Meta-analyses in entrepreneurship research: the state of the art and future directions for validity assessment

In entrepreneurship research, meta-analysis has been used both for describing phenomena and for drawing inferences. Meanwhile, this study identified 92 meta-analyses that have been conducted in the domain of entrepreneurship. This paper reviews these analyses with two main purposes. First, this paper provides a state-of-the-art summary of meta-analysis findings to show the empirical evidence on concepts, relationships and theories. Such evidence leads to practice recommendations. This paper also points to areas that may need future meta-analyses. Second, this paper provides a state-of-the-art summary on how meta-analyses are conducted, what methodological choices need to be considered, and how meta-analysis results should be interpreted. The authors hope that this paper also provides some ideas and guidelines on how to proceed with rigor into the future of meta-analysis in entrepreneurship research and how to arrive at valid inferences from meta-analyses conducted in the field.