Developments in Strategic Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Now almost twenty years ago, strategic entrepreneurship emerged as a new and high-potential field of research at the crossroads of the entrepreneurship and strategic management literatures. In this review, we track the development of this new field of research to see whether it has lived up to the original promises. Based on the review of 131 articles that have appeared over the period 2001–2019, we conclude that strategic entrepreneurship research is yet to develop the coherence and momentum that will allow it to take off more emphatically. In the discussion, we outline a set of interrelated issues concerned with conceptual ambiguity, model boundaries, and consistency in the application of conceptual foundations which we believe have had an attenuating effect on past developments of the field. We conclude our review by identifying a number of avenues for future research, alongside a pressing need for producing firmer practical guidelines for how to effectively integrate the entrepreneurial and strategic aspects of management.