Sustainable Entrepreneurship as a Field of Knowledge: Analyzing the Global South

Abstract

The objective of this study is to characterize the contribution to sustainable entrepreneurship as a field of knowledge from developing countries, also called the Global South, through the analysis of the literature that has been produced in the last two decades. This research starts from the premise of the dominance of the Global North over academic production on this topic and analyzes the consequences for the Global South. Through VOSViewer software, and Biblioshiny, a web interface of bibliometrix R-package, 1964 articles that were retrieved from the WoS database were analyzed. According to the results, the dominance of the Global North is confirmed, not only by the number of articles (63% vs. 22% of the Global South), but also by the impact on the publications, the publishing systems, and the thematic addressed, among other indicators. Likewise, the low North–South collaboration (15%), and the scarce collaboration networks between Southern countries, were also confirmed. This situation may have affected the formation of a critical mass of Southern researchers to develop their own concepts and address subjects related to sustainable entrepreneurship that are more adjusted to their reality. We did not find significant differences between the Southern and the Northern research themes or the emergence of new concepts from the Global South, despite their different conditions. Finally, a closer look at the thematic trajectory in terms of scholarly production shows a lesser emphasis on sustainability in the Global South than that in the Global North. These findings are discussed herein.

1. Introduction

There is a broad consensus on the potential role of entrepreneurship in creating wealth, encouraging economic growth, and in diminishing unemployment and poverty [1], especially in developing countries [2]. On the other hand, the concept of sustainable development has emerged as one of the most prominent subjects of our time [3], making sustainable entrepreneurship a notion that has acquired growing relevance over the last decades. The notion of sustainable entrepreneurship points out that entrepreneurship should not be based solely on generating wealth, instead it should be “focused on the preservation of nature, life support, and community in the pursuit of perceived opportunities to bring into existence future products, processes, and services for gain, where the gain is broadly construed to include economic and non-economic gains to individuals, the economy, and society” [3].

Although entrepreneurship could be seen as a source of welfare and a solution for numerous problems in developing countries, which are also called Global South countries [4], the knowledge about sustainable entrepreneurship in the region is quite limited. The knowledge that is produced in developed countries, or Global North countries, cannot always be extrapolated since entrepreneurship needs to be considered differentially, taking into account the socio–cultural and economic contexts [5]. Entrepreneurship needs to be contextualized in order for it to be understandable; different countries and regions shape the perceptions about who might be an entrepreneur, as well as how entrepreneurship should be carried out [6], perceived, and practiced in each region [5], which is related to social, cultural, and economic aspects [7]. Because of this, the research findings in each region are not always comparable. For example, when entrepreneurship is opportunity-driven, there is a positive impact on the economic, the social, and the environmental dimensions, whereas when entrepreneurship is necessity-driven, the impact is usually negative, mainly on the environmental dimension [8]. In this regard, entrepreneurs from low-income economies tend to be more motivated towards earning a living wage than towards sustainability issues due to the lack of job opportunities [9]. In sum, entrepreneurship research demands contextualization more than other fields of knowledge, not only because of its diversity, but also because of its broadness, its scope, and its approach [7]. Thus, despite the growing interest and awareness among entrepreneurship scholars about the benefits of sustainable entrepreneurial development, the understanding of how this tendency has been developed in the Global South is still limited, as well as to what extent the Global South has contributed to sustainability [10]. This research started from the premise that the research on sustainable entrepreneurship as a field of knowledge has been developed mainly by the Global North, which is to say, developed countries. This premise could draw out a problem that is scarcely studied but which has deep implications for the Global South in terms of development, such as the following: (1) If there is a predominance of the Global North in the literature that has been produced on sustainable entrepreneurship, the Global South may lack its own concepts that apply to their conditions, limiting their entrepreneurial possibilities. Likewise, this fact would make the findings that have been produced in the North not applicable to the South, thus limiting their contribution to the sustainability of the region. (2) If the Global North dominates the academic production, North–South collaboration could prioritize topics that are related to the Global North realities at the expense of the most relevant topics for the Global South. (3) The Global North dominance could affect the building of a critical mass of researchers from the Global South that study their own problems that are related to sustainable entrepreneurship, despite having South–South collaboration. Based on these premises, the aim of this study is to characterize the contribution of the Global South to sustainable entrepreneurship as a field of knowledge, analyzing the theoretical and the practical implications that such findings may have. In this study, the Global North is taken as a parameter of comparison for the analysis.

For this research, 1964 articles from 2001 to November 2021 were collected from the WoS database. An earlier literature review provided support to the premises that guide this bibliometric-mapping research (which included a qualitative analysis) and the criteria to analyze our findings. In addition, this study may offer a basis to create a comprehensive framework for sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South that can be useful for scholars to advance the body of knowledge from a theoretical and practical approach. This paper is presented as follows: First, we present a literature review that gives support to this research that covers all of the questions that have been raised here. Second, the methodology is described. Third, we present the results and the discussion in light of the literature review. We finish with some suggestions and recommendations to be addressed in further studies.

2. Literature Review

This research analyzes the sustainable entrepreneurship production in the Global South from a bibliometric-mapping approach, using the Global North as the parameter of comparison. Following Oglesby [11], we decided to use the term “the Global South” as the opposite of “the Global North”. It is important to note that the Global South is not only a geographical concept, although the great majority of these countries are in the Southern hemisphere, but the term is also related to capitalism and colonialism on the global level, as well as the political and socio-economic conditions [12]. According to Confraria et al. [13], the division of the world into the Global South and the Global North is not only in terms of wealth and human development, but also in terms of scientific development. The Global North includes North America, Western Europe, and the developed parts of East Asia, while the Global South includes Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia, including the Middle East.

2.1. Scientific Research in the Global South

Currently, the role of knowledge in society and the economy is widely recognized, not only as a means to acquire power, but also as a source of profit in the global markets [14]. Scientific research brings positive effects on economic development by increasing human capital and productivity while providing information in order to design policies in countries [15]. As Shibayama and Baba [16] suggest, the greater the scientific output in a specific area, the greater the critical mass and resources to promote the impact of such an output. Under this framework, academic advances in sustainable entrepreneurship could offer opportunities to the Global South, not only because entrepreneurship is recognized as a social process that fosters economic growth, especially in developing countries [2,17], but also because economic development must be linked to the environmental and the social impact that is generated, therefore highlighting the balance between the financial results and the sustainable practices [18]. Both the South and the North are equally as important for sustainability, which should be considered a global concept insofar as unsustainable practices, which, even in the most isolated regions of the world, harm the planet as a whole. In fact, the 2030 agenda for sustainable development places equal emphasis on countries in the North and the South [19].

