Mapping the Crowdfunding–Entrepreneurship System: A Longitudinal and Structural Bibliometric Analysis

Crowdfunding has become a central mechanism for entrepreneurial finance, yet the evolution and thematic structure of its intersection with entrepreneurship remain insufficiently understood. This study provides an integrated, longitudinal, and structurally grounded bibliometric analysis of 1518 documents indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection using VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) and SciMAT (version 1.1.04). We examine the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and performance dynamics of the field across three periods, revealing a progression from financial and relational foundations to socio-technological consolidation and, more recently, thematic diversification toward impact, information asymmetry, behavioral mechanisms, and other explanatory determinants, while innovation remains a central organizing theme. The resulting thematic structure can be interpreted through a multi-level perspective, encompassing micro-level behavioral mechanisms, meso-level platform and firm strategies, and macro-level institutional and technological dimensions. Despite the growth of the field, the bibliometric structure remains thematically differentiated, with behavioral, technological, social, and geographic dimensions displaying uneven levels of prominence and connectivity within the analyzed corpus. Technofinancial themes such as blockchain and ICOs constitute specialized thematic streams with comparatively limited connectivity to the broader bibliometric structure. By identifying dominant trajectories, structural patterns, and comparatively underrepresented areas within the WoS-indexed corpus, this study provides a structured basis for future research and advances understanding of crowdfunding as a financial, social, organizational, and technological phenomenon.