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Understanding the impact of IC and

entrepreneurship
intellectual capital on
entrepreneurship:
a literature review
Antonio Crupi Received 28 February 2020
Revised 6 June 2020
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, 8 June 2020
Institute of Management and Department EMbeDS, Pisa, Italy 20 July 2020
Accepted 3 August 2020
Fabrizio Cesaroni
Universita degli Studi di Messina, Messina, Italy, and
Alberto Di Minin
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies,
Institute of Management and Department EMbeDS, Pisa, Italy

Abstract
Purpose – The present paper aims to explore and map the development of the intellectual capital (IC)-related
studies by answering the following research questions: (1) what are the theoretical pillars on which prior
literature focusing on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship has grown and expanded?; (2) what are the main
research areas covered by past literature focused on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship?; (3) which areas of
research should be explored in the future?
Design/methodology/approach – The study relied on the co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling
techniques to investigate a complete data set of IC–entrepreneurship publications.
Findings – Findings indicated that scholars’ attention had increased, starting from the beginning of the 2000s
due to the widespread recognition of the importance of knowledge for firms’ competitive advantage. Results of
the co-citation clustering analysis have identified five main theoretical building blocks of the IC–
entrepreneurship literature, which addressed both the basics of IC foundations and more specific aspects
related to IC (family firms and the measurement of IC). Results of the bibliographic coupling analysis indicated
that future studies should consider the existence of interactions and synergies among the different components
of IC. Furthermore, attention should be devoted to the management practices of IC.
Originality/value – The present study represents the contributions offered by IC to studies about
entrepreneurship strategies. Building on findings emerging from a qualitative content analysis on clustered
prior publications, the authors discuss a research agenda that is expected to inspire future studies to continue
the exploration of the crucial characteristics of IC in contributing to entrepreneurial and managerial studies.
Keywords Intellectual capital, Human capital, Social capital, Entrepreneurship, Co-citation analysis,
Bibliographic coupling
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
The growing relevance of intellectual capital (IC) has attracted the attention of management
scholars, who have increasingly studied what drives firms’ IC, how firms can manage and
deploy their IC and which consequences can be expected from its exploitation (Brooking,
1998; Edvinsson and Malone, 2007; Petty and Guthrie, 2000; Stewart and Ruckdeschel, 1998;
Sullivan, 2000). Different models and often contrasting interpretations have been proposed in
this respect.
The expressed contradictions in the definition of IC and the process of gradual
convergence have been frequently addressed by prior literature reviews that focused on the Journal of Intellectual Capital
problem of identifying IC’s main components, the relationships among them and the impact © Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
they have on various aspects of firms’ activity and performance (Buenechea-Elberdin, 2017; DOI 10.1108/JIC-02-2020-0054
JIC Dumay et al., 2015; Ferenhof et al., 2015; Manzari et al., 2012; Pedro et al., 2018). Contrary to
those literature reviews, this study offers a complementary interpretation of the relationship
between the concept and theory of IC and that of entrepreneurship, by analyzing the
theoretical foundations of such a relationship and the main lines of research arising from it. In
fact, the importance of IC to the field of research on entrepreneurship has experienced
significant growth in the last decades due to several reasons. First, being IC a source of
sustainable competitive advantage for firms, its impact on the success and survival of new
entrepreneurial initiatives has been investigated by emphasizing the relevance of IC on new
employment generation and economic growth (Hormiga et al., 2011). Second, strategic
management studies have stressed the decisive role of knowledge assets and the way in
which such assets are exploited. In dynamic competitive environments, the exploitation of
knowledge assets requires firms to possess proper dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997),
which “are more likely to be resident in firms that are highly entrepreneurial, with flat
hierarchies, a clear vision, high-powered incentives, and high autonomy (to ensure
responsiveness)” (Teece, 2000, p. 8). The analysis of the IC–entrepreneurship relationship
has thus become important not only for new ventures but also a determinant of
competitiveness for established firms to achieve good performance in the long-term (Teece,
2000). Third, it has become evident that IC represents a potential source of technological
development by facilitating entrepreneurial activities in high-technology sectors and by
reducing risks and increasing potential returns from investments in innovation
(Hayton, 2005).
Based on such considerations about the relationship between IC and entrepreneurship,
this study addresses the following research questions: (1) what are the theoretical pillars on
which prior literature focusing on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship has grown and
expanded?; (2) what are the main research areas covered by past literature focused on the IC–
entrepreneurship relationship?; (3) which areas of research should be covered in the future?
To address such research questions, we conducted a quantitative bibliometric analysis of
3,648 peer-reviewed articles, using co-citation and bibliographic coupling clustering
techniques. To the best of our knowledge, extensive quantitative analyses related to
publications about the contribution of IC on entrepreneurship are lacking. The present study
aims at filling this gap and at becoming a trigger for future analyses and for further
developments in the field. By employing a quantitative approach, the literature review
performed in this study allowed to disclose existing scientific roots of the IC–
entrepreneurship literature and to spot the current thematic trends and emerging
trajectories in the field. Furthermore, by running a qualitative content analysis, based on
selected articles, this study identified and discussed relevant research trajectories for the
future.
The results of the co-citation analysis revealed that the contribution of the IC in the
entrepreneurship literature is based on five thematic clusters divided as follows: (1) social
capital and its impact on entrepreneurship, (2) human capital as a strategic resource, (3)
measuring IC, (4) the interplay between IC and firms’ innovative capabilities and (5)
organizational social capital in family firms. Then, results of the bibliographic coupling
analysis identified five current and emerging thematic clusters divided as follows: (1) the
effect of human and social capitals on survival and performance of new ventures, (2)
managerial aspects of human capital, (3) IC as a strategic resource, (4) the impact of social
capital on organizations’ performance and (5) human and social capitals in corporate
governance.
In turn, by analyzing such thematic clusters, the contribution that this study offers to the
IC-related literature is twofold. On the one hand, the study displays the development of IC as a
complicated matter by delving into its foundations with updated thematic topics and
emerging trends. The present research study merges the insights generated by IC and
entrepreneurial scholars in the past years, offering a detailed framework of this research field. IC and
On the other hand, by implementing a content analysis of the selected thematic areas, this entrepreneurship
study identifies intertwined and cross-domain research trajectories triggering future studies
and research questions.
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we introduce the concept of IC and
its main components. In Section 3, we clarify the research strategy and methods used for the
empirical analysis. In Section 4, we display the principal results of the co-citation and
bibliographic coupling analyses. In Section 5, we examine emerging trends and trajectories
by discussing the crucial implications for academics and policymakers and by considering
future research developments. Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper.

