Twenty-five years of New England Journal of Entrepreneurship: a bibliometric review

Abstract

Purpose

In 2023, the New England Journal of Entrepreneurship (NEJE) reached its 25th anniversary. To commemorate this major milestone as well as entrepreneurship’s growth as an academic field, the study employs bibliometric methods to provide key trends and research suggestions for entrepreneurship scholars using all original research published in the journal.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors perform two predominant bibliometric techniques, performance analysis and science mapping, using all 251 articles published by NEJE from 1998 to 2022.

Findings

The authors find that the impact of entrepreneurship research published at NEJE is growing consistently and that the challenge of the future will be to maintain this growth in tandem with greater publication productivity. The authors also find that although most contributions come from authors affiliated with institutions in the USA, there is a global representation from authors who have published in NEJE. Further, the authors found that the major entrepreneurship research themes of articles published in NEJE revolve around general entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial behavior, gender, technology, entrepreneurship education, innovation and value creation and sustainability.

Research limitations/implications

The analysis is restricted to articles published in NEJE and therefore may not be representative of the entrepreneurship field. However, it can serve as a useful resource, particularly for prospective NEJE authors, to gain empirical insights about entrepreneurship research trends and rising topics of interest.

Originality/value

The authors’ work represents the first effort to synthesize research published in NEJE through bibliometric techniques and offers insights about important trends and themes in this rising outlet of the entrepreneurship field.

Citation

Lee, Y., Kumar, S., Cortes, A.F., Sureka, R. and Lim, W.M. (2023), "Twenty-five years of New England Journal of Entrepreneurship: a bibliometric review", New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 2-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/NEJE-03-2023-0010

Introduction

With the mission to advance our understanding of entrepreneurship, New England Journal of Entrepreneurship (NEJE) was established in 1998. As a peer-reviewed international journal, NEJE publishes conceptual and empirical studies on entrepreneurship and aims to promote discussions between academics, entrepreneurs, industry professionals and policymakers to advance entrepreneurship, innovation and the successful management of new ventures and small businesses. NEJE is published by Emerald with the sponsorship from Jack Welch College of Business and Technology at Sacred Heart University. The scope of NEJE is inclusive, covering various aspects of entrepreneurship including cross-cultural and international entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and innovation, entrepreneurial ecosystems and public policy, entrepreneurship pedagogy and research, social entrepreneurship, women and minority entrepreneurship, value creation and financing, among others.

Since its inception, NEJE’s first editor, Laurence M. Weinstein (1998–2005), foresaw the journal’s potential as an international outlet for entrepreneurship scholars. Its increasing number of submissions and the accomplishments of subsequent editors continued to enhance its reputation; Herbert Sherman (2005–2011) revamped and leveraged the journal’s editorial board; Joshua A. Shuart (2011–2014) obtained a Library of Congress number and advanced the institutional publishing system; Grace Chun Guo (2014–2020) started the professional publishing with Emerald, organized an outstanding team of associate editors and led the journal through a period of exceptional growth and impact; and more recently, Andres Felipe Cortes and Younggeun Lee (2020∼) led the inclusion of the journal in Scopus metrics, established the new editorial advisory board with leading entrepreneurship scholars and continued to raise the international visibility of NEJE through impactful research and trending special issues. In 2023, NEJE is included in peer-reviewed rankings such as the Australian Business Deans Council Journal Ranking List and its Scopus impact metric (i.e. CiteScore) for 2022 was 2.9, placing NEJE on the 62nd percentile in the category of social sciences.

Given NEJE’s history as a rising outlet for entrepreneurship research and its international growth of high-quality publications across diverse topics, we believe it is now an opportune time to review the performance and contributions of NEJE to the field of entrepreneurship for two major reasons. First, NEJE is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2023, a milestone that is suitable for retrospective reviews given the number of published articles and the potential diversity and evolution of topics over a period of two and a half decades (Baker et al., 2021; Kataria et al., 2021; Kumar et al., 2021, 2023; Varma et al., 2022). Second, given the rise of entrepreneurship research around the world and the increased institutional support to new business endeavors, our bibliometric review can provide a detailed synthesis of the trends of the field and serve as a guiding source for entrepreneurship scholars to find novel and exciting research questions.

