Entrepreneurship in Knowledge and Information Science: A Systematic Review of Research in the Last Decade with Emphasis on Employment Generation, Self-Reliance, and Enhancing the Status of the Discipline

Abstract

This study aimed to systematically review and critically synthesize research on entrepreneurship in Knowledge and Information Science from 2015 to 2025, with particular emphasis on employment generation, self-reliance, influential factors, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and major research gaps. A systematic review was conducted according to the Kitchenham protocol and PRISMA guidelines. Scopus, Web of Science, Noormags, SID, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, and Magiran were searched for studies published between 2015 and 2025. Of 1,996 initially identified records, 40 articles met the eligibility criteria and were included in the final synthesis. Study quality was assessed using a five-criterion Q1–Q5 instrument. Inter-rater reliability was high (Cohen’s κ = 0.85), with 34 studies classified as high quality and six as moderate quality. Quantitative evidence was synthesized using frequencies and percentages, whereas qualitative evidence was examined through open, axial, and selective coding and weighted-frequency word-cloud analysis. The synthesis indicated that the literature was predominantly oriented toward academic and educational entrepreneurship and employment opportunities, whereas self-reliance remained largely unexplored as an independent construct. The absence of an explicit theoretical framework in 45% of studies, together with the predominance of cross-sectional, single-country, and largely theoretical investigations, demonstrated substantial theoretical and methodological fragmentation. Six interconnected domains emerged as determinants of entrepreneurship: educational and curricular, supportive and environmental, individual and psychological, structural and organizational, technological, and demographic/contextual factors. Particularly important gaps involved the limited consideration of artificial intelligence, gender-sensitive analysis, comparative research, and practice-oriented investigation; notably, all reviewed Iranian studies lacked AI-related themes. Despite increasing scholarly attention, entrepreneurship research in Knowledge and Information Science lacks sufficient theoretical and methodological coherence. Future research should move from descriptive toward explanatory designs, from cross-sectional toward longitudinal approaches, and from unidimensional toward integrated context-specific models. Curriculum reform, entrepreneurial infrastructure, financial and legal support, and independent conceptualization and measurement of self-reliance are also required to strengthen the discipline’s entrepreneurial capacity.