Religious entrepreneurship: past contributions and future research agenda for the emerging distinctive domain

There is growing interest in research on religion and entrepreneurship. Despite this growth, scholarship is disconnected and scattered across a range of definitions, perspectives and levels, thereby limiting our knowledge accumulation. To address these issues, we build upon a recent definition of religious entrepreneurship to conduct an integrative review of all articles published through 2024 in journals ranked 3 and above in ABS journal rankings. Building upon boundary theory, we develop a conceptual framework of this distinctive domain based on 99 articles, highlighting the integration of religious beliefs and practices with entrepreneurial cognition and action. Our framework provides conceptual clarity and synthesis of the existing literature and offers a pathway for a future research agenda identifying key gaps, tensions, and methodologies. In so doing, we draw upon boundary theory to illustrate the research possibilities of different degrees of integration and permeability of religious entrepreneurship. We conclude that the increased legitimacy of research has contributed to the emergence of the distinctive domain of religious entrepreneurship.