2. Theoretical background: intellectual capital

The last three decades have experienced an impressive proliferation of studies about IC. Since
the early 1990s, a cross-domain scholars’ community has attempted to conceptualize IC by
intertwining its definition in their respective fields of study (Keong Choong, 2008). The
extensive collection of publications across disciplines has addressed the notion of IC from
different perspectives by gradually extending its original meaning to include a wide variety
of features and additional properties. Prior literature also flourished with a plethora of terms
to describe either similar or different conceptual elements related to IC. Early definitions
focused on tangible aspects of capital and defined IC as a set of market, human and
infrastructure assets (Brooking, 1998). Lately, however, scholars started to explore its
immaterial side (in terms of knowledge, information, intellectual property, know-how and
skills) by emphasizing especially the pivotal role of the knowledge dimension and its impact
on wealth creation (Stewart and Ruckdeschel, 1998). In turn, IC has been defined as
companies’ knowledge-based equity (Brennan and Connell, 2000) or knowledge convertible
into profit (Harrison and Sullivan, 2000; Sullivan, 2000).
Prior literature has also highlighted the crucial importance of the relationship between IC
and firms’ competitive advantage and survival. The theoretical bases to address this
relationship have been twofold. On the one side, the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has
shown that firms’ competitive advantage is influenced by the availability of resources that
are valuable, rare, inimitable and exploited within the organization (Barney, 1991). Managers
must then supervise such internal resources to guarantee a sustainable competitive
advantage. IC, in general, and HC, in particular, represent resources with such characteristics,
and, as a consequence, they play a key role in determining the firm’s ability to gain a
competitive advantage (Chahal and Bakshi, 2015). On the other hand, knowledge-based
theory (Grant, 1996) lists the firm’s knowledge bases and the firm’s capacity to create and use
knowledge as main determinants of competitive advantage, which may also originate from
external organizations. In turn, the blend of various knowledge bases conveys to the
organization a better competitive position (Kamukama, 2013). As knowledge represents the
main essence of IC (Harrison and Sullivan, 2000; Sullivan, 2000), the latter becomes a key
determinant of firms’ competitive advantage. Furthermore, as long as IC is renewed
according to the evolution of external conditions, such a competitive advantage may be
sustained over time, as dynamic capability theory suggests (Barney, 1991; Teece et al., 1997).
In terms of components of IC, prior scholars converged on the idea that IC is not a
unidimensional concept but it lays different levels (individual, organizational and network
levels). In this sense, IC is not only restricted to the knowledge possessed by individuals but it
also embraces knowledge collected within organizational databases, business processes,
systems and connections (Youndt et al., 2004). Within this vein, a common theoretical
framework has been gradually emerging which considers IC as a theoretical construct made
of three main components (Edvinsson and Malone, 2007; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998): (1)
JIC human capital (HC), which is intended as the knowledge skills and experience of a firm’s
employees (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005); (2) social (or relational) capital (SC), which is an
intermediary form of IC that includes the value of knowledge embedded in the organization’s
relationships and that refers to the groups and networks of people the firm has established
relationships with (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998); (3) organizational (or structural) capital
(OC), which is intended as the expression, empowerment and supportive infrastructure of HC
and the arrangements, structures and culture that ease the flow of knowledge through the
organization (Bontis, 1996).
Based on this understanding, prior literature has then explored the impact of IC on various
aspects of firms’ activities and strategies. Several studies have explored the linkage between
IC, firms’ innovative activities and competitiveness (Buenechea-Elberdin, 2017), sometimes
paying attention to specific categories of firms, such as knowledge-intensive small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Cohen and Kaimenakis, 2007). Others have addressed the
issue of how company information related to IC affects the perception and reaction of capital
markets, for instance, in the case of initial public offerings (Abhayawansa and Guthrie, 2010).
Finally, a large number of studies have focused on specific industries (Engstr€om et al., 2003;
Saengchan, 2008) or sectors of the economy (Dumay et al., 2015). In this vein, scholars have
also explored the linkage between IC or its main components and specific aspects of
entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities, in general. However, a systematic and
comprehensive review of such linkages has not been performed so far; thus, a theoretical
framework providing a general view of the problem at issue is missing. In the following
sections, we address this problem.

3. The methodology
Articles for the present study have been collected using Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science
(WoS) database. This database is well recognized to comprehend an extensive range of high-
standard journals and high-quality peer-reviewed articles. Even if the panorama of scientific
databases is very broad, the study follows a methodology previously used in prior literature
reviews focused on investigating the trajectories of past publications, according to which the
restriction to publications reported in the WoS database can be tolerated (Meyer et al., 2014;
Skute et al., 2019).
The analysis of the WoS database has been conducted using and comparing the following
two citation-based strategies: the co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling (Crupi et al.,
2018; Kovacs et al., 2015; Skute et al., 2019). In general terms, there are mainly three strategies
that can be used to analyze past publications and to display an existing bibliography: direct
citation, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling techniques. The first method
includes the direct interaction between two documents; second, the bibliographic coupling
explores relationships between studies that cite the same article; finally, the co-citation
method investigates the interactions between articles cited by the same study (Van Eck and
Waltman, 2017). The three techniques show different strengthens and weaknesses. On the
one hand, bibliographic coupling and co-citation relationships display indirect interactions,
so that they can offer less precise information regarding articles’ connections with respect to
direct citation (Waltman and van Eck, 2012). On the other hand, the direct citation technique
does not include in the analyzed time frame articles not directly linked, thus excluding them
from identified clusters. The risk is more accentuated when working on analyses that focus
on short periods. Furthermore, the co-citation analysis – which considers cited articles – is
more adequate for displaying the path of the literature from its origins, and bibliographic
coupling – which considers citing articles – is more suitable to disclose the state-of-the-art
literature and emerging trajectories (Skute et al., 2019). Accordingly, we decided to employ
both co-citation and bibliographic coupling analyses for our study.
 Thematic clusters were settled and displayed according to normalized relatedness IC and
measures. An association strength measure was taken as suitable for normalizing co- entrepreneurship
occurrence information, according to previous literature in the field (Kovacs et al., 2015; Skute
et al., 2019; Van Eck and Waltman, 2010). To display the bibliometric clusters, the
visualization of similarities (VOS) technique was adopted according to the dedicated
algorithm of VOSviewer 1.6.10 (Van Eck and Waltman, 2017, 2014, 2010). The displayed
clusters were categorized by running the term frequency count and investigating the content
of titles, abstracts and keywords of the grouped publications. Descriptive statistics on the
database have been conducted by using the bibliometrix R-package, which offers a set of
instruments for quantitative bibliometric analyses (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017).
Finally, we selected the most cited articles with the highest link strength in each cluster
and performed a qualitative content analysis to detect future research trends and trajectories
by manually examining the relevant paragraphs of the full-text publications.

3.1 Sample selection and description

In order to identify the most suitable publications, a bibliometric analysis has been conducted
by using the following search strategy that allows for variations of term spelling for
searching titles, abstracts and/or keywords: (“intellectual capital” or “human capital” or
“social capital”) and “entrepreneur*.” This search strategy permits to include existing
literature regarding entrepreneurship and IC at a broad level and reduces the risk of
incorporating false positive sources that do not contribute to the definite thematic
publications, thus creating possible misalignments in the identification of research
trajectories and the overall state of the art (Kovacs et al., 2015). It is worth noting that,
albeit some authors have suggested that OC should be considered as a key components of IC
along with HC and SC (Edvinsson and Malone, 2007), we decided to exclude OC from this
analysis because organizational aspects are certainly of key importance for established firms
but play a less relevant role in new entrepreneurial initiatives. Since our objective was to
analyze IC literature addressing the topic of entrepreneurship, we preferred to exclude OC
from the search strategy.
Moreover, in order to avoid any additional noise in the searching procedure, we included
the following filters in the search strategy (Figure 1): (1) categories: “Management” or
“Business”; (2) document type: “Article”; (3) language: “English.” Finally, in order to have a
comprehensive understanding of the state of the art of the relevant literature, we did not
reduce the searched time span, thus including all the years available in the database (1990–
2020). The final database arising from the described search strategy was composed by using

