GOING BACK TO THE ROOTS: A BIBLIOMETRIC AND THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Abstract

We used bibliometric methods to examine studies related to women entrepreneurship. Speci fi cally, we focused on understanding the recent trends, the most in fl uen ti al publica ti ons and journals, topics on which women entrepreneur ‐ ship studies are conducted, and deciphering the future direc ti on of women entrepreneurship studies. We used the Scopus database to extract 1,554 documents published from 1982 to 2022 and analyzed the scien ti fi c publica ti ons per year, the most cited ar ti cles, sources of publica ti ons, keyword co ‐ occurrence, thema ti c structure (topic modeling), and bibliographic coupling. We found that the scien ti fi c publica ti ons related to women entrepreneurship are increas ‐ ing signi fi cantly each year, and the most consistent keyword is “gender.” Cita ti on analysis iden ti fi ed Ahl (2006) as the most cited ar ti cle, which demonstrates Ahl’s notable in fl uence, as well as the success of the gender turn in fl uenced by feminist theory. Co ‐ word analysis found seven clusters showing the thema ti c structure of women entrepreneurship research. Bibliographic coupling analysis found four clusters, encompassing various aspects associated with women entrepreneurship. The clusters are “Role of gender in an entrepreneur’s performance,” “Challenges and upcoming issues faced by women entrepreneurs,” “Impact of geographic loca ti on on women entrepreneurship,” and “Financial struggles of women entrepreneurs.” Topic modeling using the latent Dirchlet alloca ti on algorithm (LDA) iden ti fi ed seven areas of interest in the women entrepreneurship literature. We conclude with implica ti ons and sugges ti ons for future research.