The Status of International Ethnic Entrepreneurship Studies: A Co-citation Analysis

Abstract

This article examines the literature of international ethnic entrepreneurship research and explores its historical development over the past four decades. With citation data from Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), including 627 journal articles and 25,731 cited references, we conducted a co-citation analysis to explore the intellectual structure of international ethnic entrepreneurship studies. The results show that international ethnic entrepreneurship studies focus on Chinese ethnic entrepreneurs, followed by Cubans, Koreans and blacks. The results also show that contemporary international ethnic entrepreneurship studies have shifted their foci from exploring ethnic-immigrant enclaves to studying immigrant business and self-employment as well as social embeddedness in ethnic business over the past four decades. This study thus identifies the knowledge essentials of ethnic entrepreneurship research and profiles the most influential journals, publications and scholars and their relationships in this field. The results of this study also provide a useful tool for researchers to access the literature of international ethnic entrepreneurship research.