Figure 1.
Publications’ search
strategy
JIC 3,648 articles in total. Table 1 provides general information regarding the collected
publications.
As far as publication timing was concerned, the initial articles addressing the topic of
entrepreneurship under the theoretical lenses of IC appeared at the beginning of the 1990s.
Since then, annual publications on the same topic have raised at a 6.15% average growth rate,
even though almost a half of the total number of publications that we analyzed have been
produced in the last decade and more specifically since 2014. This change in publication rate
thus confirms how scholars’ attention toward the topics of entrepreneurship and IC has
dramatically increased in the last few years, certainly due to the explosion of the digital start-
ups’ phenomenon whose core value rests on knowledge-related assets (see Figure 2).
Concerning publication outlets, articles on this field have been published on a large
plethora of journals and reviews (Figure 3). Among these, the Journal of Intellectual Capital is
in the leading position, followed by the International Journal of Manpower and the Small
Business Economics journal. However, when it comes to analyze the list of journals where
articles cited by focal publications have been published, such a list largely differs from that of
publication outlets, both in terms of composition and ranking. In fact, while articles from the
Journal of Intellectual Capital still represent a relevant source, the most cited articles have been
published in the Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Journal and the
Academy of Management Review. In turn, it emerges as a slight mismatch between
publication outcomes (mainly represented by specialized and focused journals) and cited

Description Results

No. of documents 3,648

No. of sources (journals, books, etc.) 439
No. of Keywords Plus 4,103
Table 1. No. of author’s keywords 7,099
Collected publications: Search period 1990–2020
descriptive Average citations per documents 26.83
information No. of authors 7,031

400

300
Articles

200

100

Figure 2. 0
Time distribution of
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
publications
Year
 IC and
entrepreneurship

Figure 3.
Distribution of
publication outlets and
sources
JIC

Figure 4.
Trend topics in cited
references
sources, which frequently originate from more generalist journals. As it will be more broadly IC and
discussed in the following sections, this mismatch reveals the extent of the theoretical entrepreneurship
foundations of studies on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship.
Finally, Figure 4 shows the computational calculations made by the bibliometrix R-
package in order to identify the trend topics within the IC–entrepreneurship research field.
This co-word analysis generates a map of the conceptual structure of a framework by using
the word co-occurrences in a bibliographic collection (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017). In this
specific case, the analysis has been performed by computing the frequency of words or
phrases frequently repeated in the titles of an article’s references, but which do not appear in
the title of the article itself. These so-called “KeyWords Plus” are based upon a special
algorithm that is unique to Clarivate Analytics databases [1]. Results indicate that the most
repeated keywords in cited articles of IC–entrepreneurship literature focus on the outcomes of
firms’ processes and the returns from strategies or investments in capabilities. In fact,
keywords like “performance,” “competitive advantage,” “impact” or “growth” are among the
most frequently used words in titles of cited references. Similarly, keywords like
“capabilities,” “strategies” and “networks” belong to the same group.

4. Results
4.1 The co-citation analysis
Figure 5 displays the results of co-citation analysis among IC–entrepreneurship articles. The
co-citation bibliometric network displayed is structured in five interconnected clusters with
distinctive labels resulting from the cited references obtained from the original data set of
3,648 publications published in the period of 1990–2020. In total, such publications
correspond to 129,202 references, whose amount however implies technical computational
problems and the impracticality of dealing with them. Accordingly, as common practice for

Figure 5.
Results of co-citation
cluster analysis
JIC this type of study (Garcıa-Lillo et al., 2016; McCain, 1990), we imposed a cut-off limit to select
the most cited papers. In turn, we selected those 867 references that received at least 20
citations. Such a choice allowed us to accomplish a more detailed and focused analysis and to
prevent the possible risk of overly representation of marginal publications, which would have
complicated the analysis (Kovacs et al., 2015; Skute et al., 2019). Furthermore, in line with the
aim of the present study, we also incorporated the cited references published before 2010.
Every single scientific article displayed in the bibliometric network represents a single
cited publication, which is grouped with close publications based on the likelihood to be cited
jointly with other articles. Articles that are incorporated in the same cluster show a higher
probability to be cited together by other items. Clusters are identified by different colors.
Additionally, each publication shows a specific weight based on the total link strength of the
article and the number of citations received.
According to the results of the co-citation analysis, we extracted information needed to
perform an additional examination of the journals in which cited references of the IC–
entrepreneurship articles have been published. Figure 6 shows the most prolific international
peer-reviewed journals (i.e. those that count at least ten items), which IC–entrepreneurship
scholars have considered as the most relevant theory sources for their studies. Strategic
Management Journal (67 articles) is placed at the first position, followed by the Journal of
Intellectual Capital and the Academy of Management Journal (both with 66 articles) and the
Academy of Management Review (54 articles). Other journals follow, with a gradually smaller
number of articles.
Using the VOS technique and the co-citation analysis method, the contribution of IC to
entrepreneurship can be grouped into five main thematic clusters and categorized according
to the authors’ content analysis.
4.1.1 Cluster 1 [red]: social capital and its impact on entrepreneurship. Studies belonging to
this cluster are focused on understanding the origins of SC – intended as a sociological
construct – and its impact on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial initiatives. Specifically,
this cluster mainly investigates the roots of SC by introducing and illustrating its definition,
the forms in which it can be expressed and the social structural circumstances under which it
occurs (Coleman, 1988). SC’s roots are originated from sociology. In this respect, a pivotal role
in defining the boundaries of SC has been played by Granovetter (1985, 1973), who first

Figure 6.
Most prolific journals
in co-citation analysis
defined the link between the macro and micro levels of the social network analysis by IC and
focusing on the strength of ties among two individuals. Second, he emphasized the entrepreneurship
importance of social connections, embedded in social structures, for the economic initiative.
A first effort in defining the concept of SC was made by Coleman (1988), who defined SC
following the concepts of financial capital, physical capital and HC and specifically looking at
the relationships among persons. According to his analysis, SC derives from changes in the
relationships among people that ease action. So, if physical capital is entirely tangible, being
represented in perceptible material form, and HC is less tangible, being incarnated in the skills
and knowledge possessed by the individual, then SC is less tangible too because it consists of
the relationships that people establish among themselves.
Lately, a key contribution in defining a concept of SC useful for the managerial discipline
has been offered by Adler and Kwon (2002), who collected studies and definitions of SC from
different disciplines under a comprehensive “umbrella concept.” The effort made by these
authors has been used to offer an integrated conceptual framework inclusive of the different
theoretical contributions of SC and starting from a precise definition of SC itself.
What is the relevance of SC for entrepreneurial studies? Several articles have addressed
this crucial question. Among these, the study by Davidsson and Honig (2003) explored the
contribution of HC and SC to the nascent entrepreneurs. They showed that higher levels of
individual HC make individuals more prone to take risks and pursue entrepreneurial
activities. At the same time, high levels of SC – intended as strong social connections and
networks – increase the chances for individuals to become entrepreneurs and also enhance
their opportunities to perform better. Similarly, Coleman (1988) noticed that individual SC (i.e.
SC within a person’s family and in the community outside the family) influences the level and
characteristics of HC since obligations and expectations, family information channels and
external community social norms influence a person’s intention to invest in education and to
build a solid HC. This aspect assumes a particular relevance as entrepreneurs with higher
levels of HC tend to accept lower performances and to ensure survival of the organization also
in the presence of lower performance levels (Gimeno et al., 1997). In turn, SC provides stimuli
to potential entrepreneurs to undertake novel business initiatives both directly and indirectly,
through a joint effect with HC.
Table 2 lists the ten mostly cited papers belonging to this cluster.
4.1.2 Cluster 2 [green]: human capital as a strategic resource. According to firms’ RBV,
resources that are valuable, exclusive and difficult to replicate lead to a firm’s competitive
advantages and, in turn, to better performance (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). Studies grouped
in this cluster describe the importance of HC in determining organizational strategic choices.
This set of studies, in particular, stresses the fact that managers symbolize a unique
organizational resource (i.e. HC and its knowledge component), thus boosting the prominence

