Abstract
New firms are highly critical to the prosperity of regional economies, so that entrepreneurship has been emphasized by stakeholders to contribute to local development. Universities, a traditional cradle for new knowledge and talents, are critical in this process with the provision of entrepreneurship education (EE) courses. Immense progress of EE in higher education institutions (HEIs) has been made in the last several decades, the logical underpinning of which is that entrepreneurship can be learnt and cultivated. However, the general picture EE in higher education has not been probed into. Traditional literature reviews which follow a narrative methodology have important contributions but are insufficient to provide a holistic overview. Therefore, science mapping which uses bibliometric methods to visually present the overview and evolution of a certain field increasingly draws attention. This paper aims to analyze EE in higher education (EEHE) with the a bibliometrics method, to find out the major research forces (authors, institutions, and countries/territories), collaborations between forces, heated topics, and the evolution of research themes. This article concludes that a core academic circle in EEHE has not yet been formed and is likely to be influenced by researchers working on similar yet different fields. The USA and the UK are the most influential and productive academic centres in EEHE. Emerging academic powers like China and South Africa are progressing in the number of published articles, yet remain restrictedly recognized according to the ranking of citations. Research on entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and self-efficacy has long been explored to detect effectiveness of EE courses, and this study presumes that the borrowing of more psychological theories could be a potential boost in this research area. Eco-system and female entrepreneurship are important rising topics in recent years, and this paper suggests that future studies could assist potential women entrepreneurs in universities and broaden the research subjects to other disadvantaged groups like the poor and the disabled in HEIs.
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Wan, N., Lv, X. A bibliometric analysis on the landscape of entrepreneurship education in higher education (2001–2020). Entrep Educ 4, 375–402 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-021-00062-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-021-00062-8