Methodology

We adopt a bibliometric approach to review extant entrepreneurship research in NEJE. Unlike alternative review methods such as content analysis using a structured framework or an unstructured exploration of themes, which can be subjective, reviews using a bibliometric approach rely on objective quantitative techniques to derive its findings (Donthu et al., 2021; Kraus et al., 2022; Lim et al., 2022; Mukherjee et al., 2022; Pritchard, 1969). The use of a specific journal (e.g. NEJE) to represent a snapshot of the field (e.g. entrepreneurship) is a relatively well-established approach (e.g. Journal of Small Business Management as a case for the field of entrepreneurship; Dana et al., 2021). Importantly, the convention of bibliometric analysis advises the use of two analytical techniques: a performance analysis, which explores the productivity and impact of research and its contributors and a science mapping analysis, which reveals the major themes and topics in the field (Mukherjee et al., 2022; Zupic and Cater, 2015). While the former is a straightforward descriptive analysis akin to the profile of participants in empirical research albeit with greater analytical rigor (e.g. metrics), the latter requires the selection of techniques that will enable the discovery of the nomological network of major themes and topics in the field (Kraus et al., 2022; Mukherjee et al., 2022). Accordingly, numerous sources of bibliographic records could be used to form clusters that can represent common themes. For example, articles whose referencing patterns are similar could form a cluster, while the keywords that authors specify to represent the essence of their article could form another cluster when they co-occur together. Given that the bibliographic records of NEJE available in Scopus are complete for keywords rather than references, we deemed a keyword co-occurrence analysis most pragmatic and thus used it to derive the major themes in the field.

Performance analysis

Publication and citation trends of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

We illustrate the publication trend in Figure 1, the citation trend in Figure 2 and the authorship trend of entrepreneurship research in NEJE between 1998 and 2022 in Figure 3. The publication trend indicates that the productivity of NEJE is uneven, wherein the journal was more productive in the first decade as compared to the second decade of the new millennium (Figure 1). However, the citation trend reveals that the impact of NEJE is progressing on an upward trajectory, with the journal’s impact growing exponentially since transitioning from institutional publishing with Sacred Heart University to professional publishing with Emerald in 2018 (Figure 2). With greater reach and visibility of professional publishers like Emerald, NEJE is well positioned to grow its citations and by extension, the impact of the entrepreneurship research that it publishes. In this regard, the challenge would be to grow the journal’s productivity in publishing entrepreneurship research while maintaining its impact, which could partially be done by ensuring that the research that the journal publishes speaks to current issues and trends in entrepreneurship. As entrepreneurship issues transpire in an increasingly disruptive, volatile and uncertain world, entrepreneurship researchers can expect to engage in collaborations rather than working in silos, as seen by the significant shift in the publication of single author to co-authored entrepreneurship research over time (Figure 3).

Influential entrepreneurship research in NEJE

We catalog the NEJE’s most influential research in Table 1. The most influential articles with more than 50 citations at the time of this analysis were Gilmore and Carson (1999) (84 citations), who emphasize the important role of networking for entrepreneurial marketing, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that differ from large enterprises in their capacities for conventional marketing practices, and Segal et al. (2002) (76 citations), who build on social cognitive career theory to predict self-employment ambitions among undergraduate business students, revealing that entrepreneurial intentions can be encouraged by improving confidence in the ability to succeed and shaping expectations of strong positive outcomes from an entrepreneurial career.

