Public and policy entrepreneurship research: a synthesis of the literature and future perspectives

The following contribution fills a research gap by focusing on a field of research that appears to be receiving increasing attention due to rising challenges of governance and policymaking. Currently, no literature review exists that specifically focuses on public and policy entrepreneurship to pursue research in both areas of entrepreneurship more systematically. The chapter offers a review of refereed articles published in the Social Science Citation Index of the Web of Science from 2000 until 2017, with a focus on publications that emphasize the keywords “public entrepreneurship†and “policy entrepreneurship†in their title or abstract. It is hypothesized that the number of publications has increased within the last years, reflecting a growing interest in entrepreneurship for policymaking and public administrations. The findings confirm this hypothesis for the keyword “policy entrepreneurship†rather than for “public entrepreneurship.†The taxonomy of the literature is followed by recommendations for future research and an outlook why more and new research will benefit the public sector and society.