International entrepreneurial opportunity: A systematic review, meta-synthesis, and future research agenda

In recent decades, the concepts of international entrepreneurial opportunity (IEO) have attracted the consideration of many scholars and have proliferated in the international entrepreneurship (IE) literature. Since 2005, the concepts of IEO have become an emerging and evolving stream of research in international entrepreneurship studies, so this article examines the gaps, themes, and trends in IEO research from 2005 to early 2019. The primary purpose of this article is to understand the current state of the art in the field of IEO by examining the boundaries of its knowledge and eventually proposing future research agenda for scholars. To achieve this goal, we utilize a systematic literature review process and meta-synthesis methodology. We select studies and synthesize them based on defined elements and represent summary tables and figures according to these processes. First, we extract quantitative information from articles to gain a perception of the trends in prior studies. Second, we consider the purpose and focus of the IEO research to find out the critical concepts. Finally, we conclude by presenting several directions for future studies based on the knowledge gaps in prior IEO research.