behaviour of artisan entrepreneurship. Bird et al. ( 2012 ) state that entrepreneurial behaviour is shaped by cognition and affect. Therefore, future research should use this theory as a theoretical basis because its essence is that humans learn about models through observation and imitation, which are then used in their behaviour.

Secondly, the results of this review also show that the importance of the growth and development of artisan entrepreneurship cannot be separated from government, craftsmen, consumers, social communities, and availability of financial resources (investors), which is in line with Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984 ). The main purpose of business based on this theory is creating for all stakeholders involved, both groups and individuals, who can influence or be influenced by business (Freeman, 1984 ).

The key element of stakeholder theory is humans as actors and their interactions in the process of value creation, alignment of values, norms, and ethics as a mechanism to develop within and among organizations (Freeman et al., 2020 ). Stakeholder Theory also covers normative cores to answer the following two questions asked by companies:

What is the purpose of the company?

To whom does management have an obligation?

To answer these two questions, it is important for future research to use stakeholder theory because business conception is more humanistic because it reflects awareness of the role, purpose, directions, and long-term impacts on society. Pret and Cogan ( 2018 ) argue that, in the craft community, a joint commitment to artisan entrepreneurship allows artisans to share knowledge and social-emotional support. The study of the behaviour of artisan entrepreneurship is also inseparable from the support of actors such as the government, trade associations, and special interest groups (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001 ). Higher education institutions also have the responsibility to provide quality education in facilitating the innovation of knowledge for the development of entrepreneurship education (Wall and Maritz, 2021 ) and must reflect modern entrepreneurial educational methods and goals in specific cultural contexts and modify them to ensure the most reliable results (Fleck et al., 2020 ).

Thirdly, artisan entrepreneurship faces challenges, one of which is competition. The dynamics of competition will continue to play an important role in understanding the changing environment (Ketchen et al., 2004 ). Competitive action is a product of individuals’ perceptions, personalities, intentions, and motivations within organizations (Chen and Miller, 1994). Therefore, future research should adopt the Competitive Dynamics theory to understand how the dynamism and intensity of a business environment can lead to profit (Chen et al., 2010 ) in the context of artisan entrepreneurship.

Methodology—research direction

This review found 50 articles on artisan entrepreneurship used qualitative methods. This method is considered the most relevant because it is exploratory and seeks to explain “how” and “why” specific social phenomena occur, making it easier to understand social reality (Polkinghorne, 2005 ). However, a limitation of this method is that the findings cannot be generalized (Allen, 2019). Therefore, this section offers methodological recommendations for future research.

Firstly, subsequent research should adopt a quantitative approach. In a number of existing studies, researchers have tended to choose business owners or managers and ignored other workers on a technical level, such as artisans (craftsmen), who are key resources of artisan entrepreneurship (Marques et al., 2018 ). The results of this review suggest that research related to artisan entrepreneurship has been conducted in developing countries. Therefore, it is important to conduct research in developed countries and deepen the complexity of research by adding a selection of samples such as business owners, managers, and artisans. Further research should also use multi-level analyses to accommodate multiple levels of organizations such as individuals and organizations. Multi-level analysis researchers may compare responses from business owners on an organizational level and artisans on an individual level.

Secondly, of the 72 studies reviewed, only five employed the mixed-methods approach. Future research may adopt this approach because of the limited number of studies using it, using qualitative methods to build initial theory and then quantitative methods to test and expand on theory (Shah and Corley, 2006). Many studies on artisan entrepreneurship have used a qualitative approach to build a theoretical framework but have not proceeded with quantitative methods to test findings. Therefore, this paper suggests that future research studies use a mixed-methods approach, in which the researcher builds on the initial theory and conducts testing to strengthen findings.

Antecedents and consequences—research direction

Existing studies into the antecedents of artisan entrepreneurship have been divided into environmental, social, organizational, and individual factors. Although the number of factors is large, previous studies have been fragmented in terms of organizational factors. This fragmentation provides future research opportunities to integrate antecedents into empirical and conceptual research. For empirical research, this study suggests collecting data from internal and external stakeholders to explain stakeholder support (artisans, consumers, government, suppliers, and investors) in developing artisan entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it is important to view competitive dynamics (Chen & Miller, 2014 ) and understand stakeholders are part of the strength of the organization in determining the five dimensions of competitive dynamics, namely competitive objectives, ways of competing, list of actors, tools of action, and timing. These dimensions are useful in distinguishing the mode of competition, called relational competition (Chen & Miller, 2014 ), to remain both competitive and relational in the industrial ecosystem.