The other articles had between 20 and 50 citations at the time of study, showcasing a range of topics such as social entrepreneurship (Vega and Kidwell, 2007), history of entrepreneurship research (Landström, 1999), measurement issues (Kickul and D'Intino, 2005; Murphy and Callaway, 2004), entrepreneurship education (Menzies and Paradi, 2002), gender entrepreneurship (Gundry et al., 2002; Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan, 2015), marketing (Becherer et al., 2012), bricolage (Vanevenhoven et al., 2011), entrepreneurial personality (Yan, 2010), ethnic entrepreneurship (Morris et al., 2002), family business (Yan and Sorenson, 2003) and entrepreneurial orientation (Fadda, 2018).

NEJE has continuously led the trend of the entrepreneurship field by implementing special issues such as measurement (Issue 2, Volume 8; 2005), entrepreneurship education (Issue 1, Volume 13; 2010), entrepreneurial orientation (Issue 2, Volume 19; 2016) and social entrepreneurship (Issue 2, Volume 24; 2021).

Table 2 lists NEJE’s impact on other scientific outlets as evidenced by those journals’ citations to research published in NEJE. Importantly, the influence of entrepreneurship research in NEJE has been the greatest in Sustainability (36 citations), International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (23 citations) and Journal of Small Business Management (22 citations). We also note that NEJE’s influence extends to a range of outlets specializing in general business (e.g. Journal of Business Research), education (e.g. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education), entrepreneurship (e.g. Small Business Economics), management (e.g. Management Decision) and marketing (e.g. Journal of Strategic Marketing), including those considered to be premier (e.g. AJG 4) in the field of entrepreneurship (e.g. Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice).

Prolific contributors of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

We list the NEJE’s most prolific contributors in Table 3 and the author-based co-authorship network of publications in NEJE in Figure 4. The most influential author is Richard C. Becherer (61 citations), who also happens to be the lead author of one of the most cited articles on entrepreneurial marketing in NEJE (Becherer et al., 2012). The most prolific author is Vishal K. Gupta (eight publications), who served as an associate editor of NEJE. He contributed mainly to the areas of entrepreneurial orientation (Gupta and Dutta, 2016) and entrepreneurship history (Gupta et al., 2016). Another prolific author is Joseph E. Levangie (seven publications), who also served as an associate editor of NEJE. He contributed to the practical cases on entrepreneurial finance (Broude and Levangie, 2006; Levangie, 2005) from the perspective of an entrepreneur and an angel investor (Panel A, Table 3).

NEJE has continuously attempted to bring knowledge from industry to connect theory with practice. Specifically, in 2003, NEJE introduced a novel format of publication, “Practitioner’s Corner”, to associate entrepreneurs of small business and academia. In 2020, NEJE revitalized the tradition as “Practitioner Notes” to induce practitioners to explain entrepreneurial phenomena (e.g. problems and solutions) based on their experiences and invited academics to explain the phenomenon, summarize the theoretical implications of practitioners’ perspectives, and most importantly discuss how theories could benefit from practitioners’ perspectives and vice versa. As part of these efforts, Brown and Crawford (2022) explain how universities could utilize pedagogical models for the development of students’ social entrepreneurship capabilities from the perspectives of formal deans of business schools.

The most prolific institution publishing in NEJE is Sacred Heart University, with 20 publications, followed by Morgan State University (eight publications), University of Southern Indiana (seven publications) and University of Mississippi (seven publications) (Panel B, Table 3). In turn, the most prolific country is the USA with 195 publications, followed by Canada with 10 publications, the United Kingdom with six publications, India with five publications and Australia, Malaysia and Germany, with three publications each (Panel C, Table 3). While most entrepreneurship research witnessed herein is concentrated in the USA, which may be due to the history of NEJE being hosted through institutional publishing in Sacred Heart University, it is important to recognize that the journal remains open to contributions outside the USA, as evidenced by the contributions received from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and Oceania, thereby highlighting the inclusivity of the journal. Nonetheless, there is still room for improving the journal’s diversity by encouraging cross-cultural collaborations between unconnected and underrepresented countries as depicted in the country-based co-authorship network in Figure 5. Continuing the NEJE’s recent attempt to appoint editorial team members (i.e. editorial advisory board, associate editor and editorial review board) from diverse regions such as Australia, China, Colombia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, NEJE could enlarge the inclusivity of the journal by recruiting more editorial members who could act as the journal’s regional champions and also by issuing a dedicated call for cross-cultural special issues.

