What have we learned? Themes from the literature on necessity driven entrepreneurship

The aim of this paper is to review the important themes in the literature on necessity driven entrepreneurship and to assess the main contributions to knowledge. Five themes from the literature are highlighted: nature of the necessity driven entrepreneurship; creation and management of a necessity driven venture; contextualising the necessity entrepreneurship; performance of a necessity driven venture; and the criticism of necessity driven entrepreneurship. The author argues that the extant literature on necessity entrepreneurship is largely focused on the conception stage of the entrepreneurial process and our understanding of how push factors affect a necessity driven venture during subsequent phases remains limited. Some of the concepts which have received considerable attention in the literature include push/pull dichotomy, types of push factors, necessity driven entrepreneurship studies in the Western context, push factors largely associated with women entrepreneurs, relationship between necessity entrepreneurship and the economic development, and a need to clearly delineate the concept of necessity entrepreneurship. In order to demonstrate push factors enactment, a conceptual model of necessity driven entrepreneurship is proposed which highlights the dynamics of push factors during different phases of entrepreneurial process. The author also includes pointers for future research to improve theoretical understanding of necessity driven entrepreneurship.