Student Entrepreneurship

Student Entrepreneurship aims to provide a systematic literature review on the topic, to discuss and suggest a workable definition, and to explore opportunities for further research on student entrepreneurship as a phenomenon and as a basis for theorizing. As is to be expected in an emerging phenomenon of interest, most studies are atheoretical and try to understand the phenomenon in and of itself. The more recent papers on the phenomenon have moved towards using a theoretical approach which could be challenged, changed, or extended in the relevant student population. This review of the literature shows that most studies describe the phenomenon and try to understand the motivations and/or characteristics of student entrepreneurs, while some make causal relations between those motivations and entrepreneurial behavior. The authors start by discussing the method used to systematically list the different contributions to the emerging literature of student entrepreneurship. Next, they describe the different contributions to the phenomenon of student entrepreneurship to the theory of entrepreneurship. Finally, they discuss how the uniqueness of the phenomenon can create unique opportunities for theoretical research.