Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on women’s entrepreneurship in emerging economies. This is a thematic review to identify patterns and trends to better understand this literature. From the analysis, this study offers ideas for useful and theoretically informed research. In addition, this paper proposes the concept of restricted agency that helps to explain the practice.

Design/methodology/approach

This study identifies the nature, what is interesting, what it sees as important and considers what is neglected in this literature. The analysis sought important issues, interesting directions and the potential for useful future work. Thematic analysis is ideal for messy and unstructured material such as the literature used in this study as the data set. The process is qualitative, iterative and inductive but ontologically appropriate for the socially produced knowledge of the literature.

Findings

This paper finds the literature tends towards descriptive papers. Few papers make substantial contributions to theory. Many papers reported the barriers women to encounter, reporting general and typical processes of responding to obstacles and the implications for practice. Interestingly this study perceives overcoming and sometimes using, the cultural and physical restraints of gendered entrepreneurship. This paper proposes the concept of restricted agency explaining the gendering of entrepreneurs and explains what they can do. Moreover, the concept helps explain why and what. Most promising theoretically, is how the application of this agency is slowly and contextually differently changing the rules of the game.

Research limitations/implications

This study covers a large and extensive literature, so might have missed themes.

Originality/value

This paper starts with the notion of the “otherness” of women’s entrepreneurship. The literature is good at explaining both how and why women’s entrepreneurship is different and in effect, marginalised. This study conceptualises this gendering process as a restricted agency. Moreover, the concept helps explain why and what. Most promising theoretically, is how the application of this agency is slowly and contextually differently changing the rules of the game. It may be the mechanism for emancipation.

中文翻译：

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前景、进展和前景；研究新兴经济体中的女性创业

目的

本文的目的是回顾有关新兴经济体女性创业的文献。这是一个主题回顾，以确定模式和趋势，以更好地理解这些文献。通过分析，本研究为有用的和理论上的研究提供了思路。此外，本文提出了限制代理的概念，有助于解释实践。

设计/方法/方法

这项研究确定了性质、有趣的东西、它认为重要的东西，并考虑了这些文献中被忽视的东西。分析寻求重要的问题、有趣的方向和有用的未来工作的潜力。主题分析非常适合杂乱和非结构化材料，例如本研究中用作数据集的文献。该过程是定性的、迭代的和归纳的，但在本体论上适用于社会产生的文学知识。

发现

本文发现文献倾向于描述性论文。很少有论文对理论做出实质性贡献。许多论文报告了女性遇到的障碍，报告了应对障碍的一般和典型过程以及对实践的影响。有趣的是，这项研究认为克服并有时利用性别创业的文化和身体限制。本文提出了受限代理的概念来解释企业家的性别，并解释了他们可以做什么。此外，这个概念有助于解释为什么和什么。从理论上讲，最有希望的是，该机构的应用如何缓慢且在上下文中以不同的方式改变游戏规则。

研究限制/影响

这项研究涵盖了大量广泛的文献，因此可能错过了主题。

原创性/价值

本文从女性创业的“他者”概念开始。文献很好地解释了女性创业如何以及为什么不同，实际上被边缘化了。本研究将这种性别化过程概念化为受限制的机构。此外，这个概念有助于解释为什么和什么。从理论上讲，最有希望的是，该机构的应用如何缓慢且在上下文中以不同的方式改变游戏规则。这可能是解放的机制。