Science mapping

We performed science mapping using a co-occurrence analysis of all 332 keywords specified across 251 documents (i.e. articles and reviews) of entrepreneurship research in NEJE. We found 100 keywords connected via a nomological network with seven major clusters (Figure 6).

Cluster 1: Entrepreneurship. This is the largest cluster consisting of the general entrepreneurship research published in NEJE. It entails 29 keywords majorly concentrating “entrepreneurship performance”, “new venture”, “nonprofit entrepreneurship” and “family business”. It studies “entrepreneurial performance” through the perspective of “business planning” and “lean startup” (Welter et al., 2021), “360-degree feedback” (Miao et al., 2018), “entrepreneurial traits” (Jackson and Boxx, 2012), “personality traits” and “perception of new venture opportunity” (Yan, 2010). This cluster explores “new venture” issues relating to “bootstrapping”, “diversity”, “financing”, “legitimacy threshold”, “parenting” and “resource acquisition”, in which “resource-based view” is a noteworthy theoretical lens (Murphy and Tocher, 2011; Perry et al., 2011). The cluster also focuses on “feasibility analysis” involving “planning and research” for “new venture launch” of “nonprofit enterprise” or “nonprofit entrepreneurship” (Berry, 2017). Family business is investigated in relation to “financial resources” and involves the “start-up process” with “teams” (Nunez, 2015).

Cluster 2: Entrepreneurial behavior. The second cluster contains 15 keywords focusing on “entrepreneurial behavior”, which is related to “entrepreneurial experience”, “bootstrapping”, “financing”, “resource acquisition”, “entrepreneurial experience”, “PSED” (i.e. personal, social and emotional development) and “legitimacy” of “founders” (Perry et al., 2011). Also, in this cluster, scholars use a “qualitative methodology” for uncovering the “creation” and “discovery” of “entrepreneurial behavior” (Gupta et al., 2015).

Cluster 3: Gender. The third cluster consists of 14 keywords concentrating on “gender”, particularly from a “feminist” perspective involving “women entrepreneurs” in the entrepreneurship “ecosystem” (Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan, 2015). Women entrepreneurs may encounter both “positive spillover” and “work-family conflict” resulting from “self-employment” as opposed to employment such as “accountants” (Jaim, 2022; Prottas, 2012). The research in this cluster also explores “owner characteristics”, “women business-owners”, “political unrest” and “new venture performance” using a “gender” lens (Jaiswal, 2020).

Cluster 4: Technology. The fourth cluster covers 13 keywords concentrating on “entrepreneurship technology” such as the “internet” and its benefits for the “value creation”, “opportunity identification”, “product market fit”, “leveraging”, “entrepreneurial marketing”, “entrepreneur” and “entrepreneurial growth” (Finkle, 2013). The “interview” technique is a prominent methodological feature, albeit with a warning of potential cognitive “biases” that could arise in entrepreneurs’ evaluation of “opportunity identification” and “product-market fit” (Chen et al., 2015).

Cluster 5: Entrepreneurship education. The fifth cluster comprises 12 keywords focusing on “entrepreneurship education” involving the cultivation of “entrepreneurial competencies”, “entrepreneurial mindset”, “entrepreneurial inclination”, “startup intent”, “sustainable entrepreneurship” and “student ventures” (McCrea, 2013; Sandhu et al., 2010). There are also the “measurement” studies of “individual characteristics” and the use of the “big five personality traits” and “human capital theory” in this area of research (Burch et al., 2022).