The consequences of artisan entrepreneurship are more focused on organizational consequences, which are largely concerned with maintaining and enhancing the performance of artisan entrepreneurship. Few studies have presented individual consequences. This focus is an opportunity for future research one of the consequences of individuals in the context of artisan entrepreneurship being individual well-being. Individual well-being is an individual consequence of organizational performance when artisan entrepreneurship maximizes performance (Loarne-Lemaire et al., 2020 ). Moreover, the welfare of members will affects decision-making to keep working (Carter & Sara, 2011 ). Maximum organizational performance will increase the quality of life of artisans and have a direct impact on their well-being.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets supporting the conclusions of this article are included within the article and its additional files.

Abbreviations

Socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization

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Hasanah, U., Sukoco, B.M., Supriharyanti, E. et al. Fifty years of artisan entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review. J Innov Entrep 12 , 46 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-023-00308-w

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• Artisan entrepreneurship
• Cultural identity
• Antecedents
• Consequences

Risk is integral to entrepreneurial success, as is sound financial guidance

W hen statistics show that more than 70% of small businesses fail in the first two years – it’s confirmation that starting a business is itself a risky act. It is not surprising, then, when you review the literature around entrepreneurship that risk-tolerance is defined as one of the key traits for a successful entrepreneur.

According to a 2017 study conducted by Harvard Business School, the weight of the evidence from their research suggested that individuals with greater risk tolerance were more likely to enter entrepreneurship. “The realities of business venturing (and subsequent rates of failure) make it quite reasonable that a would-be entrepreneur needs to be one who can tolerate a lot of risk, but it is very important to push onwards,” the report said.

However, in a country like South Africa - that is plagued by low economic growth prospects and a stubbornly high unemployment rate - many pursue entrepreneurship to survive and not because they are following their natural ambitions. They do this regardless of their appetite for risk because they do not have the luxury to choose to walk away from the risk. Add to this the inadequacies of the local entrepreneurial landscape, which is under resourced and lacks adequate support structures, and you have entrepreneurs who are under immense pressure and struggle to manage risk.

Tshego Bokaba, group corporate social investment manager at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings, works with many entrepreneurs through programmes supported by the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation and she underscored the importance of the right financial advice for entrepreneurs.

“Given the many business growth inhibiting factors that are outside the control of business owners, such as load shedding and water issues, making solid financial plans with a financial adviser, saving where possible and finding ways of upskilling yourself are the best ways to gain a solid foothold on the future.”

This, of course, includes the right financial advice to mitigate risk in business – no matter what your risk appetite.

It was Jeff Bezos, founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company Amazon who famously said this on risk in an interview: “Good entrepreneurs don’t like risk, they seek to reduce risk. So starting a company is already risky and then you systematically eliminate risk step by step in those early days until you can get a company.”

And as the economy stagnates, it puts many under pressure to have side hustles - which are also becoming a necessity rather than a choice. The 2023 Momentum SMME and Side Hustle Report has highlighted that making the move from an employee/side hustle to becoming self-employed requires individuals to take risks. Implicit in this is the big possibility of failure which unlocks high levels of fear of failure.

“We need to bear in mind that many of the people running side hustles are not born entrepreneurs and are not running a business for the love of it, but out of sheer necessity,” started Monique Schehle, insights lead: strategy and planning at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings.

“The toll on mental and physical health of running a second and sometimes third business can be serious,”

The time and effort that is needed to establish and sustain a side hustle is considerable – even a small back bedroom business needs attention, and this means time away from the family, and levels of exhaustion that detract from 9-5h work performance.

The 2023 Momentum SMME and Side Hustle Report confirmed that around 14% of South African households are engaged in a side hustle, with 12% of these reporting they are running two or more businesses.

“What used to be categorised as passion projects for some determined entrepreneurs are now business ventures that are topping up people’s incomes,” said Schehle.

Even for those with side hustles – the right financial advice can go a long way in easing some of the stress and providing expertise on how to better manage your money and reduce the risk to yourself, finances and even your family.

The report also highlights how even for those with who make a real go at their side hustle, that transition to becoming self-employed is itself a risky act as the large probability of failure can unlock high levels of fear. And this puts entrepreneurs back at square one. Embracing risk is a part of the journey of every successful entrepreneur and the right advice can help entrepreneurs get comfortable with risk and confident in navigating it.