Scholarly publications are an essential component of knowledge production that shapes the social life, the economy, and the development of a nation [13,14,15]. However, the academic knowledge production system remains unequally dominated by the Global North, and little is known about this issue [13,14]. Such a situation reveals not only the centrality of academic knowledge production, but also the maintenance of North–South inequalities, as stated [14]. This centrality could guide the effort of academics to address some topics that might be more relevant to the North than to the South, leaving some topics that are crucial for the South unstudied, for example, women’s entrepreneurship. Some developing countries create gender contexts in which women entrepreneurs are seen as inferior, forcing them to face many barriers related to their culture [17]. Therefore, women in the Global South may have different entrepreneurial experiences [20], and the study of these differences is a crucial aspect for the region considering that entrepreneurship could contribute to solving numerous problems that they have by creating wealth, more jobs, and social welfare in low-income countries [4,21].

According to the literature, many barriers keep the Global South under the dominance of the Global North in terms of scholarly publishing. Among them are the following: the academic culture that represents the standards for producing good science and the knowledge that is produced in the Global South are dismissed or undervalued, and such knowledge is not always accessible to other researchers because it is not published in highly indexed journals [14]. This misconception about quality means that, in some cases, the acceptance depends on the country of the authors who submitted the publication [13]. However, it is important to recognize that, in some developing countries, there are limited scientific capacities and there is a gap in knowledge of how to produce academic research and how to produce high-quality articles that can be accepted by prestigious journals. In this sense, Guenther [22] pointed out that, although more and more papers are received from Southern countries, they are often rejected because they do not reach the publication quality levels that are expected by high-level journals. Similarly, Baber [23] stated that scholars from the Global South are oriented toward producing limited case studies, while those from the North tend not to focus on particular cases; they assume the universal relevance of their research findings.

On the other hand, the structure of the publishing system promotes the dominance of the North. Low-income countries have much less investment in research and development, and they have far fewer researchers when compared to higher-income countries, which has substantial implications [19]. The most important publishers, the higher-impact scholarly journals, and the most relevant scientific societies are largely found in the Global North [14], demonstrating not only the developed region’s domination, but also the exclusion of developing countries [24]. Ten years ago, Murphy and Zhu [24] asserted that the domination of academic production would sustain the unequal economy and wealth in the Global North at the expense of the Global South. These authors asserted that journals’ missions should be more inclusive in order to allow authors from developing countries to attain publishing in influential journals on topics that are related to their interests.

2.2. Impact of Scientific Production

Some issues have to be analyzed in order to understand whether a country’s scientific production is influential in a determined field of knowledge; among them are the number of publications, the citation impact, and the international scientific collaboration [13]. It is recognized that the greater the scientific production in a specific area, the greater the critical mass and the resources that are available to promote the impact of such production [16]. The citation analysis provides quantitative evidence about the equal, or unequal, distribution of knowledge production between the North and the South. We could anticipate that there is no equality in this distribution because there is evidence that Northern scholars rarely cite scholars from the South. On the contrary, Northern scholars are usually cited among themselves, and by the Global South authors, contributing to an inequality in the citation metrics between the North and the South despite the existence of publications from the Global South [14,25]. Regarding international scientific collaboration, it seems to be more relevant for developing countries due to the reduced numbers of researchers; however, collaboration is relevant for both the Global North and the Global South because it has a significant positive effect on the citation impact [13], which is a crucial criterium to evaluate the academic impact of a country or a region on a determined field of knowledge [26].

Concerning international collaboration, it can be North–South and South–South. In the first case, the Global North countries can contribute to the developing countries through their experience in research abilities, their academic production processes, and their knowledge transference abilities. Accessing external complementary knowledge and skills through collaborative networking and co-authorship with scientists who are working in more developed environments is quite relevant for enhancing scientific performance and producing higher-impact research in developing countries [13,27], especially when it concerns knowledge for sustainability [28]. This, along with more investments in science, will generate capacitated scholars who can be inserted into recognized international networks [29]. The co-production between the Southern and the Northern knowledge, and their respective publications in collaboration, offer the chance for the Global South to raise the visibility of its work, creating its own theoretical frameworks [14].

However, research collaborations between the North and the South do not always contribute to scholarly advances in the developing countries. In some cases, as a result of this collaboration, the Northern scholars obtain publishable knowledge while the Southern scholars assume a subordinate role in the knowledge production that cannot be relevant for solving local problems in the Global South [30]. This situation indicates that useful collaboration from the Global North is one that provides support to Global South development. North–South collaboration should be characterized by respect and cooperation rather than by a relationship of domination [31]. On the other hand, South–South collaborative networks between countries would allow the consolidation of a critical mass of researchers in the field of knowledge, which could orient their efforts toward themes that are crucial to developing their region. Furthermore, building effective pathways for the distribution of academic knowledge from within the Global South can contribute to reducing the inequality between the knowledge that is produced by the North and that produced in the South, challenging the dominance of the Global North [14]. In this study, collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship will be analyzed under this framework. The number of publications, the citation impact, and the collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship publications from the Global South will be analyzed.

3. Method

To respond to the proposed objectives, we selected bibliometric-mapping research, which is a highly recommended review method that allows us to summarize large quantities of data that can be analyzed from both quantitative and qualitative (interpretation) approaches [32]. Under this framework, the data retrieved led us to analyze the present, past, trends, and rates of collaboration of sustainable entrepreneurship academic production, to achieve the goals of this research. The data were retrieved from the Web of Science database (WoS) by Clarivate. We decided to use this database because of the quality of the information, as far as this database includes the most relevant, influential, and reliable academic products. Likewise, we selected only articles because we required the results of research to achieve our objective. Likewise, we limited the search to the business and management field of knowledge, not only to delimitate the data, but because our topic of study was entrepreneurship.

