Intellectual structure of the entrepreneurship field: a tale based on three core journals

Abstract

Underlying the scientific structure of a field is the network of informal communication linkages established among the most influential scholars within the area. These groups of mutually interacting and prolific scientists who exchange knowledge through communication channels are named “invisible colleges”. In this study, we perform a two-stage analysis to identify invisible colleges in the field of entrepreneurship using three core journals: Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP); Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), and Small Business Economics (SBE). Using bibliometrics, a in depth analysis was conducted on the most influential authors, their professional affiliation and educational training, in order to map the informal links between the most-cited authors. Based on over 90 thousand citations from these 3 journals two invisible colleges emerged: ETP and JBV have similar intellectual groundings, targeting especially corporate and entrepreneurship venturing, while SBE gives emphasis to more economics-oriented research, namely innovation, growth and policy, and industrial dynamics.