Building sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: A holistic approach

• This study conducts a bibliometric and systematic literature review of the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature. • A holistic approach is developed by integrating the sustainability framework. • Sustainability framework includes (ESG) i) environmental, ii) social, and iii) governance factors. • Three clusters: i) configuration and evolution, ii) system and sustainability, iii) strategy. • This study integrates the interconnections between the ESG framework and the three clusters. Growing interest in entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) over the last 15 years has led to an increase in publications in academic journals. This new concept has become a central topic in entrepreneurship research; however, it remains atheoretical, static and broad. While several bibliometric and systematic literature reviews have developed a research agenda for EEs, a holistic framework that integrates sustainability factors with theories, methods and approaches is still needed. This study provides such a framework through a bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review of high-quality contributions in this field. The results of a citation and network analysis using the co-occurrence, co-authorship, bibliographic coupling, and co-citation techniques, highlight the state of the art of research and distinguish three thematic clusters in the EE literature. A holistic framework is then developed by integrating sustainability factors into the EE literature, and several emerging directions for future research are highlighted.