The data collection followed a procedure. First, we conducted an exploratory search, analyzing the available data in the WoS database. We decided to search the terms sustainable* and entrepreneur* in order to include all related words that shared the same root, with the selected terms. The search equation was as follows:

Sustainab* (Topic) and entrepreneur* (Topic) and 2021 or 2020 or 2019 or 2018 or 2017 or 2016 or 2015 or 2014 or 2013 or 2012 or 2011 or 2010 or 2009 or 2008 or 2007 or 2006 or 2005 or 2004 or 2003 or 2002 or 2001 (Publication Years) and Articles (DocumentTypes) and Business or Management (Web of Science Categories) Web of Science Core Collection Editions = A&HCI, BKCI-SSH, BKCI-S, ESCI, SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI. This query returned 1964 articles that were produced around the world.

Then, we filtered these data by country. First, we selected and excluded the countries that belonged to the Global North to leave only the articles produced by the Global South, using the following search equation:

(TS = (sustainab*) AND TS = (entrepreneur*)) AND (PY == (“2022” OR “2021” OR “2020” OR “2019” OR “2018” OR “2017” OR “2016” OR “2015” OR “2014” OR “2013” OR “2012” OR “2011” OR “2010” OR “2009” OR “2008” OR “2007” OR “2006” OR “2005” OR “2004” OR “2003” OR “2002” OR “2001”) AND DT == (“ARTICLE”) AND TASCA == (“BUSINESS” OR”MANAGEMENT”)) and 2021 or 2020 or 2019 or

2018 or 2017 or 2016 or 2015 or 2014 or 2013 or 2012 or 2011 or 2010 or 2009 or 2008 or 2007 or 2006 or

2005 or 2004 or 2003 or 2002 or 2001 (Publication Years) and Articles (Document Types) and Business or

Management (Web of Science Categories) and USA or ENGLAND or GERMANY or ITALY or SPAIN or

CANADA or AUSTRALIA or NETHERLANDS or FRANCE or SWEDEN or FINLAND or PORTUGAL or NEWZEALAND or AUSTRIA or BELGIUM or SWITZERLAND or HUNGARY or DENMARKor SCOTLAND or SOUTH KOREA or TAIWAN or CZECH REPUBLIC or IRELAND or UKRAINE or POLAND

or NORWAY or RUSSIA or WALES or GREECE or SLOVAKIA or CROATIA or JAPAN or NORTH

IRELAND or SINGAPORE or LATVIA or ESTONIA or LITHUANIA or ROMANIA or CYPRUS or ISRAEL or LIECHTENSTEIN or MACEDONIA or ALBANIA or ICELAND or MONACO or MALTA or NORTHMACEDONIA or SLOVENIA, BULGARIA, GEORGIA, or SERBIA (Exclude—Countries/Regions). Web of Science Core Collection Editions = A&HCI, BKCI-SSH, BKCI-S, ESCI, SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI.

This search returned 439 articles. Then, following the same procedure with the complete database, we selected and excluded the countries that belonged to the Global South to obtain the database of articles produced by the Global North. This search returned 1241 articles. The remaining production belonged to those articles that were produced in collaboration between the Global South and the Global North, obtaining 284 articles. Thus, in addition to the total sample, this procedure produced the following three data sets: (1) the total number of articles produced by the Global South, (2) the total number of articles produced by the Global North, and (3) articles produced in collaboration between the Global North and Global South. The data were analyzed by using the following two software packages: VOSViewer software version 1.6.16 (this software was developed by Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman and is freely available through www.vosviewer.com), which is an open-source tool widely used for bibliometric-mapping studies in the business and management field [33], and Biblioshiny, which is a web interface of bibliometrix R-package [34]. Through VOSViewer software, we conducted a performance analysis and science mapping. In the first case, we analytically described the scholars’ contribution to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship with its components, and, in the second case, we analyzed the academic connections between such components. The science mapping analyses included a co-citation network to identify the foundational topics (past) and a bibliographic coupling analysis to identify the current mainstream topics in the area (present). The knowledge of this thematic trajectory was reinforced by a co-word analysis to visualize the current and further research trends.

In addition, through Biblioshiny software, we developed keyword clouds to verify the mainstream topics and if there were thematic differences between the Global North and the Global South. Finally, through Biblioshiny software, we analyzed the North–North collaboration networks as a parameter of comparison, and North–South, and South–South collaboration. To give a closer view, we analyzed the academic networks of the most productive Global South countries through VOSViewer software. Finally, the thematic trajectory of the Global South and its comparison with the Global North was analyzed through thematic maps using the Biblioshiny software. The consecutive stages that were involved in the research process are presented in Figure 1.

4. Results

4.1. Performance Analysis

A performance analysis allows analytical descriptions of the contributions of the research elements that constitute the studied topic [32], in this case, the publication-related metrics of sustainable entrepreneurship will be depicted at the global level in order to contextualize this field of knowledge, then, we will focus on the Global South. Figure 2 shows how the 1964 articles that were produced from 2001 to November 2021 in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship are distributed. It is interesting to observe the growing scholarly research, mainly since 2015.

Of these 1964 articles on sustainable entrepreneurship, 63% were published by the Global North, 22% by the Global South, and 15% were produced in collaboration between the South and the North. It is interesting to note the predominance of the Global North in the number of publications in the area and the low percentage of academic production that was published in collaboration. Although, with considerably less research on this topic, it can be affirmed that academic production in the Global South maintains the same growth tendency as the rest of the world (Figure 3).

The remarkable difference between the number of articles that were produced by the Global North and the Global South indicates that developed countries dominate the field of sustainable entrepreneurship research. Then, we categorized the most productive countries of the Global South by regions. It is interesting to note that production in the Global South is concentrated in countries that are mainly located in the Asia–Pacific; this region has made the largest contribution to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship from the Global South. Figure 4 shows the distribution of articles on sustainable entrepreneurship by the Global South regions without Global North collaboration.

The top five articles that were published by the Global North and the Global South countries are presented in Figure 5. Notice that the most productive country of the Global South (India) does not reach the least productive level of the Global North (The Netherlands), showing the influence of the developed countries in this field of knowledge.