Cluster 6: Innovation and value creation. The sixth cluster includes nine keywords concentrating on the manifestation of “innovation” through various perspectives such as “entrepreneurship franchising”, “leadership style” and “supply chain management” (Vega et al., 2011), as well as “Hofstede measures” for understanding “technology diffusion” (Jaiswal and Zane, 2022). It also focuses on “value creation” involving the “leveraging” of “opportunity” through “business model”, “excellence” and “value proposition” (Becherer et al., 2012; Ramdani et al., 2019). The cluster also focuses on “leadership” for “business model innovation” in the “emerging economy” (Saiyed, 2019).

Cluster 7: Sustainability. The last cluster considers eight keywords focusing on “sustainability”, which is crucial to creating and maintaining a “competitive advantage” as part of “sustainable entrepreneurship”. The research in this cluster also explores “paradigm shifts” in entrepreneurship, “economic development” and “employee engagement” through the various lenses such as “entrepreneurship theory”, “strategic analysis” and “theory of the firm” (Amatucci et al., 2013; Berry and Shabana, 2020; Osorio et al., 2015). It is interesting to note that sustainability is strongly connected to entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial mindset and paradigm-shifts.

Future research directions

Our bibliometric review of NEJE suggests that the field of entrepreneurship is immensely rich and multifaceted and that NEJE has steadily contributed to its growth. The impact of the entrepreneurship research published by NEJE is clearly growing and playing a key role in advancing knowledge in entrepreneurship and related business and management fields. Nonetheless, there is certainly room to improve the journal’s productivity while maintaining and even improving its impact. The transition from institutional publishing to professional publishing clearly established an outstanding foundation for the future. In order to solidify NEJE’s position as a main contributor to the field of entrepreneurship, the journal could include novel entrepreneurship research that advances the diversity of contributors (e.g. countries) and contents (e.g. themes).

In terms of contributors, it would be fruitful for the journal to publish research that expands the cross-cultural insights on entrepreneurship and moves NEJE beyond its current concentration in the West, particularly North America. While this is unsurprising due to the journal’s origin (USA), it should be acknowledged that the journal has a track record of publishing from authors, institutions and countries outside this dominant country. In this regard, one avenue that prospective authors of NEJE could consider is to engage in between-country cross-cultural entrepreneurship studies involving multiple samples from two or more countries/regions (e.g. East versus West) or within-country cross-cultural entrepreneurship research involving multiple samples from two or more populations in the same country/region (e.g. ecosystems, genders, races, ethnicities, immigration status, among others).

In terms of research avenues, one opportunity for authors to consider is to build on and expand the seven major clusters of entrepreneurship research in NEJE. The major clusters extracted from our bibliometric analysis indicate a variety of important topics that have received scholarly attention at NEJE. These clusters encompass interesting contributions to build upon and hold unexplored research questions that can be worthy of future investigation. We list some of these related suggestions.

1. NEJE authors can continue to explore institutional perspectives on entrepreneurship. Especially, scholars can study the roles of government (e.g. policies and regulations for new ventures) in entrepreneurship ecosystems, relationships between governments’ political orientations and entrepreneurship and new trends of independent government administration offices of entrepreneurship (e.g. Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology, Poland; Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Korea) and their impact on macrostatistics of new business creation, survival and performance rates across industries.

2. Specific contextual studies in entrepreneurship need greater attention. As NEJE’s recent editorial has emphasized, various aspects of entrepreneurship in specific national-, cultural-, geographical- or industrial-contexts that can bring novel perspectives to the field should be examined (Li et al., 2022). For instance, scholars can examine entrepreneurship in North Korea, where the national context could offer interesting and unique insights to understand entrepreneurial behavior. Relatedly, although research on high-tech and fast-growth startups has brought valuable knowledge, it would be fruitful to study relatively unexplored industrial contexts such as entertainment, hospitality, gallery, university, restaurant, or even informal or illegal types of organizations.

