The concept of intersectionality, introduced by Crenshaw in 1989, has been explored as a key framework to understand how multiple social sections and individual identities like sexism, racism, and class bias intersect and influence dynamics of power and privilege. This approach has significant implications for understanding how multiple social and individual identities influence the entrepreneurial experiences of women. By applying an intersectional lens, researchers can uncover the unique challenges women encounter that may be different from men. Additionally, this approach can reveal the diversity of women’s entrepreneurial paths that depend on their intersecting identities. However, there has been a lack of systematic studies that comprehensively review the intersectional approach to women’s entrepreneurship. This study fills this gap. Specifically, this study aims to review previous work on intersectionality in women’s entrepreneurship to synthesize the literature and identify the gaps and trends in existing studies. Since our objective is to map the development of the literature, we extend our literature scope to intersectionality studies on leadership. This approach supports the view of entrepreneurs as leaders and entrepreneurship as an application of leadership. Understanding the evolution of women’s entrepreneurship and leadership through the lens of intersectionality is critical for promoting gender equality and inclusion as well as enhancing their roles and contributions to the society.

We use a bibliometric analysis to identify, select, and analyze the existing literature. A deep search was conducted through the Web of Science. Only the published English journal articles and book chapters for all years were included. Keywords such as <intersection*> and <entrepreneur* or leader*> and <female* or women* or woman*> were used as inclusion and exclusion criteria to search for related journal articles and book chapters.

858 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters were extracted as a result of deep search. The authors carefully reviewed these journal article/book chapter titles and abstracts with the following criteria, that is the articles/book chapters discussed either “Intersectionality and Entrepreneurship/Social Entrepreneurship/ Entrepreneur(s)” OR “Intersectionality and Leadership/Leader” AND focused on “gender traits” (e.g., masculinity/femininity) OR focused on “gender-related situations” (e.g., issues/challenges, opportunities, contributions to society, etc.). After a careful review, 299 articles/book chapters published during 1994 and 2023 were categorized as related and further analyzed with bibliometric network analysis technique.

Seven clusters with 89 co-occurring keywords and 1,460 links were found within the 299 studied journal articles/book chapters (see Fig.1). The seven clusters present in 29-year map are the Barriers and Enablers of Entrepreneurship (red, N= 25); Diversity Performance (green, N=22); Feminism in Organization and Management (dark blue, N=13); Intersectionality (yellow, N=12); Women (purple, N=10); Perceptions (light blue, N=6); and Identity (orange, N=1).

Using the year breakdown analysis (78.6% or 235 of the studied articles and book chapters were published between 2019 and 2023), the authors also found the evolution of topics as follows. The Intersectional Approach to Leadership has expanded since 2020-2021, initially focusing on gender issues in entrepreneurship, and later on encompassing race as well as reflecting a broader view of leadership challenges. Women’s Entrepreneurship gained substantial attention in academic discussions during the same period, emphasizing gender-specific issues in entrepreneurship. From 1994 to 2019, Diversity and Performance was often examined, but since 2020-2021, research has shifted towards exploring the racial and intersectional dimensions of diversity, with a focus on social and perceptual aspects. Additionally, Identity Discourse has recently emerged and gained traction as a key concept in the literature during 2022-2023, signaling an emerging area of scholarly interest. The finding further suggests opportunities for conducting comprehensive longitudinal studies to examine the intersectional dynamics of ethnicity and culture in entrepreneurial and leadership contexts among women across different regions or countries.