Again, the remarkable difference demonstrates the dominance of the Global North in sustainable entrepreneurship as a field of study. In addition to the number of articles, the dominance of the Global North can be seen also in the impact of the publications; this indicator can be seen in the number of citations that was obtained by the articles that were produced in the Global South countries. As was supposed, the academic articles that were produced in the Global North have the highest impact, which is reflected in the number of citations (Figure 6).

Again, the dominance of the Global North is evidenced. As can be seen in Figure 6, the highest citation number from a Southern country (Malaysia) does not reach even the lowest citation number from a Northern country (Italy). Although India and China have made the highest contribution, Malaysia is the most cited country, followed by China. In the Global North, the USA, England, and Germany are not only the most productive but also the most cited countries.

This dominance can be seen not only in the number of published articles and citations, but also in the number of authors. The articles that were published by the Global South were produced by 1067 authors, while the articles that were produced by the Global North were produced by 2724 authors. As was expected, the number of authors demonstrates again the dominance of the Global North in the academic production of this field of knowledge. In addition to the number of authors, the influence of the Global North production shows again its dominance over the Global South. The most cited author from the Global South is Nga, Joyce Koe Hwee, with 263 citations, and the most cited author from the Global North is Wagner, Marcus, with 959 citations. The Global North’s most cited author obtained three and a half times more cites than the most cited author from the Global South. This means that the articles that are produced by authors from the Global North have a higher influence on the field. Likewise, the dominance of the Global North can be seen in the publishing editorials. The top five journals where Southern authors have published their works on sustainable entrepreneurship are as follows: (1) the Journal of Asian Finance Economics and Business, (2) the Journal of entrepreneurship in emerging economies, (3) the Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, (4) Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, and (5) World Journal of Entrepreneurship Management and Sustainable Development, with 19, 17, 14, 14, and, 10 published articles, respectively. These journals are all from the Global North. Similarly, the journals with more articles that are published from the Global North are all from developed countries, as follows: (1) Business Strategy and the Environment, (2) Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, (3) the Journal of Business Ethics, (4) Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and (5) the Journal of Business Research, with 58, 45, 40, 38, and 28 published articles, respectively.

Likewise, it is interesting to observe the journals’ impact through the Global North and the Global South citations. Again, the most cited journals in this field of knowledge belong to the Global North. The impact of these journals, which is measured by the number of citations, is considerably higher in the Global North papers, even considering the number of articles, which is much less in the south. That is to say, a journal that published 17 articles from the South obtained 102 citations, while a journal that published 13 papers from the North had 1886 citations. The journals with the most published articles from the Global South and the Global North authors are presented in

Table 1. Five most cited journals with articles on sustainable entrepreneurship published by authors from the Global North and the Global South.

Global South			Global North
Journal	Documents	Citations	Journal	Documents	Citations
Journal of Business Ethics (The Netherlands)	5	276	Journal of Business Venturing (United States)	20	3719
Technovation (United Kingdom)	3	128	Business Strategy and the Environment (United Kingdom)	58	2132
Strategic Management Journal (United Kingdom)	1	105	Research Policy (The Netherlands)	13	1886
Journal of Business Research (United States)	6	103	Journal of Business Ethics (The Netherlands)	40	1874
Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies (United Kingdom)	17	102	Technological Forecasting and Social Change (United States)	38	1270

.

Thus, the highly cited journals for articles on sustainable entrepreneurship belong to the Global North. Besides, only one of these journals has publications of authors from the Global South and the Global North (Business Ethics). These journals are from the United States, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands, and are in the first quartile in the Scopus database. In this regard, there are no differences between the Global South and the Global North publishing their articles in the same high-quality journals; the difference is the number of published articles and the number of citations that are received. Finally,

Table 2. Top five articles from the Global South and the Global North by number of citations.

	Author	Article	Citations	Journal
Global South	Nga and Shamuganathan [35]	The influence of personality traits and demographic factors on social entrepreneurship start up intentions	263	Journal of Business Ethics
	Lazzarini [36]	Strategizing by the government: Can industrial policy create firm-level competitive advantage?	105	Strategic Management Journal
	Fathian et al. [37]	E-readiness assessment of non-profit ICT SMEs in a developing country: The case of Iran	94	Technovation
	Anwar [38]	Business model innovation and SMEs performance—does competitive advantage mediate?	76	International Journal of Innovation Management
	Khan et al [39]	Investment in intangible resources and capabilities spurs sustainable competitive advantage and firm performance	61	Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management
Global North	Schaltegger and Wagner [40]	Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions	627	Business Strategy and the Environment
	Doherty et al. [41]	Social enterprises as hybrid organizations: A review and research agenda	587	International Journal of Management Reviews
	Dean and McMullen [42]	Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action	580	Journal of Business Venturing
	Cohen and Winn [43]	Market imperfections, opportunity, and sustainable entrepreneurship	560	Journal of Business Venturing
	Vohora et al. [44]	Critical junctures in the development of university high-tech spinout companies	533	Research Policy

presents the most cited articles on sustainable entrepreneurship that were published by Global South and the Global North authors; notice the relevant difference in the number of citations between them (Table 2).

Again, as can be seen in Table 2, the impact of the production from the Global North is confirmed. The most cited article in sustainable entrepreneurship from the Global South (263 citations) does not reach even the lowest top five from the Global North (533 citations).

Finding 1.

The Global North dominates academic knowledge in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship.

4.2. Science Mapping Analysis

Regarding the thematic orientations, a scientific mapping analysis was conducted. Science mapping allows us to analyze the interactions and the academic connections between the components of the research [32].

4.2.1. Co-Citation

This analysis allows us to identify the foundational papers that have given support to the sustainable entrepreneurship research in the Global South, analyzing if there are differences in the Global North or, on the contrary, if there is a common thematic origin despite the differences between the environments of the Global North and the Global South. The co-citation analysis shows the publications that are connected in the reference list of another publication, allowing one to identify the most influential research, including seminal research, and the main themes that are derived from the most highly cited publications in the studied field of knowledge [32]. This analysis, in which the unit of analysis is the cited references, allows us to identify the foundational themes of sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South and the Global North, identifying if such themes are similar or different. We selected cited references with at least 20 citations from the Global South, from which 14 met the threshold (

Table 3. Foundational papers that have given support to sustainable entrepreneurship research in the Global South.