3. In line with our suggestion to place more attention toward underexplored contexts, we encourage more research on underrepresented entrepreneurs (e.g. veteran, minority, immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs; Bruton et al., 2021), especially given the rise of new business models (e.g. circular economy and sharing economy; Tham et al., 2022). NEJE’s upcoming special issue on transitional entrepreneurship will partially contribute to our understanding of the entrepreneurship process among these communities, but this topic warrants more investigation given its potential for economic growth and overall societal impact.

4. Review papers that synthesize and take stock of entrepreneurship theories and constructs are important. From classical theories of entrepreneurship (e.g. bricolage, effectuation and entrepreneurial orientation) to newly established concepts (e.g. entrepreneurial imaginativeness), systematic literature review papers would advance the overall entrepreneurship field by providing clear summaries of theoretical insights, established or inconsistent findings and specific research directions.

5. Adopting more interdisciplinary perspectives by integrating various business fields (e.g. supply chain management, strategy, finance and marketing) as well as social science fields (e.g. psychology, sociology, political science, economics, history, law, and anthropology) could advance our understanding of entrepreneurship through a novel lens. For instance, NEJE scholars can apply concepts from supply chain management to understand how ventures create innovations, take risks and act proactively under uncertain value chains (Cortes et al., 2021).

6. By adopting strategic leadership perspectives in the context of new or small organizations, scholars can find novel insights on the influence of leaders (e.g. CEOs, top management teams and board of directors) on venture development (Samimi et al., 2022; Singh et al., 2023). Building on the notion of high managerial discretion in small firms (Cortes and Kiss, 2023), scholars can study how the characteristics and decisions of entrepreneurs change the fate of their firms (e.g. survival, innovation and financial performance).

7. Research on entrepreneurial finance (e.g. private equity, sustainable finance and venture capital; Cumming et al., 2023) could extend our knowledge on the creation of new ventures during difficult economic times (e.g. global crises and recessions) when entrepreneurship is crucial to stimulate and safeguard the economy. Research in this field can also explore the process and challenges of scaling up existing ventures or how some entrepreneurs or small business managers with diverse levels of financial education control and administer limited financial resources.

8. Entrepreneurs may face challenges defining their customer base and selecting the most effective channels; as such, further research on entrepreneurial marketing can have a valuable impact. Recent contributions on the power of leveraging on personalization (Chandra et al., 2022) and storytelling (Júnior et al., 2023) by entrepreneurs and enterprise brands serve as interesting examples in this area with practical implications for securing and safeguarding revenue streams (Lim, 2023).

9. Psychology of entrepreneurship is another core field that NEJE scholars can focus on. Entrepreneurship scholars have examined psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs (e.g. entrepreneurial passion; Lee and Herrmann, 2021), and recent issues related to overworking behaviors, mental health and work-life balance of entrepreneurs can be investigated from psychological perspectives. For instance, we suggest applying concepts like construal-level theory, cognitive flexibility and paradox mindset to entrepreneurship phenomena. Moreover, sociology of entrepreneurship can hold interesting questions. For instance, recent societal trends such as the longevity of the population, declining birth rates, or diversity and inclusion need further investigation from an entrepreneurship perspective.

10. Social entrepreneurship has received substantial attention in recent years but needs further investigation. For instance, moral decisions of entrepreneurs, ethical culture of ventures and motivations and obstacles of small firms for social activities (Cortes and Lee, 2021; Cortes-Mejia et al., 2022) should be studied theoretically and empirically. Moreover, the need to respond to sustainability demands (e.g. ESG reporting and reducing carbon emissions) from an entrepreneurship perspective is a current issue (Zhuang et al., 2020) and thus potentially a fruitful avenue for future entrepreneurship research.