Authors Year Journal Citations

Adler and Kwon (2002) Academy of Management Review 324

Davidsson and Honig (2003) Journal of Business Venturing 267
Coleman (1988) American Journal of Sociology 252
Granovetter (1973) American Journal of Sociology 202
Shane and Venkataraman (2000) Academy of Management Review 158 Table 2.
Granovetter (1985) American Journal of Sociology 149 Ten mostly cited
Gimeno et al. (1997) Administrative Science Quarterly 144 papers related to
Cooper et al. (1994) Journal of Business Venturing 143 cluster 1 “Social capital
Uzzi (1997) Administrative Science Quarterly 132 and its impact on
Eisenhardt (1989) Academy of Management Review 124 entrepreneurship”
JIC of the human element. Here knowledge is intended as a crucial component of a company’s
ability to gain a competitive advantage. Within this vein and by using the RBV lenses, the
stream of literature grouped in this cluster explores the dimension and characteristics of HC
intended as a firm’s strategic resource. Note, however, that articles belonging to this cluster
do not directly address the topic of entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the fact that these articles
have been widely cited by scholars interested in exploring the IC–entrepreneurship
relationship demonstrates how HC represents a key theoretical pillar to them.
In this respect, HC has been analyzed and recalled from very different perspectives,
ranging from psychology to economics. In the management area, scholars focused on the
different levels, from the micro-level – related to human resources (HRs), organizational
behavior and industrial–organizational psychology – to the macro-level – intended as studies
in organizational theory and strategy. A consistent effort to define HC as a strategic resource
has been made by Hitt et al. (2001). In their study, they showed the complexity of the
relationship between HC and a firm’s strategy, highlighting the importance of HC for firms’
performance. However, their findings indicated the complexity behind the relationship
between HC and performance. HC as a resource is costly to achieve and handle and this
requires companies to develop relational and managerial skills to manage the embedded HC
and to enhance the creation of a firm’s SC necessary to be highly performant.
From the practical point of view, stating the relevance of HC for achieving superior
performance has two main consequences. On the one hand, it becomes important to properly
identify and appreciate the characteristics of HRs and their origins. Since HC refers to
individuals’ characteristics such as knowledge, skills and other abilities, both psychological
traits of individuals and organizational processes that may influence or be influenced by such
traits affect the firm’s ability to exploit available HC or to enhance it (Ployhart and Moliterno,
2011). On the other hand, implemented HRs management policies and practices play a
fundamental role, too. In fact, the way in which HRs are structured within organizations
(Huselid, 1995) or recruited, developed and exchanged with external partners (Lepak and
Snell, 1999) directly influences a firm’s HC and, eventually, its ability to gain a competitive
advantage and superior performance.
In Table 3, the most cited publications of this cluster are reported.
4.1.3 Cluster 3 [blue]: measuring intellectual capital. Studies in the third cluster (Table 4)
address the core of the IC concept. Specifically, this group of studies deals, on the one hand,
with the analysis of IC components, its configurations and effects on firms’ performance
(Bontis, 1998; Youndt et al., 2004), while on the other hand with the identification of IC as an
intangible asset that is challenging to measure (Bontis, 2001) since it involves different
models and measurement methods (Petty and Guthrie, 2000). Roughly, the conceptualization
of IC as a firm’s knowledge resource related to competitive advantage led the literature to

Authors Year Journal Citations

Barney (1991) Journal of Management 543

Hitt et al. (2001) Academy of Management Journal 201
Huselid (1995) Academy of Management Journal 201
Lepak and Snell (1999) Academy of Management Review 162
Table 3. Peteraf (1993) Strategic Management Journal 137
Ten mostly cited Ployhart and Moliterno (2011) Academy of Management Review 136
papers related to Hatch and Dyer (2004) Strategic Management Journal 132
cluster 2 “Human Dierickx and Cool (1989) Management Science 126
capital as a strategic Becker (1962) Journal of Political Economy 125
resource” Wright et al. (2001) Journal of Management 120
theorize, draw and describe specific subcategories or types of IC (e.g. human, social and IC and
organizational), with the risk of considering such subcategories as entirely independent entrepreneurship
concepts, thus losing the bird’s-eye view needed to fully appreciate the importance of IC. On
the point, one of the most relevant studies of the cluster is represented by Youndt et al. (2004),
which aims at understanding how IC improves and drives performance. In this case, IC is
considered as an aggregated construct that involves the entire organization. In their study,
authors offered a complete definition of IC and its subcategories HC, SC and OC by looking at
how organizations combine those subprofiles into a general IC profile.
A second relevant aspect covered by studies in the cluster is the problem of “counting the
uncountable.” Knowledge resources, as discussed above, are crucial for companies in
reaching a sustainable competitive advantage. IC, as one of such resources, is complicated to
measure. Bontis (2001), in a detailed literature review, explored multiple models that scholars
developed in their attempt to measure IC. The study lists the numerous models proposed by
scholars to measure intangible assets. Some measuring methods consider employees as
elements to be included in the balance sheet with a monetary value or other financial
variables (discounting employees’ outputs, estimating sick leaves and similar). However, the
main limitation of these measurement strategies is that they draw on an imprecise
framework, which does not consider the entire cohort of intangible assets and their
relationships. In fact, the most crucial challenge for scholars in disclosing the real value of IC
is to set an inclusive framework that takes into account both firms’ and capital markets’
perspectives.

Authors Year Journal Citations

Wernerfelt (1984) Strategic Management Journal 229

Bontis (1998) Management Decision 220
Youndt et al. (2004) Journal of Management Studies 173
Petty and Guthrie (2000) Journal of Intellectual Capital 115
Bontis et al. (2000) Journal of Intellectual Capital 110
Bontis (2001) International Journal of Management Reviews 101 Table 4.
Guthrie et al. (2012) The British Accounting Review 98 Ten mostly cited
Reed et al. (2006) Journal of Management Studies 97 papers related to
Bontis (1999) International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management 92 cluster 3 “Measuring
Bontis et al. (2005) Journal of Intellectual Capital 90 intellectual capital”

Authors Year Journal Citations

Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) Academy of Management Review 569