Authors	Cited Reference	Citations
Barney [45] *	Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage	38
Lumpkin and Dess [46] *	Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance	33
Austin et al. [47] *	Social and commercial entrepreneurship: same, different, or both?	29
Cohen and Winn [43] *	Market imperfections, opportunity, and sustainable entrepreneurship	21
Dean and McMullen [42] *	Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action	20
Hall et al. [48] *	Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions	20
Mair and Marti [49] *	Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight	34
Schaltegger and Wagner [40] *	Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions	26
Shane and Venkataraman [50] *	The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research	24
Covin and Slevin [51]	Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments	20
Fornell and Larcker [52]	Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error	47
Hair Jr, et al. [53]	Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM): An emerging tool in business research	28
Podsakoff et al. [54]	Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies	26
Teece et al. [55]	Dynamic capabilities and strategic management	23

* The Global South foundational papers shared by the Global South and the Global North.

).

This analysis allowed us to identify the foundational works that gave support to sustainable entrepreneurship research in the Global South. As can be seen in Table 3, the foundation papers of the Global South are also foundational for the Global North. The papers that are not in the Global South are mainly articles related to statistical procedures. The Global North has some additional papers that are not shared with the Global South. According to this analysis, the most influential thematic research that supports the Global South research came from the Global North. There is no thematic foundation research from the Global South papers. This finding again shows the dominance of the Global North in the thematic orientations of sustainable entrepreneurship research.

Finding 2.

The academic development of the Global South and the Global North share the same foundational topics, despite their particular conditions.

4.2.2. Bibliographic Coupling

The main studied topics in sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South were identified through a bibliographic coupling analysis. This procedure allowed us to analyze the relationships among citing publications as indicators of the current mainstreams in the studied field [32]. For this analysis, we selected the most cited articles that were produced in the Global South (at least 20 citations). Of the 439 documents, 27 met the threshold. Of those 27, the largest set of connected documents consisted of 21 papers, which were grouped in 6 clusters. The thematic clusters were based on citing publications and allowed us to analyze the more recent spectrum of studied themes in sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South (

Table 4. The six clusters of bibliographic coupling from the Global South and their qualitative analysis.

Authors	Document Title	Main Topic (Qualitative Analysis)
Cohen and Amorós [56]	Municipal demand-side policy tools and the strategic management of technology life cycles.	Cluster 1. Policy making and business management
Lazzarini [36]	Strategizing by the government: Can industrial policy create firm-level competitive advantage?
Omri [57]	Entrepreneurship, sectorial outputs, and environmental improvement: International evidence.
Pan et al. [58]	Innovation resources integration pattern in high-tech entrepreneurial enterprises.
Fathian et al. [37]	E-readiness assessment of non-profit ICT SMEs in a developing country: The case of Iran.	Cluster 2. Technology and innovation in SMEs
Xie et al. [59]	What affects the innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises in China?
Yu et al. [60]	Strategies, technologies, and organizational learning for developing organizational innovativeness in emerging economies.
Yunis et al. [61]	Impact of ICT-based innovations on organizational performance: The role of corporate entrepreneurship.
Anwar [38]	Business model innovation and SMEs performance—does competitive advantage mediate?	Cluster 3. Competitive advantage and performance
Khan et al. [39]	Investment in intangible resources and capabilities spurs sustainable competitive advantage and firm performance.
Suntikul and Jachna [62]	Contestation and negotiation of heritage conservation in Luang Prabang, Laos.
Dionisio [63]	The evolution of social entrepreneurship research: a bibliometric analysis.	Cluster 4. Social entrepreneurship
Jabeen et al. [64]	Entrepreneurial mindset and the role of universities as strategic drivers of entrepreneurship: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates.
Nga and Shamuganathan [35]	The influence of personality traits and demographic factors on social entrepreneurship start-up intentions.
Roy and Karna [65]	Doing social good on a sustainable basis: competitive advantage of social businesses.
Bamgbade et al. [66]	Does government support matter? Influence of organizational culture on sustainable construction among Malaysian contractors.	Cluster 5. Management of successful entrepreneurship
Ng and Kee [67]	The core competence of successful owner-managed SMEs.
Martens et al. [68]	Linking entrepreneurial orientation to project success.
Buli [69]	Entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, and performance of SMEs in the manufacturing industry: Evidence from Ethiopian enterprises.	Cluster 6. Entrepreneurship and development in the local industry
Jaafar and Rasoolimanesh [70]	Tourism growth and entrepreneurship: Empirical analysis of the development of rural highlands.

).

Then, we analyzed the bibliographic coupling from the Global North in order to observe if the mainstream topics are similar or different from those of the Global South. For this analysis, we selected the most cited documents that had received at least 200 citations. Of the 1241 documents, 24 met the threshold, which were grouped into 5 clusters (

Table 5. The five clusters of bibliographic coupling from the Global North.

Authors	Document Title	Main Topic
Chabowski et al. [71]	The structure of sustainability research in marketing, 1958–2008: a basis for future research opportunities	Cluster 1. Social sustainability and innovation
Etzion and Ferraro [72]	The role of analogy in the institutionalization of sustainability reporting
Neubaum and Zahra [73]	Institutional ownership and corporate social performance: The moderating effects of investment horizon, activism, and coordination
Paulraj [74]	Understanding the relationships between internal resources and capabilities, sustainable supply management, and organizational sustainability.
Schot and Steinmueller [75]	Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation, and transformative change
Van der Have and Rubalcaba [76]	Social innovation research: An emerging area of innovation studies?
Vohora et al. [44]	Critical junctures in the development of university high-tech spinout companies.
Bohnsack et al. [77]	Business models for sustainable technologies: Exploring business model evolution in the case of electric vehicles	Cluster 2. Sustainable entrepreneurship business models and sustainable development
Hall et al. [48]	Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions
Hockerts and Wüstenhagen [78]	Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids—Theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship.
Linder and Williander [79]	Circular business model innovation: inherent uncertainties
Parrish [80]	Sustainability-driven entrepreneurship: Principles of organization design.
Schaltegger et al. [81]	Business models for sustainability: A co-evolutionary analysis of sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transformation
Cohen and Winn [43]	Market imperfections, opportunity, and sustainable entrepreneurship	Cluster 3. Conceptualization of sustainable entrepreneurship
Dean and McMullen [42]	Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action
Meek et al. [82]	The impact of social norms on entrepreneurial action: Evidence from the environmental entrepreneurship context.
Pacheco et al. [83]	Escaping the green prison: Entrepreneurship and the creation of opportunities for sustainable development
York and Venkataraman [84]	The entrepreneur–environment nexus: Uncertainty, innovation, and allocation
Jenkins [85]	A ‘business opportunity’ model of corporate social responsibility for small-and medium-sized enterprises.	Cluster 4. Sustainability and sustainable entrepreneurship
Kuckertz and Wagner [86]	The influence of sustainability orientation on entrepreneurial intentions—Investigating the role of business experience
Schaltegger and Wagner [40]	Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions
Doherty et al. [41]	Social enterprises as hybrid organizations: A review and research agenda	Cluster 5. Social enterprises and social entrepreneurship
Ryan [87]	Equity, management, power sharing, and sustainability—issues of the ‘new tourism.’
Santos [88]	A positive theory of social entrepreneurship

