The art of crafting a systematic literature review in entrepreneurship research
Open accessAbstract
Systematic literature reviews are an increasingly used review methodology to synthesize the existing body of literature in a field. However, editors complain about a high number of desk rejections because of a lack in quality. Poorly developed review articles are not published because of a perceived lack of contribution to the field. Our article supports authors of standalone papers and graduate students in the Entrepreneurship domain to write contribution-focused systematic reviews e.g. by providing a concrete guideline. Our article analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of a systematic literature review and how they can be overcome. Furthermore, we provide a combined list of highly ranked journals in the Entrepreneurship domain as a basis for quality appraisal. Finally, this article builds a scenario for the future of the systematic literature review methodology and shows how technological improvements have changed this methodology and what can be achieved in the future.
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- Authors
- Kraus, S., Breier, M., & Dasí-Rodríguez, S.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Kraus, Sascha
- ORCID
- Kraus, Sascha
- Venue
- International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal
- Published
- 2020-02-01
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1023-1042
- ISSN
- 1554-7191 (ISSN-L)
- 1555-1938
- OpenAlex
- W3000235744
- Cited by
- 1,319
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 191 · 2025: 280 · 2024: 259 · 2023: 261 · 2022: 177 · 2021: 102 · 2020: 49
- FWCI
- 30.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Open Research (University of Surrey) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- University of Durham
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Business Strategies and Management Research
- Keywords
- systematic reviews, entrepreneurship research, review article writing, writing guidelines, desk rejection, evidence synthesis
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