Cohen and Levinthal (1990) Administrative Science Quarterly 298
Subramaniam and Youndt (2005) Academy of Management Journal 280
Grant (1996) Strategic Management Journal 246 Table 5.
Teece et al. (1997) Strategic Management Journal 229 Ten mostly cited
Podsakoff et al. (2003) Journal of Applied Psychology 217 papers related to
Fornell and Larcker (1981) Journal of Marketing Research 195 cluster 4 “The interplay
Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) Academy of Management Journal 181 between IC and firm’s
Kogut and Zander (1992) Organization Science 165 innovative
Baron and David (1986) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 141 capabilities”
JIC 4.1.4 Cluster 4 [yellow]: the interplay between intellectual capital and firms’ innovative
capabilities. Studies in the fourth cluster (Table 5) aim at revealing how IC and firms’
innovative capabilities are intertwined. Consistent with Barney (1991) and the RBV, firms’
competitive advantage is located in their unique system of resources: physical capital, HC and
OC, and, indeed, IC concerns the firm’s ability to create, exchange and exploit knowledge for
the achievement of competitive advantage. The linkage between IC and knowledge is
specifically addressed in the cluster by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998). In their study, the
authors highlighted how IC is generated through combination and exchange of existing
intellectual assets, preexisting in the form of explicit and tacit knowledge. Crucial are two
aspects (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998): (1) how knowledge is created and (2) how it is shared
within the organization.
Regarding the first aspect, scholars are used to conceive the creation momentum as
originating either from incremental change and improvement of existing knowledge or from
novel knowledge arising from radical changes. Concerning the second aspect, Nahapiet and
Ghosal (1998) reviewed studies regarding knowledge transfer. Indeed, based on the fact that a
combination of knowledge and experience generates IC, the role played by knowledge
exchange processes is crucial. The sharing process can involve the transfer of explicit
knowledge at the individual or collective levels since knowledge in organizations is possessed
by individuals or it can be collectively held. On this basis, organizations are institutions which
able to integrate (individual) knowledge possessed by their employees (Grant, 1996).
The knowledge exchange process includes two levels of the organization: (1) the internal
level, in which members of the organization transfer the knowledge individually possessed
and collectively embedded and (2) the external level, in which knowledge is exchanged with
external parties. Both processes require a precondition for the creation of IC, that is, a high
level of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002) intended as
the capacity to perceive the value of new knowledge, to absorb it and exploit it. Moreover, at
the organizational level, Cohen and Levinthal (1990) contended that organizations’ absorptive
capacity is not simply the reflection of individuals’ capacity but it has to be meant as
collective knowledge and, as such, it derives from existing connections among individual
capabilities.
Based on such considerations, studies in this cluster focus on IC as an antecedent of
innovation development. In their pivotal study, Subramaniam and Youndt (2005) enhanced
and expanded the understanding of the knowledge-innovation link. Analyzing the literature
in terms of IC, the authors explored how HC, OC and SC facilitate organizations to both
strengthen and transform their current knowledge. Overall, they offered a key to empirically
investigate how different traits of IC and their connections selectively determined different
kinds of innovative capabilities. Overall, it also emerged that a high level of dynamism
characterized the connection between IC and knowledge. Organizations must adapt their
structure following the changes of the external environment to which are connected through
a continuous knowledge flow. Hence, organizations need to demonstrate the possession of
dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997), which permit organizations to adapt to evolving
external conditions.
4.1.5 Cluster 5 [purple]: organizational social capital in family firms. The last cluster
explores the role played by SC in family firms. The importance of these firms lies in several
aspects. Fist, family-owned and family-controlled firms are considered one of the most
important and influential organizational structures in the world. A large number of family
firms in the USA, Europe and Asia make them count as a significant player in global
business.
Second, family firms possess a crucial aspect that makes them unique, the so-called
“familiness.” The literature shows a massive presence of studies that attempt to define this
concept. For instance, Pearson et al. (2008) posed the relevance of SC theory demonstrating
the complexity of the debate regarding the definition of familiness. As shown in their IC and
literature review, many prior studies attempted to define univocally the uniqueness entrepreneurship
embedded in the idea of familiness. Similarly, prior studies also attempted to offer a
comprehensive perspective of the behavioral and social assets that composed the concept of
familiness. SC theory is leveraged in this respect to provide a framework to categorize the
distinctive behavioral resources and capabilities of family firms.
Third, family firms represent organizations that tend to have a dominant group (i.e. the
family), whose members fulfill several positions such as employees, managers or members of
the board of directors. This leads to the presence of at least two social groups that create
heterogeneity influencing the organization’s SC. To explore the linkages between the SC of
the family and the SC of the organization, Arregle et al. (2007) connected the development of a
family firm’s organizational SC with the family’s SC, thanks to mechanisms of isomorphic
inclinations, mutual organizational identity and affinity, human resource performances and
networks intersections. Moreover, they shed light on the influence of mechanisms between
the two sources of SC by looking both at the role played by the family’s SC to maintain

Authors Year Journal Citations

Hambrick and Mason (1984) Academy of Management Review 117

Jensen and Meckling (1976) Journal of Financial Economics 99
Leana and Van Buren (1999) Academy of Management Review 74
Sirmon and Hitt (2003) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 65
Arregle et al. (2007) Journal of Management Studies 57 Table 6.
Carpenter et al. (2001) Academy of Management Journal 57 Ten mostly cited
Fama and Jensen (1983) Journal of Law and Economics 54 papers related to
Pearson et al. (2008) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 42 cluster 5
Wiersema and Bantel (1992) Academy of Management Journal 40 “Organizational social
Bantel and Jackson (1989) Strategic Management Journal 39 capital in family firms”

Figure 7.
Results of
bibliographic coupling
cluster analysis
JIC stability and interdependence and at the family’s commitment and capacity to assure crucial
resources.
Table 6 reports the mostly cited publications of this cluster.

4.2 Thebibliographic coupling analysis

After having addressed the theoretical pillars of IC–entrepreneurship literature, this section
deals with the specific areas of research investigated by scholars in this field. As explained in
the Research Methodology section, the bibliographic coupling analysis pursues this specific
goal. Findings from this analysis (Figure 7) identify the main research trajectories in the focal
research field. The methodology employed in this section follows the same process of the
previous co-citation analysis to display the interpretation of the bibliographic coupling
outcomes. As before, we started by analyzing our original data set consisting of 3,648 articles
published in the period of 1990–2020. Then, we restricted the analysis to articles that received
at least 20 citations, thus narrowing the analyzed articles from 3,648 to 973. As before, this
strategy has been made to include only impactful prior research and grasp new insights
based on relevant publications. Furthermore, also in this case, we listed the most prolific
journals publishing articles on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship. Figure 8 represents the
20 journals publishing most research articles on the topic, based on the number of scientific
articles published per journal. The four principal journals are Small Business Economics (58

Figure 8.
Most prolific journals
in bibliographic
coupling analysis

Number of publications Total citations per cluster Average citations per publication

Table 7. C1 305 27,961 91.7

Descriptive C2 244 19,927 81.7
information of the C3 177 12,596 71.2
bibliographic coupling C4 166 16,088 96.9
analysis C5 59 5,226 88.6
articles), Research Policy (51 articles), Journal of Business Venturing (48 articles) and IC and
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (42 articles). entrepreneurship
Overall, by using the VOS technique and the bibliographic coupling analysis, current
research in this field was displayed and clustered into five thematic clusters and categorized
according to the authors’ independent content analysis. Table 7 displays a few basic
descriptive statistics related to such clusters, in terms of number of articles per cluster and
their impact in terms of obtained citations. In the following section, the content of the five
thematic clusters is briefly introduced and discussed.
4.2.1 Cluster 1 [red]: the effect of human and social capitals on survival and performance of
new ventures. The central focus of the cluster is the effect played by HC and SC on new
ventures’ performance (Table 8). As also discussed above, according to the RBV, HC (as the
set of individual knowledge and skills), SC (as the set of weak and tight social ties) and IC in
general are considered key resources for firms. This is particularly true in the case of new
ventures and start-ups (Baum and Silverman, 2004).
Regarding new ventures’ survival, entrepreneur’s HC plays a relevant role in enhancing
firm’s performance since it directly determines the entrepreneur’s ability to lead the firm. In
fact, entrepreneur’s HC – intended as his/her education, gender and race – identifies the extent
to which the entrepreneur developed relevant skills and contacts to run a new venture. Those
skills determine the likelihood of firm’s survival and growth rate (Cooper et al., 1994; Gimeno
et al., 1997). Moreover, the entrepreneur’s SC – intended as relationships that the entrepreneur
developed and maintained over time with external venture capital – affects the likelihood of
receiving external funding and therefore the likelihood of survival (Shane and Cable, 2002;
Shane and Stuart, 2002). In fact, a strong SC reduces the information asymmetry between the
entrepreneur and external venture capitalists as social ties offer a way by which investors
obtain information and entrepreneurs can benefit from extra funds. The same logic holds in
the case of university spin-offs (O’Shea et al., 2005; Shane and Stuart, 2002) and
internationalization processes of new SMEs, where HC has been recognized as a key factor
to inspire entrepreneurs to enter foreign markets (Westhead et al., 2001).
4.2.2 Cluster 2 [green]: managerial aspects of human capital. This cluster encompasses
studies regarding aspects related to the managerial and organizational features that affect
the development and enhancement of a firm’s HC. As shown by the theoretical development
in this field (see cluster 2 of our co-citation analysis), in fact, HC is the result of a multilevel
process in which HRs are managed and organized.
At the individual level, the HC multilevel formation highlights the contribution given by
the individual knowledge and skills to the organization’s assets. By contrast, at the
organizational level, it sheds light on the role played by organizations in boosting unit-level
HC resources and in creating new HC resources by clustering individuals’ skills and
knowledge (Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011). Thus, HC influences not only organizations’

