Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intention Research Thematic Trends in Southern Africa: A Trace Analysis of Selected Scholars

This study examines the evolution of entrepreneurship education (EE) and entrepreneurial intention (EI) research within Southern Africa through an egocentric co-authorship network analysis centred on the scholarly collaborations of Professor Chux Gervase Iwu between 2014 and 2025. Drawing on publications retrieved from Scopus and Google Scholar, the study analyses the development of themes, collaboration patterns, theoretical orientations and methodological tendencies within a regional entrepreneurship research network. The findings indicate that the network’s scholarship evolved from foundational concerns about integrating entrepreneurship curriculum to broader themes of experiential learning, digital entrepreneurship, contextualised pedagogy and inclusion in EE. The analysis further reveals a strong reliance on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and self-efficacy frameworks to explain EI, alongside growing calls for African-centred and practice-oriented EE models. At the same time, the study identifies several persistent limitations in the reviewed scholarship, including a methodological focus on cross-sectional, student-based studies, limited ecosystem-level analysis and insufficient longitudinal evidence on entrepreneurial outcomes. The study contributes to entrepreneurship scholarship by demonstrating how egocentric co-authorship network analysis can be used to examine the thematic evolution and knowledge structure of regional entrepreneurship research communities in Africa. The findings further highlight the importance of context-sensitive EE frameworks and provide directions for future research on African entrepreneurship.