11. We also see a valuable opportunity in applying methodological approaches that have been absent or underrepresented in entrepreneurship research. For instance, we still lack experiments (Hsu et al., 2017), replications (Lee et al., 2019), ethnographic studies (Berglund and Wigren, 2014) and big data studies (Schwab and Zhang, 2019) that can address novel research questions.

12. Research on entrepreneurship education is essential to understand how to better develop the management skills and entrepreneurial mindset of aspiring and established entrepreneurs and small business managers in various settings and industries. This will extend prior work in the area within (Burch et al., 2022; Finkle, 2016; McCrea, 2013; Sandhu et al., 2010) and beyond NEJE (Winkler, 2023). For instance, NEJE authors can examine new trends of increasing entrepreneurship educational programs such as independent schools of entrepreneurship (e.g. Rowan University) and entrepreneurship centers (Lee et al., 2021) and their associated impact at different levels of analysis (Lee et al., 2018). The rising links between universities and non-profit organizations or government programs that encourage entrepreneurship is also an interesting and rising phenomenon that can further advance entrepreneurship education research.

13. In the context of family business, further research that recognizes and reveals the peculiarities of intergenerational shifts might be fruitful, which could include generational transitions in entrepreneurial ventures (Singh et al., 2023) as well as the evolving characteristics of established and next generation entrepreneurs (e.g. Millennials, Generation Z and Alpha) and their subsequent impact on family dynamics and business performance.

14. The role of new-age technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, internet of things, 3D printing and cryptocurrency) remains underexplored in the sphere of entrepreneurship research (e.g. enterprise using versus selling technology; decision makings with novel technologies), thus providing an extensive array of potential research questions with promising implications for the future.

Conclusion

Our bibliometric analysis of 251 articles published in NEJE serves as a resource to synthesize key research trends in the celebration of the journal’s 25th anniversary and offers a glance into the state of entrepreneurship research. We found a diverse and interesting set of increasingly sophisticated contributions, rising interest from authorship and readership around the world and growing scientific impact on the field. Further, we highlighted fertile opportunities of research for prospective authors seeking not only to publish their work at NEJE but also to address research questions with valuable societal impact. We hope our work will inspire and encourage entrepreneurship researchers around the world to explore these topics.

Figures

Figure 1

Annual publication trend of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Figure 2

Annual citation trend of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Figure 3

Annual authorship trend of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Figure 4

Author co-authorship network of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Figure 5

Country’s co-authorship network of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Figure 6

Keyword co-occurrence network of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Table 1

Most influential articles on entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Citations	Articles	Author(s) and year	C/Y
84	Entrepreneurial marketing by networking	Gilmore and Carson (1999)	3.50
76	Using social cognitive career theory to predict self-employment goals	Segal et al. (2002)	3.62
47	Toward a typology of new venture creators: Similarities and contrasts between business and social entrepreneurs	Vega and Kidwell (2007)	2.94
41	The roots of entrepreneurial research	Landström (1999)	1.71
39	Doing well and happy about it? Explaining variance in entrepreneurs’ stated satisfaction with performance	Murphy and Callaway (2004)	2.05
34	Encouraging technology-based ventures: Entrepreneurship education and engineering graduates	Menzies and Paradi (2002)	1.62
33	A gender integrative conceptualization of entrepreneurship	Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan (2015)	4.13
32	The effect of entrepreneurial marketing on outcome goals in SMEs	Becherer et al. (2012)	2.91
32	Varieties of bricolage and the process of entrepreneurship	Vanevenhoven et al. (2011)	2.67
30	Measure for measure: Modeling entrepreneurial self-efficacy onto instrumental tasks within the new venture creation process	Kickul and D'Intino (2005)	1.67
28	The impact of entrepreneurial personality traits on perception of new venture opportunity	Yan (2010)	2.15
26	The status of women’s entrepreneurship: Pathways to future entrepreneurship development and education	Gundry et al. (2002)	1.24
26	Ethnic entrepreneurship: Do values matter?	Morris et al. (2002)	1.24
25	Collective entrepreneurship in family firms: The influence of leader attitudes and behaviors	Yan and Sorenson (2003)	1.25
24	The effects of entrepreneurial orientation dimensions on performance in the tourism sector	Fadda (2018)	4.80