Authors Year Source Citations

Teece (1998) California Management Review 1,114

Cooper et al. (1994) Journal of Business Venturing 907
Gimeno et al. (1997) Administrative Science Quarterly 892 Table 8.
Shane and Cable (2002) Management Science 647 Ten mostly cited
Shane and Stuart (2002) Management Science 601 papers related to
Westhead et al. (2001) Journal of Business Venturing 483 cluster 1 “The effect of
Baum and Silverman (2004) Journal of Business Venturing 450 human and social
O’Shea et al. (2005) Research Policy 416 capital on survival and
Colombo and Grilli (2005) Research Policy 403 performance of new
Pennings et al. (1998) Academy of Management Journal 355 ventures”
JIC performance but also employees’ careers. In fact, individual HC characteristics and HR
characteristics interact with each other and affect the success careers of employees (Ng et al.,
2005; Seibert et al., 1999) and executives (Judge et al., 1995). HR is linked to HC because it plays
a pivotal role in determining the circumstances, in terms of configurations and organizational
modes, under which existing HC is exploited and firms’ performance is achieved (Jiang et al.,
2012; Lepak and Snell, 2002; Takeuchi et al., 2007). Specifically, the different organizations
adapt their HR structures to the different characteristics of the employees grouped according
to the different types of HC. These aspects assume particular relevance in the case of nascent
enterprises since a proper definition of HR practices and policies directly affect the current
and future HC of the firm and, eventually, its performance and survival.
Table 9 lists the mostly cited publications belonging to this cluster.
4.2.3 Cluster 3 [blue]: intellectual capital as a strategic resource. The third cluster groups
publications dealing with the idea of IC considered as a strategic resource for organizations
(Table 10). In general terms, IC is related to possessed knowledge and learning ability of
organizations (Cook and Brown, 1999; Wiig, 1997). Specifically, by following the RBV, studies
in this cluster highlight that IC together with the three types of knowledge that composes it –
HC, OC and SC – impacts organizational financial performance (Reed et al., 2006; Youndt et al.,
2004). Since IC is an organizational resource, it requires to be managed. The management of
IC and its individual components thus becomes crucial for achieving superior performance
(Edvinsson, 1997; Tseng and James Goo, 2005) and for developing distinctive innovative
capabilities (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). The specific aim of studies included in this
cluster is to provide a better understanding of how HC, OC and SC coexist in forming specific
IC profiles within organizations. Effective management of the three listed forms of IC leads
firms to overtake their competitors, in terms of both financial and market performance.

Authors Year Source Citations

Ng et al. (2005) Personnel Psychology 867

Judge et al. (1995) Personnel Psychology 608
Jiang et al. (2012) Academy of Management Journal 601
Lepak and Snell (2002) Journal of Management 598
Table 9. Seibert et al. (1999) Journal of Applied Psychology 563
Ten mostly cited Bozeman and Corley (2004) Research Policy 410
papers related to Ployhart and Moliterno (2011) Academy of Management Review 384
cluster 2 “Managerial Takeuchi et al. (2007) Journal of Applied Psychology 377
aspects of human Carpenter et al. (2001) Academy of Management Journal 368
capital” Bosma et al. (2004) Small Business Economics 305

Authors Year Source Citations

Subramaniam and Youndt (2005) Academy of Management Journal 1,259

Cook and Brown (1999) Organization Science 1,064
Edvinsson (1997) Long Range Planning 463
Youndt et al. (2004) Journal of Management Studies 436
Table 10. Roos and Roos (1997) Long Range Planning 406
Ten mostly cited Reed et al. (2006) Journal of Management Studies 237
papers related to Wiig (1997) Long Range Planning 236
cluster 3 “Intellectual Tseng and Goo (2005) R&D Management 178
capital as a strategic Pulic A (2000) International Journal of Technology Management 169
resource” Sharabati et al. (2010) Management Decision 161
Proper management of IC also requires an efficient information system, which accurately IC and
identifies and measures the different components of IC and their effects on performance entrepreneurship
(Pulic, 2000; Roos and Roos, 1997).
It is worth mentioning that most relevant studies in this cluster do not directly address the
topic of entrepreneurship. However, since IC has been largely recognized as a key asset for
new ventures (on this aspect, see cluster 3 of our co-citation analysis), studies on IC in general
indirectly become of extreme relevance for the entrepreneurship research field.
4.2.4 Cluster 4 [yellow]: the impact of social capital on organizations’ performance. The core
argument of the fourth cluster is represented by the impact played by SC on entrepreneurial
performance. SC – intended as strength in both having or building social networks of all sorts,
being based on both interfirm and intrafirm relations – pushes entrepreneurs to achieve
better performance and higher survival chances (Br€ uderl and Preisend€orfer, 1998; Davidsson
and Honig, 2003). In fact, a high grade of SC – such as a good reputation or broad social
network – favors entrepreneurs in interacting with persons relevant for their success; so,
entrepreneurs’ financial success is also linked to their social skills as the propensity to
successfully interact with others (Baron and Markman, 2003).
The SC also plays a pivotal role regarding the performance of established firms (not start-
ups) as it allows and facilitates internationalization processes. International business studies
have shown that entry into international markets requires companies’ precise assets. Studies
in this cluster show that SC, when associated with relevant HC, significantly influences the
internationalization process (Dakhli and De Clercq, 2004; Hitt et al., 2006).
Finally, the cluster focuses on the impact of SC role in boosting R&D activities since it
facilitates the process of resource acquisition. Firms’ researchers exchange information on a
regular basis through boundary-spanning activities. They meet at conferences or research
workshops as they know each other and share the same networks. So, this sort of SC
represents one of the main factors of success in R&D learning processes since the informal
collection of external information by researchers is vital to firms and is linked to their
personal networks (Bouty, 2000). Thus, this cluster overall shows that the organizations’
economic interests and employees’ SC are intertwined.
Table 11 reports the most relevant publications of this cluster.
4.2.5 Cluster 5 [purple]: human and social capitals in corporate governance. As recent
research has pointed out, firms’ performance is affected by corporate governance
mechanisms and, especially, by the characteristics of the board of directors, among which
aspects related to SC and HC (Haynes and Hillman, 2010; Johnson et al., 2013). In general
terms, boards exploit their HC and SC to fulfill their functions of supervising the managerial
process and strategic decision-making and in resource provision. Regarding the latter and
according to resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003), board functions
encompass several activities, such as offering advice to management on relevant strategic