). The thematic clusters were based on citing publications and made it possible to analyze the most recent spectrum of topics that were studied in sustainable entrepreneurship in the business and management field.

According to the cluster analysis, there is a higher orientation to sustainability in the Global North than in the Global South. The mainstream of the Global South is more oriented to understand how to achieve successful entrepreneurship, as can be inferred from the following clusters: policy making and business management, technology and innovation, competitive advantage, performance, and social entrepreneurship, management of successful entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship and development in the local industry. As can be seen, sustainability is not the core orientation of entrepreneurship academic contribution from the Global South. On the contrary, in the Global North there is a clear concern about sustainability, as can be seen in the following clusters: social sustainability and innovation, sustainable entrepreneurship business models and sustainable development, conceptualization of sustainable entrepreneurship, sustainability and sustainable entrepreneurship, social enterprises, and social entrepreneurship. This orientation could be in response to the conditions of scarcity in developing countries, where entrepreneurship can be a solution to cover the basic needs of the population, while in developed countries, entrepreneurship can be seen as an opportunity [9]. These findings suggest that the Global South should be encouraged to have a more sustainable approach to entrepreneurship, perhaps through education and by providing more support and collaboration from the Northern countries, in order to achieve a more sustainable world.

Finding 3.

The mainstream of publications from the Global South are different from that of the Global North, while the first is more oriented toward business success, the second is more concerned with sustainability.

4.2.3. Co-Word Analysis

Finally, as part of this mapping research approach, we conducted a co-word analysis. This technique allows us to explore the relationships among topics in a research field based on the content of the publications. This analysis assumes that words that are frequently together keep a thematic relationship between them [32]. According to Donthu et al. [32], this analysis provides input in order to visualize the future of the studied field of knowledge. First, we selected those keywords from the Global South with a minimum occurrence of 10. Of the 1932 keywords, 50 met the threshold. Once we filtered some of the meaningless words, we used the Tesauro database to eliminate the duplicated words. A total of 47 keywords were grouped into 4 identified clusters. Then, we ran the same co-word analysis for the Global North. We selected those keywords with a minimum occurrence of 20. Of the 4612 keywords, 87 met the threshold. The criteria that were used to decide the minimum number of co-occurrences were the number of articles that were produced by the Global North and the Global South and the number of resultant keywords. Thus, considering the resultant differences between the Global South and the Global North, we maintained the proportion considering the total. Then, we filtered some of the meaningless words and used the Tesauro database to eliminate the duplicated words. A total of 77 keywords were grouped into 4 identified clusters. Figure 7 and Figure 8 show the co-word network clusters of the sustainable entrepreneurship literature in the Global South and the Global North. The top five words of each cluster are presented in

Table 6. The top five keywords by number of co-occurrences in each cluster of the Global South and the Global North.

Global South	Global North
1. Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, Business, Sustainable development, Social entrepreneurship, 2. Performance, Impact, Management, Entrepreneurial orientation, Firm performance, 3. Strategy, Growth, Competitive advantage, Determinants, Resource-based view, 4. Innovation, Knowledge, Technology.	1. Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, Innovation, Social entrepreneurship, Sustainable development, 2. Performance, Strategy, Impact, Entrepreneurial orientation, Knowledge, 3. Management, Corporate social responsibility, Model, Business, Strategy, 4. Sustainable entrepreneurship, Organizations, Opportunities, Legitimacy, Institutional entrepreneurship.

.

Despite the similitudes of the thematic addresses by the Global North and the Global South, a qualitative analysis of the resultant clusters of the Global South shows that, in addition to sustainable entrepreneurship and development and social sustainability, as in the Global North, this cluster includes gender issues, resources, and barriers, which is more adjusted to the Global South conditions, however, these issues are still incipient. Cluster 2 is more oriented toward management, business performance, and CSR; Cluster 3 toward strategy, competitiveness, and development; and Cluster 4 toward knowledge, innovation, and technology, which is another relevant concern of Global South countries that is related to entrepreneurial ecosystems.

In this same line, we conducted a word cloud analysis, through Biblioshiny. For this analysis, we used the authors’ keywords from both the Global South and the Global North (Figure 9).

The analysis of these clouds confirms the earlier results. The topics related to sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South and the Global North are addressed. However, sustainable entrepreneurship as a concept is higher in the Global North, while innovation is higher in the Global South. On the other hand, there seems to be some effort by the Global South to study topics that are related to their context, for instance, women’s entrepreneurship (confirmed by co-word analysis). Although it is not prominent yet, it seems that the Global South is beginning to address topics that are more relevant to the region.

Finding 4.

There is no evidence regarding the concepts developed in the Global South on sustainable entrepreneurship.

4.3. Collaboration between Countries

The collaboration was studied from a wider to a closer look. First, we made a comparison between the Global South and the Global North networks of collaboration, and then we analyzed how they collaborate. Figure 10 shows two thematic maps; in the first, we present the main collaboration networks between countries of the South (the Global South), and in the second, between countries of the North (the Global North).

As can be seen, the links between the Global North countries are bigger and stronger than those of the Global South, which are scarce and weak. The highest collaboration between the Global North countries could explain in part the highest academic production and the dominance of the field. The scarce collaboration between the Global South countries can explain the non-existence of a critical mass of research to advance the topic of sustainable entrepreneurship enhancing their impact on the field.