Note(s): C/Y = Citations per year

Source(s): Table by authors

Table 2

Journals frequently citeing entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Journal	TC	AJG
Sustainability	36	–
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research	23	3
Journal of Small Business Management	22	3
International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal	19	1
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice	18	4
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development	18	2
New England Journal of Entrepreneurship	18	–
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business	17	2
Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies	17	1
Journal of Business Research	15	3
Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship	14	1
Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship	14	–
International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship	13	2
Journal of Enterprising Communities	13	1
Small Business Economics	11	3
Management Decision	10	2
Journal of International Entrepreneurship	10	1
Journal of Business Venturing	9	4
International Journal of Business and Globalisation	9	–
Journal of Strategic Marketing	8	2
Journal of Entrepreneurship	8	1
Journal of Entrepreneurship Education	8	–
Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship	8	–

Note(s): TC = Total citations. AJG = Journal rating in Academic Journal Guide by Chartered Association of Business Schools

Source(s): Table by authors

Table 3

Most prolific contributors of entrepreneurship research in NEJE

Contributor	TP	TCP	TC	TC/TP	TP/TCP	h
Panel A. Most prolific authors
Gupta V.K.	8	7	34	4.25	4.86	4
Levangie J.E.	7	3	3	0.43	1.00	1
Murphy G.B.	6	4	51	8.50	12.75	3
Sherman H.	5	1	1	0.20	1.00	1
Simon M.	4	4	21	5.25	5.25	2
Jiang C.X.	4	4	17	4.25	4.25	3
Guo G.C.	4	4	16	4.00	4.00	3
Gupta A.	4	3	13	3.25	4.33	2
Becherer R.C.	3	3	61	20.33	20.33	3
Callaway S.K.	3	3	57	19.00	19.00	3
Vega G.	3	1	47	15.67	47.00	1
Ozkazanc-Pan B.	3	3	39	13.00	13.00	3
Kickul J.	3	3	37	12.33	12.33	3
Dutta D.K.	3	3	16	5.33	5.33	3
Campbell N.D.	3	2	15	5.00	7.50	2
Bell J.R.	3	3	11	3.67	3.67	2
Phelan S.E.	3	3	3	1.00	1.00	1
Panel B. Most prolific institutions
Sacred Heart University	20	10	47	2.47	4.7	4
Morgan State University	8	6	38	5.43	6.33	5
University of Southern Indiana	7	6	89	12.71	14.83	4
University of Mississippi	7	6	32	4.57	5.33	4
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater	6	3	39	6.5	13	3
Long Island University	5	1	1	0.2	1	1
DePaul University	4	4	45	11.25	11.25	4
Bryant University	4	4	31	7.75	7.75	3
Oakland University	4	4	21	5.25	5.25	2
Temple University	4	4	13	3.25	3.25	2
Drexel University	4	2	10	2.5	5	1
Baruch College	4	3	8	2	2.67	2
Shenandoah University	4	2	5	1.25	2.5	1
Brock University	3	3	54	18	18	3
Panel C. Most prolific countries
USA	195	134	995	5.18	7.43	14
Canada	10	8	94	9.4	11.75	7
United Kingdom	6	5	131	21.83	26.2	4
India	5	3	10	2	3.33	2
Australia	3	3	18	6	6	2
Malaysia	3	3	17	5.67	5.67	2
Germany	3	3	7	2.33	2.33	2

Note(s): TP = Total publications. TCP = Total cited publications. TC = Total citations. h = h-index. Inclusion: Minimum of three publications

Source(s): Table by authors