Authors Year Source Citations

Davidsson and Honig (2003) Journal of Business Venturing 1,627

Bruderl and Preisendorfer (1998) Small Business Economics 531
Adner and Helfat (2003) Strategic Management Journal 482
Baron and Markman (2003) Journal of Business Venturing 341 Table 11.
Bouty (2000) Academy of Management Journal 336 Ten mostly cited
Hitt et al. (2006) Academy of Management Journal 330 papers related to
Dess and Shaw (2001) Academy of Management Review 330 cluster 4 “The impact
Dakhli and De Clercq (2004) Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 305 of social capital on
De Carolis and Saparito (2006) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 303 organizations’
Anderson and Jack (2002) Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 292 performance”
JIC activities. So, the board capital – intended here as the sum of HC and SC of each board member
– is a helpful resource for organizations, thanks to the embedded knowledge, experience and
social connections that give companies the possibility to adopt disruptive strategies.
In considering the impact generated by the HC and SC of the board on firms’ performance,
the cluster also addresses a peculiar type of firms: family firms. Studies following this
research stream are numerous and often reach very contrasting results. Nevertheless, the
interest in the field is still high and publications are copious. The interest also lies in the fact
that family firms are often characterized by a strong and direct involvement of the ownership
into the managerial activities, which can lead to different contributions on firms’ performance
according to the level of HC and SC owned by family members (Sciascia and Mazzola, 2008).
Since new ventures are often family firms, the interest in these aspects has therefore attracted
the attention of entrepreneurship scholars.
Table 12 lists the main publications belonging to this cluster.

5. Discussion
Results of the co-citation clustering analysis identify five main theoretical building blocks of
the IC–entrepreneurship literature. Also, three of these building blocks address the basics of
IC foundations (namely, cluster 4 “The interplay between IC and firm’s innovative
capabilities,” cluster 1 “SC and its impact on entrepreneurship” and cluster 2 “HC as a
strategic resource”), while the remaining two blocks address specific aspects related to IC
(namely, cluster 5 “Organizational social capital in family firms” and cluster 3 “Measuring
IC”) which nevertheless have strong importance for entrepreneurship studies.
Mostly, what the analysis of cited literature expresses is the interest of scholars to identify
the main drivers of competitive advantage, growth potential and survival possibilities of
firms. So, prior literature provides support to the idea that the ability of firms to create and
share knowledge – both within and among organizations – reinforces firms’ innovative
capabilities and eventually performance (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Subramaniam and
Youndt, 2005). Similarly, it has been shown that a firm’s HC and SC interact with each other,
so that entrepreneur’s social connections and networks (i.e. SC) allow his/her to invest in
education, knowledge and skills and therefore to build a solid HC (Davidsson and Honig,
2003; Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011). In turn, the interplay between the two factors increases
the chances to set up a new venture and to gain a sustainable competitive advantage.
However, the identified five theoretical pillars have not always been equally important to
scholars. In fact, some of them represent theoretical areas where research has been performed
for a very long period, while research on others has started only more recently. Figure 9
clearly shows this trend, as it reports the fraction (percentage, on the left-vertical axes) of
publications belonging to each cluster for every year under consideration, whereas the black-
colored line displays the total number of cited articles published every year (on the right-

Authors Year Source Citations

Hitt et al. (2001) Academy of Management Journal 978

Carter et al. (2010) Corporate Governance: An International Review 351
Chatterjee et al. (1992) Strategic Management Journal 342
Table 12. Post and Byron (2015) Academy of Management Journal 249
Ten mostly cited Haynes and Hillman (2010) Strategic Management Journal 209
papers related to Subramani and Venkatraman (2003) Academy of Management Journal 187
cluster 5 “Human and Sciascia and Mazzola (2008) Family Business Review 181
social capital in Johnson et al. (2013) Journal of Management 176
corporate governance” Miller et al. (2009) Journal of International Business Studies 156
 IC and
entrepreneurship

Figure 9.
Evolution over time of
co-citation clusters
JIC vertical axes). It emerges that cluster 1 (“SC and its impact on entrepreneurship”) and cluster 2
(“HC as a strategic resource”) include articles published over a very long period, which have
been constantly cited by studies on the IC–entrepreneurship relationship. By contrast,
publications related to the other three clusters have started to appear (and, therefore, to be
cited) only later, when the IC–entrepreneurship research field has started to gain consistency
(i.e. when the total number of publications – the black-colored line in Figure 9 – has started to
increase sharply). This means that, in more recent years, the theoretical foundations of IC–
entrepreneurship studies have diversified. In turn, aspects like the measurement of IC, the
relationship between IC and innovation and IC in the case of family firms have gradually
become the new theoretical pillars recalled by scholars.
Furthermore, the growing relevance of the yellow area in Figure 9, especially during the
last decade, shows that the topic of measurement of IC (cluster 3) has become the main focus
of recently cited literature, maybe demonstrating how a proper assessment of a firm’s IC
represents a key concern for scholars. Primarily, the problem resides in the definition of a
comprehensive model for IC, where all relevant components are identified and the
relationships among them are properly depicted (Youndt et al., 2004). Then, the problem
shifts to determine an evaluation system able to assign a correct monetary or financial value
to the various components of IC and to a firm’s IC, overall (Bontis, 2001). In the case of new
ventures, this issue is both demanding and strongly urgent. In fact, on the one hand, often
new ventures have not started their full operations, yet, or are still developing their core
products or services. Therefore, intangible assets (mainly, knowledge and skills) may not
have disclosed their full potential and their proper evaluation might be problematic. On the
other hand, it is exactly the category of new ventures that would benefit the most from a
proper and prompt evaluation of their IC since this would allow them to apply for funding
from venture capitalists and the financial market overall. In turn, entrepreneurship scholars
seem to be particularly interested in this topic due to the relevance it has for the success of
start-ups (especially in the case of high-tech firms) and their growth possibilities.
Also, in the case of thematic areas of published articles in the IC–entrepreneurship
research field, the bibliographic coupling analysis allowed us to identify five main thematic
areas that have been the object of study by scholars. Also, two of these thematic areas
(namely, cluster 3 “IC as a strategic resource” and cluster 4 “The impact of SC on
organizations’ performance”) cover general topics related to IC, while the remaining three
(namely, cluster 1 “The effect of HC and SC on survival and performance of new ventures,”
cluster 2 “Managerial aspects of HC” and Cluster 5 “HC and SC in corporate governance”)
focus on more specific aspects related to IC and entrepreneurship.
The prevalent idea that emerges from the analysis of these clusters is not only that IC (and
its various components) plays a critical and pivotal role for firms, in general, and for new
ventures, in particular, but also that the managerial policies and practices adopted by firms
(and, especially, new ventures) to deal with their IC to strongly affect the way in which IC will
impact on firms’ performance, survival and growth. So, for instance, at the firm level, the
practical solutions implemented to arrange existing HRs in terms of organizational units
affect the processes of skills and knowledge creation, sharing and deployment, thus
influencing the firm’s HC (Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011). In turn, the adopted configurations
and organizational modes of HC impact on firms’ performance (Jiang et al., 2012; Lepak and
Snell, 2002). Furthermore, other studies have realized that, while SC and HC are
organizational-level dimensions, the specific HC and SC related to the board of directors
play a particularly relevant role for firms’ performance and survival (Haynes and Hillman,
2010; Johnson et al., 2013). In fact, the composition and organizational arrangement of the
board of directors affect their knowledge, experiences and social connections, which in turn
have an impact on the strategies that the company aims at pursuing and the relationship it
establishes with external stakeholders. All these aspects are particularly relevant for new
 IC and
entrepreneurship