Finding 5.

There is not a critical mass of researchers from the Global South who collaborate in order to analyze sustainable entrepreneurship in their context. The Global South and the Global North are studying the same topics.

With a closer look, we inquired about the main networks that are built regarding sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South and the Global North (Figure 11 and Figure 12).

Finally, Figure 13 shows how countries from the Global South and the Global North collaborate on the topic of sustainable entrepreneurship.

Although there is a collaboration between the Global North and the Global South countries, this is scarce, as can be seen graphically in the density/number of the lines. This means that the lines that join a Southern country with a Northern country could correspond, in some cases, to one or two papers that were produced in collaboration over almost two decades.

With a closer view, we identified which countries of the South have more collaboration with the North and with which countries they collaborate. We selected the total number of published articles by the top five most productive countries from the Global South and the number of articles published with Global North collaboration in order to evaluate the level of collaboration. It is interesting to note that, although China is not the most productive country, its collaboration with the North is much higher than that of other Southern countries (Figure 14).

Except for China, which has almost half of its products with Global North collaboration (48.3%), and to a lesser rate Brazil (31.7%), it can be affirmed that the North–South collaboration in the highest productive countries of the Global South is low (India: 23%, Malaysia at 17.6%, and Indonesia at 11.1%). Subsequently, we identified the networks of collaboration of each one of these countries. The following figures show the academic North and South collaboration networks in the top five Global South countries (Figure 15).

Finding 6.

The collaboration of the Global North has been limited and has not been relevant to the advancement of knowledge in sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South.

4.4. Current Status and Future Research of Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Finally, we constructed thematic maps of sustainable entrepreneurship research in both the Global North and the Global South in order to analyze the importance and development of the studied topics in each region and their trends. This analysis helped us to acquire knowledge about the current status of the studied field and its potential for future research development [89]. This procedure allowed us to identify the research themes that were supported in the cluster of the authors’ keywords and their interconnections. Following the suggestions of Zhang et al. [90], in this analysis, we selected the author’s Keywords, because they were more specific and understandable. The themes are represented in a network graph with two properties: centrality (horizontal axis) and density (vertical axis). The centrality is the degree of correlation among the different topics, while the density is the cohesiveness among the nodes. These properties indicate on one side to what extent certain topics are, or are not, well developed, and if they are important or not. Thus, the themes must be analyzed according to the quadrant in which they are located. The thematic map of the Global South is presented in Figure 16.

In the Global South, the motor themes quadrant (well developed and important) is “Entrepreneurship Business Growth.” The Niche themes quadrant (internally well developed, but its contribution has been marginal), is “orientation firms’ economic growth.” This quadrant is entering the “model determinant educations,” leaving the emerging or disappearing themes quadrant (weakly developed and marginal). “Innovation performance management” is also leaving the emerging or disappearing themes quadrant, and it is in transition to the basic theme’s quadrant (transversal and important, but not developed enough), which means that it is acquiring more importance. The basic themes quadrant is “Impact firm performance knowledge,” which is considered to be a relevant topic that needs to be more developed.

In the Global North, the motor themes quadrant (well developed and important) is “Sustainable strategies creation.” Likewise, performance model impact is entering this quartile from the niche themes quadrant, indicating that this theme is increasing its contribution to the sustainable entrepreneurship field, leaving its marginality. The innovation perspective knowledge is in the emerging or the disappearing themes (weakly developed and marginal), which means that they are still scarcely developed themes with marginal contribution that can, however, be potentially highly relevant in the future. Regarding the basic themes quadrant (transversal and important, but developed enough) is entrepreneurship management sustainability (Figure 17).

The thematic maps allowed us to identify interesting differences between the research thematic trajectory and the advances in sustainable leadership as a field of knowledge in the Global South and the Global North. As can be seen, the sustainability approach of entrepreneurship is more evident in the North than in the South (see motor and basic themes quadrant).

Finding 7.

The sustainability approach to studying entrepreneurship is highlighted more in the Global North than in the Global South.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

Sustainability is a concept that must be global in order to be a reality. It is not an asset of developed countries, on the contrary, it is a notion that needs to be inclusive in order to achieve a more sustainable world, and this perspective includes entrepreneurship. However, it seems to be a topic that concerns mainly the Global North, despite being a potential source of economic growth, welfare, and a solution to poverty in low-income countries [2,4]. This approach to sustainability may favorably influence people and communities around the world by including the preservation of nature, life, and the generation of economic and non-economic gains, which promotes society’s welfare [3]. However, as Amankwah-Amoah and Lu [10] asserted, little is known about sustainable entrepreneurship in the Global South, which is a region that is equally important to the Global North in order to achieve a more sustainable world [19]. The results of this research allow us to assert that the scholarly production of sustainable entrepreneurship has been more focused in the Northern countries, despite it being a global matter. These results support the initial premise of this research, i.e., sustainable entrepreneurship research, as a field of knowledge, has been mainly developed by the Global North.

Likewise, this study has allowed us to affirm that the Global South maintains the same world-growing tendency, highlighting the increasing academic production from 2015, although with significantly less research. The Southern countries have a very low academic production in comparison to Northern countries. In the Global South, the contribution of the Asia–Pacific region is remarkable, insofar as more than half of the entire production from the South came from this area. The research findings show that there is a relevant dominance of Northern countries in sustainable entrepreneurship as a field of knowledge. The Global North’s dominance can be seen from the number of papers, the number of authors, the number of citations, and the fact that the most relevant and highly indexed journals in the area belong to such a region. These issues are relevant for measuring the research influence on the body of knowledge that is achieved [13,14]. This research provides evidence showing that the Global North dominates the academic knowledge in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship and that the contribution of the Global South has been tangential.

These results confirm that the academic production system is still unequal, i.e., it is dominated by the Global North, and the Global South is dependent on the Northern countries [13,14], as was found in the sustainable entrepreneurship area. Likewise, the Global North’s dominance can be seen in the impact indicator in terms of the number of citations. In this regard, it can be asserted that the Global South has not had a relevant impact on the field of sustainable entrepreneurship. These findings have relevant implications since academic publishing is essential in order to enhance the economy and the development of the region [13,14,15].

