A Systematic Review and Agenda for Entrepreneurship Research on Regulatory Focus

In the past decade, entrepreneurship research has increasingly drawn from Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) to explain how entrepreneurs set their goals and steer their actions to achieve these goals. However, prior studies have yet to mobilize RFT’s full potential. In order to foster the exploration of research opportunities in the most beneficial and rigorous manner, we conduct a structured literature review focusing on the theory-to-method articulations of RFT in entrepreneurship research. We identify this literature’s most notable achievements as well as shortcomings that hinder further advances. We build on these observations to propose a seven-point agenda for future research.