Figure 10.
Evolution over time of
the coupling cluster
analysis
JIC ventures since the entrepreneur’s HC directly affects his/her capability to run a firm (Cooper
et al., 1994; Gimeno et al., 1997) and his/her SC influences the level of information asymmetry
between the new enterprise and external financial investors, thus affecting the amount and
type of financial resources received (Shane and Cable, 2002; Shane and Stuart, 2002).
Evolution over time of the relevance of coupling clusters can be observed. Similar to the
process that we employed to display the evolution paths of co-citation clusters, Figure 10 has
been built by computing the fraction of publications belonging to each coupling cluster for
every year under consideration (left-vertical axes) and by reporting the total number of
articles published every year on the black-colored line (right-vertical axes).
From the analysis of Figure 10, a few interesting insights emerge. First, topics related to
cluster 2 (“Managerial aspects of HC”), cluster 5 (“HC and SC in corporate governance”) and
cluster 1 (“The effect of HC and SC on survival and performance of new ventures”) have
represented the main interest of IC–entrepreneurship scholars at the beginning of the 1990s,
while the other two areas of research (cluster 3 “IC as a strategic resource” and cluster 4 “The
impact of SC on organizations’ performance”) have emerged as major research interests only
a few years later. Nevertheless, these latecomers have increasingly gained relevance within
the research community, while cluster 5 has been confined to a limited number of studies and
scholars. Thus, at the end of the observed period (without considering the very last two years
that are not fully updated and do not properly represent the current situation of this research
field), the three research topics that represent the focus of most of the studies are related to the
impact of HC and SC on entrepreneurial performance (blue-colored area of Figure 10), the
managerial solutions to be adopted by firms in order to develop and exploit the possessed HC
(orange-colored area) and the analysis of IC as a strategic resource (gray-colored area). In
particular, the latter two topics show a growing trend and, presumably, will attract the
attention of more scholars in the near future.
It is worth noticing that results of the co-citation and bibliographic coupling clustering
analyses are quite consistent among them as clusters of publications emerging from the two
techniques focus on similar topics. This aspect reveals that studies addressing the IC–
entrepreneurship field of research are mostly based on theoretical developments originating
from the same community of scholars, while other management communities seem to play a
less relevant role. Thus, IC-related theories represent the main pillars of studies concerning
the relationship between IC and entrepreneurship, while pure entrepreneurship theories seem
to occupy a marginal position in this respect.

6. Conclusions
The review of the IC–entrepreneurship literature conducted so far with the support of
quantitative bibliometric analyses has allowed us to identify both the main theoretical
foundations of this research field and the main lines of research that have attracted the attention
of scholars over the past decades. Albeit the explosion of scholarly attention on IC for economic
and management purposes can be placed at the beginning of the 2000s due to the widespread
recognition of the importance of knowledge (and intangible assets in general) for the competitive
advantage of firms operating in a business environment that had profoundly changed with
respect to the past, the initial attempts to theorize the concept of IC date back to the 1970s and
were looking at it mainly from a sociological perspective (Granovetter, 1985, 1973). Only later,
during the 1990s, IC has been recognized as a vital resource for firms, according to suggestions
provided by RBV theory (Barney, 1991). And only more recently, theoretical understandings of
IC and its components have been connected to other topics of interest for management scholars,
among which those related to entrepreneurship. Our literature review documented this process
by identifying the main pillars of the field and their evolution over time.
Results of bibliographic analyses conducted in this study have revealed that management
scholars interested in exploring the relationship between IC and entrepreneurship have
mostly focused their attention on aspects related to the individual components of IC and their IC and
effects on the performance and survival of new ventures. To address these issues, scholars entrepreneurship
have mainly grounded their research on theoretical developments originating from the same
community (that of IC), with marginal influence from other communities or other managerial
theories, among which those related to entrepreneurship. And this approach to research has
been persistent over time, as our temporal analysis of publication patterns has revealed.
Based on these considerations it is possible to provide suggestions on possible research
paths that studies on IC–entrepreneurship may undertake in the future. On the one side,
studies should become more porous with respect to insights and suggestions originating
from different (albeit complementary) communities of scholars, such as those focusing on
entrepreneurship or general management. The contamination from complementary research
fields may provide alternate views and interpretations to the problems at issue, which may
benefit both studies on IC–entrepreneurship relationship and studies on IC in general. On the
other hand, the evidence related to trends in existing literature seems to confirm that studies
addressing the entrepreneurship research field should adopt a holistic view about IC, thus
emphasizing the existence of interactions and synergies among the different components of
IC itself. Furthermore, particular attention should be devoted not only to explain what IC
consists and how it impacts on new enterprises’ performance and growth but also on how IC
should be practically managed in order to let its potential to be fully exploited. It is on these
aspects that (we presume) most of the studies in the future should pay attention.
Insights from our study can also be interpreted in terms of managerial implications. Apart
from the general consideration that IC positively affects performance, survival and growth of
firms, in general, and of new ventures, in particular (Haynes and Hillman, 2010; Jiang et al., 2012;
Johnson et al., 2013; Lepak and Snell, 2002), three main aspects emerge from the study. First, as
prior literature reveals, the bundle of social connections that an entrepreneur is able to create
and that he/she usually establishes before the launch of a new venture (i.e. his/her private SC)
affects the success of the new business initiative as it creates a network of linkages with
potential providers of strategic resources that might prove to be beneficial during the initial
stages of the future start-up (Cooper et al., 1994; Gimeno et al., 1997). This aspect offers both a
clear-cut criterion of selection of novel (and potentially successful) entrepreneurs and provides
suggestions about which capabilities to develop in order to increase entrepreneurial potential,
apart from possessing proper technical knowledge and skills. Second, along with other
managerial aspects, particular attention should be posed by new entrepreneurial initiatives to
the effective management of internal HRs with the aim of enhancing knowledge production and
sharing (Davidsson and Honig, 2003; Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011). To this end, proper
managerial practices and information systems should be designed and implemented since the
very start of the new venture in order to allow the firm’s HC to properly disclose its full potential.
Third, the dependence of novel business initiatives from external sources of financing such as
venture capital suggests that start-ups should also pay attention to the implementation of
information systems to evaluate and measure IC (Shane and Cable, 2002; Shane and Stuart,
2002). In fact, IC often represents the most relevant (if not the only) strategic asset possessed by
a new venture and an efficient system for its assessment may allow the firm to reduce possible
information asymmetries with financial markets.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that our study also suffers from some limitations. First, in
this study we employed two complementary bibliometric clustering techniques to identify
recurrent patterns in publications. As also stated in the Research Methodology section, other
bibliometric techniques could have been used instead or even a deductive approach,
according to which a theoretical framework is designed at the beginning and published
articles are selected based on the suggested framework. Such alternate techniques to perform
a systematic literature review are likely to generate different interpretations of existing
literature on this field and might be performed in the future to complement results of this
JIC study. Second, by definition, bibliometric clustering techniques give more emphasis to mostly
cited publications, which represent the core of respective clusters. This approach, however,
may mask emerging trends that originate from more recent publications, which necessarily
receive less citations and lower attention by scholars. Thus, future literature reviews on the
IC–entrepreneurship relationship may make an effort to identify exactly those more recent
publications that, nevertheless, represent newly promising trends in order to forecast lines of
research that will attract the attention of scholars in the future.
Note
1. https://support.clarivate.com/ScientificandAcademicResearch/s/article/KeyWords-Plus-generation-
creation-and-changes?language5en_US

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Further reading
Chen, M., Cheng, S. and Hwang, Y. (2005), “An empirical investigation of the relationship between
intellectual capital and firms’ market value and financial performance”, Journal of Intellectual
Capital, Vol. 6, pp. 159-176, doi: 10.1108/14691930510592771.

Corresponding author
Antonio Crupi can be contacted at: antonio.crupi@santannapisa.it

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