A deductive approach to a systematic review of entrepreneurship literature

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