In April 2023 a new academic article was published that aimed to synthesize the literature on the Public Entrepreneurship (EP) field as well as to establish a relevant research agenda. By adapting hybrid approach based on a systematic and bibliometric literature review, the paper presented the results of four main bibliometric techniques: citation and co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analysis, all of which were used by means of VosViewer software and the Bibliometrix (including Biblioshiny application) package for statistical program language R. This theme-centric review of 84 publications published in flagship journals revealed the intellectual domain of Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) in the public sector, highlighting key theoretical concepts, principal research topics, the methodologies employed, the geographical span of the domain, and proposed future research avenues.

This paper offered a comprehensive review of CE in the intellectual domain of the public sector. It presented fruitful research avenues with regards to the ways in which public entrepreneurial success is related to adjustability to broader political and institutional perspectives; how territorial innovation theories deal with increased resource mobility; and how a lean government could enhance civil engagement and public involvement.

According to the study, after the financial crisis of 2008, the contemporary public sector urged public managers, public administrators, and policymakers to consider alternatives to privatization in order to decrease government participation. This new approach to public management sought to enhance the government’s performance and fulfill public needs resourcefully. The concept of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) in the public sector, i.e., public entrepreneurship (PE), was therefore introduced.The positive impact that CE had on companies’ performance in the private sector encouraged public managers and policymakers to try to transfer (adjust) private sector practices into the public sector (Meynhardt & Diefenbach, 2012).

The empirical analysis of SOEs revealed that CE can enhance a company’s efficiency, its market position, and its sustainability by means of practicing partnerships (Gil-López et al., 2020), whereas the cooperation between civil servants and artists could foster innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour in the public sector (Hale & Woronkowicz, 2021). The market traits of entrepreneurship, already proven in the private sector, were certainly a stimulus for the expected effects on the public sector as well, especially with regard to state-owned enterprises. Creating social value and social capital, improving public services, and changing institutional procedures were the social goals of the concept of public entrepreneurship, all of which were orientated towards the development of social benefits (Ali et al., 2019).

Overall, the study provides a thorough analysis of how Corporate Entrepreneurship is situated in the public sector and in terms of academic research. Thus, it can work as a starting point for exploring opportunities and limitations of implementing entrepreneurial practices in the public sector. 

The article is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444569X23000392

Georgia Tseva, Govhack for EntrePubl