It seems that the Global South has followed the Global North in the emergence of the academic knowledge of sustainable entrepreneurship, as both share the same foundational articles; there are no differences, although their entrepreneurship context is different. Similarly, the topics that are addressed by the North and the South are relatively the same, as can be seen in the word clouds. We could infer that the knowledge that is produced in the Global North could not be applied to the Global South because of the differences in the entrepreneurial environments. In this regard, we suggest that collaboration from the Global North and its academic publications system should encourage the Global South countries to address topics that are related to their reality and their entrepreneurial ecosystems in order to enhance the impact of scientific publication in the region. Topics such as gender, informal jobs, financial systems, and many others must be studied in order to propose policies that benefit developing countries through entrepreneurship, giving special importance to sustainability orientation, which seems less salient in the region.

The results of this study confirm the centrality of the academic knowledge in the Global North [14], which influences the study of topics that may not be a priority for the Global South. However, there is evidence of some efforts to address topics that are more related to the Global South reality, such as women’s entrepreneurship; a relevant topic for some developing countries where entrepreneurship is a gendered topic because women entrepreneurs have to face many barriers related to their culture and patriarchy [4,17,20,21]. In addition, women’s entrepreneurship is a matter that acquires special interest in the Global South because it could contribute to creating wealth, jobs, and welfare in developing countries.

Further research should be oriented to analyze the reasons for the low participation of the Global South in the sustainable entrepreneurship body of knowledge in order to overcome the dominance of the Global North and to produce valid knowledge for the region and even produce their concepts. We did not find evidence about concepts that were developed from the Global South in the sustainable entrepreneurship field, which could be expected because of the dominance of the Global North in this field of knowledge. However, there could be concepts that have emerged from the reality of the Southern countries but have not been published in the journals that were included in this study. There could be very interesting concepts that have not yet been documented. We suggest conducting qualitative studies that allow one to infer and analyze such concepts, and thus be able to be studied from a scholarly approach.

On the other hand, it is necessary to understand if the problem is related to bias and misconceptions regarding the science that is produced in the South [13,14], if it is because the high standards of publication are not reached [22], if it is due to the scope of the research [23], or because of issues related to the scarce investment in the research and development in the low-income countries [19] among many others. In addition, although Southern countries may have common challenges and experiences, this issue should be studied differentially, especially considering that the Global South’s production is concentered mainly in the Asia–Pacific region, and due to the deep cultural and socioeconomic differences between Southern countries. However, this region should be studied in order to learn about the good practices to advance in knowledge production. However, these studies need to be contextualized in order to be understandable and extrapolated. As Welter et al. [7] assert, entrepreneurship demands contextualization more than many other fields of knowledge because of its diversity, its scope, and its broadness.

Our findings show that the scholarly approach to entrepreneurship has been different between the Global North and the Global South, being more oriented toward sustainability in the Global North. This assertion was confirmed with the thematic map analysis, where sustainability is more remarkable in the North. As can be seen in the thematic map, the Global South seems to be more concerned with business success. This finding suggests that it is needed to emphasize the sustainability approach in entrepreneurship in the Southern countries. This perspective toward sustainability can be encouraged through the education system, and particularly through the activities and the curricula of business schools. Likewise, due to entrepreneurship being highly dependent on the context, the creation of public policies that encourage a sustainability approach in the Southern countries is needed.

Regarding collaboration, it is relevant for both the Global North and the Global South because it has a significant positive effect on the research impact and the number of citations [13,26]; however, collaboration seems to be more important for Northern countries. In the Global North, there is a big and wide network of collaboration, however, this does not happen in the Global South where the relationship with other countries from the region is scarce and does not allow for the building of a critical mass of researchers that study sustainable entrepreneurship in their context. The scarcity of a critical mass of research affects the acquisition of resources to promote the impact of such production [16]. Likewise, we highlight the need to develop educational programs in business schools that allow the transference of the experience and knowledge that is acquired from the most productive countries of the Global South to the less productive ones. Activities such as this could help to improve the collaboration networks between countries that share similar conditions related to the sustainable entrepreneurship field. The findings of these investigations will be more applicable to the region, fostering the creation of sustainable start-ups and the emergence of new concepts from the Global South that must be studied.

On the other hand, the Global North could collaborate with the Global South in order to enhance scientific performance and produce higher-impact research [13,27], especially when it is about knowledge of sustainability [28]. The co-production between ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern’ knowledge and their respective publications in collaboration offers the chance for the Global South to raise the visibility of its work, creating their theoretical frameworks [14]. However such collaboration should be characterized by respect and cooperation, rather than a relationship of domination [31], because, as we find in this study, crucial themes for the Global South are still understudied. In this regard, it is important to contribute to training academics from the South in order to produce scientific knowledge that can be published in high-impact journals. The context can offer high possibilities for the creation of sustainable enterprises; however, the capabilities to conduct research that allows the identification of such opportunities seem to be scarce.

In addition, the Global North collaborates more with Asian countries than other territories of the region, such as Latin America, where Brazil has received more collaboration. It could be possible that, as an exception to China and India, other Southern countries must improve their research skills in order to publish in high-impact journals that are in the WoS database and thus, receive more collaboration. Promoting sustainability entrepreneurship in the Global South, considering its entrepreneurship ecosystem, will give opportunities to the Global South to enhance the effect of this approach of entrepreneurship on the social development and the economic growth [2,17], while making communities more engaged in sustainability issues [9]. In addition, an adequate collaboration with the North could give support to the new generations of the South that seem to be more concerned with sustainable entrepreneurship than the elder people, for whom entrepreneurship is more necessity-driven than an opportunity-driven [9], and whose impact on the environmental dimension is usually more negative [8]. In sum, glancing at the Global South, providing respectful collaboration in order to advance sustainable entrepreneurship research could contribute to making a more sustainable world. Lastly, further studies should study to what extent the networks of scholar cooperation from the Global North, and even from the other Southern countries, are contributing to the region’s development through the advances in regional knowledge that can materialize into real entrepreneurship. Finally, some limitations of this research must be considered. First of all, the results of this research correspond only to articles that were published in journals that were indexed in the WoS database. Likewise, our findings are limited to the business and management field, excluding other related disciplines. Finally, it is worth noting that there could be many more interesting contributions from authors from the Global South that were not included in this study because they were not published in the indexed journals.